Moral Values

Moral values are things held to be right or 
wrong or desirable or undesirable. While morality is sometimes described
as 'innate' in humans, the scientific view is that a capacity for 
morality is genetically determined in us[citation needed], but the set 
of moral values is acquired, through example, teaching, and imprinting 
from parents and society. Different cultures have very different moral 
value systems. Moral values, along with traditions, laws, behaviour 
patterns, and beliefs, are the defining features of a culture.In
Evolutionary psychology, moral values are seen as part of cultural 
evolution. Nationalists believe that a society needs one set of values 
to hold it together, and that 'multiculturalism' is not desirable as it 
tends to lead to conflict. People enforce moral values by parenting, 
peer guidance, conscience, disapproval, shunning, and only in some 
instances by law. They were effective in small communities before 
laws were formalised. They can also be sustained by the concept of 
'status', a concept which has many different meanings in different 
societies. There is today significant disagreement over what role status
plays in contemporary society and of what it actually consists.Moral
values are enforced, for example, by parenting, peer guidance, 
conscience, disapproval, shunning, and only in some instances by law. 
They were effective in small communities before laws were formalised. 
They can also be sustained by the concept of 'status', a concept which 
has many different meanings in different societies. There is today 
significant disagreement over what role status plays in contemporary 
society and of what it actually consists.