People often frame morality as “nothing is fully right or wrong,” but I think that mixes together two different things: the act itself and the intent or circumstances behind it.
An action can still be wrong in principle, even if we understand or sympathize with why it happened. For example, stealing is generally considered wrong because it violates someone else’s rights. That does not suddenly become “right” just because the person is desperate. What does change is how we judge the person and what response we think is appropriate. We might see it as more understandable, or even justified in a moral sense, but that is not the same as redefining the act itself as good.
The same applies in reverse. If someone does something that appears “good,” like helping another person, we might initially call that a right action. But if their motivation is purely self-serving, like expecting a reward, it complicates how we evaluate their character, not necessarily the outcome of the act itself.
So instead of asking “is this right or wrong,” a better question is: what makes something justified, and under what conditions do we excuse or mitigate wrongdoing?
This is where moral judgment becomes subjective. Different people weigh intention, harm, necessity, and fairness differently. That is also why systems like the legal system are not perfectly objective. While laws attempt to define right and wrong behavior, judges and juries still interpret context, and those interpretations are shaped by their own moral frameworks.
For example, punishments like caning in Malaysia are often criticized as inherently cruel from an outside perspective. But within that legal framework, they are applied to specific serious crimes like rape, violent robbery, and drug trafficking. Whether someone sees that punishment as wrong often depends less on the act itself and more on their broader beliefs about justice, deterrence, and human rights.
At the core, there is almost always more than one layer to a situation. But that does not mean right and wrong do not exist. It means that our judgment of people and consequences becomes more complex once we consider intent, context, and impact.
dededos
blakekathryn
areudirty
janainaart
snowghoul
