Moral Definitions

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General Moral Definitions Most Commonly Used in the GDC:

Objective - Moral content not influenced by personal feelings or opinions. (mind-independent)

Subjective - Moral content based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. (Mind-dependent)

Meta-ethics: Moral content dealing with the nature of ethical properties such as moral realism, relativism, and subjectivism.

Normative ethics: Moral content on what one "ought" to do such as Virtue Ethics (by moral character), Consequentialism (by consequences of moral actions), or Deontology (by rule of law or moral duties)

Moral Realism: Moral facts exist and are objectively true.

Moral Anti-Realism: Moral facts may exist but are subjective or may not exist (error theory or non-cognitivism).

Personal Subjectivism - Moral facts exist based on or influenced by psychology.

Culture Subjectivism (Cultural relativism) - Moral facts exist based on or influenced by cultures and society. 

Cognitivism: Ethical sentences do express propositions (Moral propositions are truth apt propositions). 

Non-cognitivism: Ethical sentences do not express propositions (Moral propositions are not truth apt). 

Prescriptivism: Non-cognitivist position that ethical statements like "Stealing is wrong!" means "Do not steal!"

Emotivism: Non-cognitivist position that ethical statements like "Stealing is wrong!" are emotional statements lik "Boo! stealing!" 

Universal - Moral content applicable to all cases (Universal ethics). 

Shared - Moral content applicable to all members of a group (Group ethics).

Individual - Moral content applicable to a particular person (Personal ethics).

Absolute - Moral content has a unique unchanging meaning regardless of perspective.

Relative - Moral content can only be evaluated from a given perspective, changing the perspective can change the meaning and values. Moral Relativism - Moral facts exist in relationship to cultures.

Morality - Dealing what is considered to be good/evil, or right/wrong in regards to our behavior and ethical considerations.

Transcendent - Existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe. (see also, supernatural or immaterial) I'll provide no antonym for this since those who consider morality transcendent don't tend to think there is a viable alternative.

Conditional - Subject to one or more conditions or requirements being met.

Contingent- Being not necessary OR can mean being conditional upon other things.

Unconditional - Not subject to one or more conditions or requirements being met.

Necessary - Being not contingent on other things nor required to be the case OR can mean must exist in all possible worlds.