…For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that our moral judgments arise from rational, conscious, voluntary, reflective deliberations about what ought to be. This perspective has generated the further belief that our moral psychology is a slowly developing capacity, founded entirely on experience and education, and subject to considerable variation across cultures. With the exception of a few trivial examples, one culture
I believe we have a few innate and basic moral notions. One would be for example, as I said elsewhere, our sense of fairness. Those would make up a truly “moral sense”, as opposed to a moral code.
Moral codes are grown out of this initial “moral sense” but often much elaborated to take into account the varying degrees of social complexity.
Whereas our “moral sense” remains basically the same all our life, moral codes are subject to historical development and essentially a part of culture, and therefore diversified.
In that sense, our “moral sense” would however be subject to ageing, genetic, and illness.