We tend to think that “the right thing” just IS and doesn’t change regardless of circumstances. But think about it for a minute. What’s believed to be moral or “right” in a society DOES change over time. The lyrics from Cole Porter’s song “Anything Goes” illustrates my point: “In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, now heaven knows…anything goes!” At one point in the not-too-distant past, owning other people as property was considered moral by a subset of society. They even found support for their position with the Bible: the Biblical Israelites (supposedly God’s chosen people) had slaves, so God must’ve approved, right? While there were people who believed it immoral here in the United States, there was certainly no consensus that it was. Today, one of the chief complaints of conservative Muslims against Western society is their perception of our lack of morals because of Western dress styles (among other reasons); clearly most people in the US believe ourselves to be moral even if some in the Middle East might not.
So morality does change over time, and from group to group. Some would say that means that there really IS no objective morality, and that since the view of morality changes with society, maybe everything is relative and to understand morality first requires understanding the context.
But it doesn’t feel right that morality is totally subjective either. There is the sense that some things are wrong no matter what group or circumstances. Taking someone’s life, for no other reason than you can, is probably wrong no matter what the circumstances. (Note that it is the reason, rather than the action itself, that makes it wrong. Killing someone in defense of your family is usually considered justified; even then you’d have to prove the justification.)
So while there ARE things that are wrong in some situations and not in others (and in some societies but not others), it seems to me that there are some things that are just wrong. Morality then can’t be exclusively situational.
