Amorality is an absence of,
indifference towards, disregard for, or incapacity for
morality
Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
.
Some simply refer to it as a case of not being moral or immoral. Amoral should not be confused with ''
immoral
Immorality is the violation of moral laws, norms or standards. It refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong. Immorality is normally applied to people or actions, or in a broader sense, it can be applied to gr ...
'', which refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be
wrong
A wrong (from Old English – 'crooked') is an act that is illegal or immoral. Legal wrongs are usually quite clearly defined in the law of a state and/or jurisdiction. They can be divided into civil wrongs and crimes (or ''criminal offens ...
.
Morality and amorality in humans and other animals is a subject of dispute among scientists and philosophers. If morality is intrinsic to humanity, then amoral human beings either do not exist or are only deficiently human,
a condition sometimes described as
moral idiocy Moral idiocy is an inability to distinguish between right and wrong, or to understand how moral values apply to ones own life and the lives of others.
It is sometime used to describe amoral institutional behavior, with the suggestion that moral ...
or
anti-social behavior
Antisocial behavior is a behavior that is defined as the violation of the rights of others by committing crime, such as stealing and physical attack in addition to other behaviors such as lying and manipulation. It is considered to be disrupti ...
disorder. On the other hand, if morality is extrinsic to humanity, then amoral human beings can both exist and be fully human, and as such be amoral by default.
Human capabilities may be thought of as amoral in that they can be used for either constructive or destructive purposes, i.e. for
good
In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...
or for ill.
There is a position that claims that amorality is just another form of morality or a concept that is close to it, citing the cases of
moral naturalism,
moral constructivism
Moral constructivism or ethical constructivism is a view both in meta-ethics and normative ethics.
Metaethical constructivism holds that correctness of moral judgments, principles and values is determined by being the result of a suitable cons ...
,
moral relativism
Moral relativism or ethical relativism (often reformulated as relativist ethics or relativist morality) is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. ...
, and moral fictionalism as varieties that resemble key aspects of amorality.
Inanimate objects
Any entity that is not
sapient may be considered categorically amoral. For example, a rock may be used (by rational agents) for good or bad purposes, but the rock itself is neither good nor bad. In
ontological philosophy, the
ancient gnostic concept that
the material world was inherently evil applied morality to existence itself and was a point of concern in early Christianity in the form of
Docetism
In the history of Christianity, docetism (from the grc-koi, δοκεῖν/δόκησις ''dokeĩn'' "to seem", ''dókēsis'' "apparition, phantom") is the heterodox doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, a ...
, as it opposed the notion that creation is good, as stated in
The Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...
.
In modern science, however, the
matter
In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic partic ...
of the universe is often observed amorally for objective purposes.
Nonhuman animals
Nonhuman animals have long been thought to be amoral entities. However, research into the
evolution of morality
The concept of the evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associ ...
, including
sociality
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies.
Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wasp ...
and
altruism in nonhuman animals, has sparked new debate amongst many philosophers. Many nonhuman animals display behavior that is analogous to human moral behavior, such as caring for the young, protecting kin, and sharing the spoils of the hunt. Generally speaking, if this behavior is a voluntary response to ethical norms, then nonhuman animals do have morality. If nonhuman animals are involuntarily following innate instinct, then they are amoral.
Legal entities
Corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
s, to some, are thought to be amoral entities.
This can refer to the "ethical numbness" of these organizations' executives and managers, especially when approached from the view that corporations can be considered moral agents as well as a kind of legal person.
See also
*
Capacity (law)
Legal capacity is a quality denoting either the legal aptitude of a person to have rights and liabilities (in this sense also called transaction capacity), or altogether the personhood itself in regard to an entity other than a natural person ( ...
*
Moral nihilism
Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism) is the meta-ethical view that nothing is morally right or wrong.
Moral nihilism is distinct from moral relativism, which allows for actions to be wrong relative to a particular culture or individ ...
*
Moral psychology
Moral psychology is a field of study in both philosophy and psychology. Historically, the term "moral psychology" was used relatively narrowly to refer to the study of moral development. Moral psychology eventually came to refer more broadly to var ...
*
Anomie
In sociology, anomie () is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown ...
*
Apathy
Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something. It is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of intere ...
*
References
{{Authority control
Concepts in ethics