Introduction
For centuries, people have sought absolutes to anchor morality — divine commandments, natural laws, timeless principles said to hold across cultures and generations. Yet history tells a different story. Moral codes have shifted with societies, evolving in response to context, power, and need. What was once defended as righteous — slavery, conquest, exclusion — is now condemned. The problem of evil further unsettles faith in absolutes, for no system that posits an all-good and all-powerful God can explain the persistence of suffering without contradiction. If morality cannot rest on absolutes, then where does it stand? My answer is this: morality is fragile because it is human. Good and evil are not found in nature or guaranteed by heaven; they are constructed in society, practiced in community, and defended through vigilance. This fragility is not weakness but responsibility, demanding that we choose, again and again, the kind of world we wish to inhabit.
The Problem of Absolutes
The search for moral absolutes has been one of the central preoccupations of religion. In many traditions, morality is anchored in divine decree: the Ten Commandments of Judaism and Christianity, the Sharia of Islam, or the Dharma of Hinduism. These laws are presented as eternal, binding, and universal. The advantage of this view is obvious — it offers certainty in a world filled with ambiguity. By appealing to a divine lawgiver, religious communities can claim stability and authority. Yet history reveals that these absolutes are not nearly as absolute as they appear. What one generation regards as the unchanging will of God is often revised, contested, or overturned in another.
Examples abound. The Bible contains explicit defenses of slavery (Exodus 21:20–21), yet modern Christians almost universally reject slavery as immoral. Women, once excluded from voting, leadership, and education in many religious cultures, are now embraced in many of those same contexts. Same-sex relationships, once criminalized or condemned as unnatural, are increasingly recognized as legitimate expressions of human love. If morality were absolute, such shifts would be impossible. Instead, what we see is that moral law changes with history, adapting to the evolving values of human communities. Absolutism claims certainty but delivers change, and often contradiction.
Even when religion is not the foundation, appeals to “absolute” morality often rely on a similar sleight of hand. Modern admirers of Sparta, for instance, celebrate its military discipline, endurance, and courage while ignoring the realities of its dependence on the oppression of the helots or its sanctioned sexual practices, including pederasty, that clash with modern “family values.” Rome, too, is often praised for its law, order, and political achievements, while its acceptance of same-sex relationships and reliance on slavery are downplayed or erased. In both cases, societies cherry-pick from the past to construct a moral inheritance that flatters the present. As historian Eric Hobsbawm (1983) observed, much of what we treat as timeless tradition is, in fact, an “invented tradition” — curated fragments presented as absolutes.
The problem of evil further exposes the weakness of moral absolutes tied to religion. If God is both good and powerful, why does suffering exist? This ancient question has troubled philosophers and theologians for millennia. The free will defense argues that evil exists because humans misuse freedom. The “soul-making” argument suggests that suffering helps us grow in virtue. The greater good defense insists that evils contribute to a cosmic plan beyond human understanding. Each of these attempts, however, falters in the face of reality. Natural disasters, childhood illness, and systemic oppression are not explained away so easily. They leave us with a contradiction: a good, powerful God who presides over a world of unnecessary suffering.
A naturalistic perspective avoids this contradiction by rejecting the premise that morality requires divine sanction. In this framework, nature is amoral. Earthquakes, viruses, and aging are not punishments or tests; they are simply the outcome of natural processes. Human cruelty is not a theological puzzle but a result of our evolved capacity for fear, aggression, and tribalism. The so-called “problem of evil” dissolves once we stop demanding that a supernatural being guarantee justice. In its place, we are left with the sober truth: good and evil are human constructs, and the alleviation of suffering is our responsibility alone.
The fragility of morality is therefore not a weakness but a call to responsibility. Absolutism, whether religious or historical, leaves us vulnerable to contradiction and complacency. Naturalism strips away the illusion of certainty and forces us to confront the truth that morality is made, not given. If there is no God to ensure that justice prevails, and if history offers no pure inheritance free of contradiction, then justice is what we must create together. Good and evil are fragile because they are human — and that fragility is precisely what makes them urgent.
Morality as Contextual and Evolving
If morality cannot be absolute, then it must be understood as contextual: the product of time, place, and circumstance. What societies define as good or evil reflects their particular needs, fears, and aspirations. The Spartan celebration of military discipline, for example, arose from a society constantly threatened by revolt from the helot underclass. Their values of endurance and sacrifice made sense within that precarious context, even as their reliance on slavery would later be condemned. Similarly, Rome’s reverence for civic duty and law was inseparable from its imperial ambitions. In both cases, morality was not eternal but contingent, shaped by the pressures and structures of society itself.
This contextual nature of morality is evident across cultures. In Homeric Greece, hospitality (xenia) was considered one of the highest virtues, enforced by both custom and myth, because survival often depended on the kindness of strangers in a world of dangerous travel. In medieval Europe, the ideal of chivalry — loyalty to one’s lord and protection of the weak — reflected the realities of a feudal order. In the modern era, human rights have emerged as a dominant moral framework, shaped by the Enlightenment and by global struggles against slavery, colonialism, and war. Each of these systems claimed moral authority, but each was also bound to its historical and cultural moment.
Philosophers have long wrestled with this reality. Nietzsche (1887/1994) argued in On the Genealogy of Morality that moral systems are expressions of power, born from the conflicts between ruling classes and oppressed peoples. What one age calls “virtue” may be condemned by the next as cruelty or weakness. John Dewey (1932/1985), in contrast, saw morality as an ongoing social experiment, tested in practice and revised in light of consequences. For Dewey, morality evolves not by divine command but by human trial and error, as societies discover which practices lead to greater flourishing and which lead to collapse.
The danger of ignoring morality’s contextual nature is that it tempts us to mythologize the past. When modern societies cherry-pick from Sparta or Rome, as noted earlier, they present fragments of history as if they were timeless truths. Yet what made sense in one context may be destructive in another. A rigid code of honor may preserve social order in a warrior culture but fuel violence in a pluralistic democracy. To insist on absolutes is to risk importing values unfit for our time, while to recognize context is to take responsibility for discerning what still holds meaning today.
At the same time, acknowledging morality’s contextual character does not reduce it to mere relativism. Societies construct values in light of their needs, but not all values are equal. Some systems endure because they foster stability and human flourishing across contexts, while others collapse under their own contradictions. Hospitality, fairness, and compassion reappear across traditions because they work; they enable cooperation and sustain communities. Morality is not absolute, but it is not arbitrary either. It is an evolving inheritance, fragile and revisable, sustained only through human reflection and practice.
Good and Evil as Human Responsibility
If good and evil are not eternal decrees, then they must be understood as human creations. Nature itself is amoral. A flood that destroys a village is not “evil,” nor is a harvest “good.” These are natural events, devoid of moral weight until human beings interpret them. It is in society — in laws, customs, rituals, and relationships — that good and evil come into being. We call something evil when it violates the fragile fabric of human flourishing. We call something good when it strengthens that fabric, creating conditions where life can endure with dignity. In this sense, morality is not written into the stars but woven into the daily practices of communities.
This view forces responsibility back onto human shoulders. If there is no God to guarantee justice, then the work of justice is ours. Albert Camus (1942/1991) captured this with his idea of revolt: in a silent universe, meaning and morality are not given but created through action. Jean-Paul Sartre (1943/1993) argued that we are “condemned to be free” — with no divine authority to dictate our choices, every act we make defines not only ourselves but the moral horizon for others. Hannah Arendt (1963) reminded us in her analysis of totalitarianism that evil often appears not as monstrous cruelty but as the ordinary failure to choose responsibility. In every moment, individuals and societies define good and evil by what they do, tolerate, or resist.
History demonstrates both the promise and the peril of this responsibility. The moral gains of one generation — the abolition of slavery, the expansion of rights, the defense of democracy — can be lost in the next if not actively sustained. Progress is not inevitable; it is fragile, reversible, and dependent on vigilance. The oft-quoted line from Martin Luther King Jr., that “the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice,” is an aspiration rather than a law. Left unattended, society can just as easily bend toward cruelty and oppression. The arc does not bend itself; we must bend it.
This fragility should not be mistaken for futility. It is precisely because morality is human-made that it carries meaning. When I sit at the family table, take my grandfather’s seat, or continue the ritual of making coffee after divorce, I am reminded that continuity survives through adaptation, not certainty. So too with morality: we sustain good not because it is guaranteed, but because we choose to preserve and renew it. Each act of justice, compassion, or courage becomes a stitch in the fabric of society, holding together what is always at risk of unraveling.
Ultimately, to say that good and evil are human constructs is not to weaken them but to ground them. They are fragile because we are fragile. They endure only as long as we commit to them, practice them, and defend them. This view demands humility, for it acknowledges the impermanence of our moral achievements. But it also demands courage, because it places the responsibility squarely on us. To live religious but not spiritual is to embrace this truth: that morality is not eternal law but daily practice, and that the work of good is never finished, only renewed in each choice we make.
Shared Principles Across Time
Although morality is contextual and fragile, certain principles have proven remarkably persistent across cultures and eras. Fairness, reciprocity, and compassion appear again and again, not as eternal decrees, but as practices that enable communities to endure. Evolutionary psychology helps explain this persistence. Human beings are social creatures; cooperation increases survival, while unchecked cruelty undermines it. Societies that cultivate fairness and compassion tend to last longer than those that glorify domination and neglect. As anthropologist Christopher Boehm (2012) observed, egalitarian impulses run deep in human evolution, shaping systems of justice long before codified law.
Examples from history illustrate this point. Ancient Mesopotamian codes, such as Hammurabi’s, emphasize reciprocity: “an eye for an eye” may sound harsh today, but it represented an early attempt to restrain vengeance within limits of fairness. Confucian traditions in China highlight filial piety and harmony, values that fostered stability within extended families and empires alike. In Buddhist teachings, compassion (karuṇā) is central, not because it was divinely decreed, but because it nurtured both personal peace and communal solidarity. Even in societies with vastly different structures, these core values emerge, testifying to their pragmatic power.
Philosophy reinforces this insight. Aristotle argued in the Nicomachean Ethics (trans. 2009) that virtues such as justice and temperance are cultivated by habit, not imposed from outside. For him, the measure of morality was not conformity to divine law but the flourishing (eudaimonia) of human life within the polis. Likewise, John Stuart Mill (1861/2001) defended utilitarianism as a human-centered ethic, rooted in the principle of minimizing harm and maximizing happiness. These approaches highlight that morality can be constructed, revised, and tested by its consequences, without appeal to absolutes.
Yet persistence should not be mistaken for inevitability. While fairness and compassion reappear across time, they do so only when actively practiced and defended. History also abounds with their collapse — from totalitarian regimes that glorified cruelty, to colonial systems that justified exploitation, to everyday injustices that persist when empathy is ignored. As the philosopher Karl Popper (1945/2013) warned, progress is never guaranteed; it is always provisional, always vulnerable to reversal. The recurrence of shared principles across history reflects their resilience, but their fragility remains.
The endurance of these values suggests that morality is not arbitrary. While absolute systems fail, and relativism risks paralysis, certain principles persist because they “work” — they promote stability, flourishing, and survival. This is the paradox of moral history: good and evil are human constructs, but some constructs prove themselves across contexts, weaving continuity into fragility. To recognize this is not to appeal to eternal law but to acknowledge the wisdom of practice, tested in the crucible of time.
Practicing Ethics Without Certainty
If morality is neither absolute nor arbitrary, then it must be lived as practice. Ethics without certainty requires discipline, reflection, and repetition — the daily enactment of values that cannot be guaranteed by divine command or cosmic law. Like ritual, morality gains its power not from supernatural sanction but from human fidelity. Each moment presents the choice to harm or to heal, to exploit or to care. In the absence of eternal guarantees, meaning is found in the constancy of practice, in the willingness to renew moral commitments again and again.
This practice is clearest in teaching. As an educator, I cannot offer my students moral absolutes, but I can create a space where fairness, respect, and compassion are modeled and expected. The rituals of the classroom — beginning with a greeting, pausing for reflection, encouraging dialogue — are ethical practices as much as pedagogical ones. They transmit values not by decree but by example, shaping young people to see themselves as responsible for one another. In this way, morality is carried forward through ordinary practices, enacted in small choices that ripple outward into society.
Communal rituals also sustain ethical practice. The family table, where seats shift with the passing of generations yet the meal continues, embodies the persistence of shared responsibility. Museums, too, preserve memory through curated narratives, reminding communities of both their failures and achievements. Even sports fandom, with its rhythms of loyalty, hope, and disappointment, cultivates belonging and the virtues of patience and perseverance. These cultural practices are not moral absolutes, but they embody values that help bind societies together. They are reminders that ethics is not just what we believe but what we do together.
To practice ethics without certainty also requires humility. If morality is fragile and contextual, then we must remain open to correction and renewal. History shows that values once considered moral — slavery, segregation, subjugation of women — collapse under scrutiny. Practicing morality means listening, revising, and acknowledging our limits. Karl Popper (1945/2013) insisted that the strength of an open society lies in its capacity for self-correction, not in the illusion of perfection. Ethics without absolutes demands vigilance, for we are always at risk of drifting back into cruelty or complacency.
Ultimately, to live ethically without certainty is to embrace responsibility as a daily discipline. There is no cosmic safeguard, no inevitable arc toward justice. There is only the fragile fabric of society, stitched together by the choices of individuals and communities. This fragility is not despairing; it is dignifying. It means that every act matters, that good must be renewed with each generation, and that justice, however incomplete, is always possible through practice. To be religious but not spiritual is to treat morality as a form of devotion — not to gods or absolutes, but to the ongoing work of being human together.
In Closing
To live without absolutes is not to live without morality. It is to embrace morality as practice rather than decree, as responsibility rather than certainty. Good and evil do not descend from beyond the human world but arise within it, fragile creations that endure only as long as we sustain them. History reminds us that societies can regress as easily as they progress, that cruelty reemerges when vigilance fails. Yet this fragility dignifies the moral life, for it means that every act of justice, compassion, and fairness carries weight. The arc of the universe does not bend toward justice; it bends where we bend it. To be religious but not spiritual is to treat this task with reverence: to recognize that in the absence of cosmic guarantees, morality is ours to make, protect, and renew each day.
References
Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. Viking Press.
Aristotle. (2009). Nicomachean ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published ca. 4th century BCE)
Boehm, C. (2012). Moral origins: The evolution of virtue, altruism, and shame. Basic Books.
Camus, A. (1991). The myth of Sisyphus (J. O’Brien, Trans.). Vintage International. (Original work published 1942)
Dewey, J. (1985). Ethics (L. A. Hickman & T. M. Alexander, Eds.). Southern Illinois University Press. (Original work published 1932)
Hobsbawm, E. (1983). Introduction: Inventing traditions. In E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger (Eds.), The invention of tradition (pp. 1–14). Cambridge University Press.
Mill, J. S. (2001). Utilitarianism. Batoche Books. (Original work published 1861)
Nietzsche, F. (1994). On the genealogy of morality (C. Diethe, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1887)
Popper, K. (2013). The open society and its enemies (New one-volume ed.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1945)
Sartre, J.-P. (1993). Being and nothingness (H. E. Barnes, Trans.). Washington Square Press. (Original work published 1943)
