If we look across cultures (including micro-cultures that exist within other cultures), there are a huge number of things that people view as immoral. However, if you eliminate those that are only viewed as immoral because they are believed to lead to other things viewed as bad, the list becomes a lot smaller.
So, what are those things that at least some human cultures view as INHERENTLY immoral, that is, acts they would still think of as immoral even if no other consequences of that behavior were to occur?
Here’s my attempt so far at making a comprehensive list of things that at least some cultures view as intrinsically wrong. Note that many of these items are related or overlapping. What am I missing from the list?
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1. UNFAIRNESS
- Injustice (e.g., helping a bad person avoid punishment, or undermining someone’s just reward)
- Inequality (e.g., causing society’s resources to be concentrated among just a few while everyone else is poor, or treating people differently based on gender or skin color)
- Abuse of authority (e.g., nepotism, or favoritism, or those in power giving rewards to those they like best instead of those who deserve it, or those who are given a certain position of authority not carrying out the duties of that position, or carrying out the duties poorly or in a self-interested manner)
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2. HARM
- Harm (e.g., causing others suffering or purposely reducing the happiness of others)
- Murder (e.g., ending the life of another person, including in some cultures, animals, or allowing others to die needlessly)
- Genocide (e.g., the harming or killing of a specific, targeted group)
- Stealing (e.g., taking something that belongs to someone else or that should be no one’s property)
- Destruction (e.g., damaging or annihilating things of value, like ruining the environment, destroying ancient or beautiful artifacts, instigating societal collapse, or hunting a species to extinction)
- Slander (e.g., speaking ill of others, or gossiping by spreading true but negative or harmful information about other people)
- Subjugation (e.g., controlling the body, mind, or choices of others, or restricting freedom)
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3. DISRESPECT
- Disrespect of authority (e.g., being rude to your parents or disobeying your leaders)
- Disrespect of the vulnerable (e.g., treating people badly or not showing respect for members of a subjugated or vulnerable or oppressed group, or not paying proper respect to those who are victims, or disrespecting people living under hard conditions)
- Disrespect of the dead (e.g., digging up a grave, selling a dead body, necrophilia, cannibalism, speaking badly of the dead)
- Disrespect of god or gods (e.g., blasphemy, taking God’s name in vain, desecrating a place of worship, violating a commandment such as doing work on a day when work is forbidden, worshiping a carved idol instead of worshiping God, not engaging in prayer or thanks, questioning God’s nature, or God’s choices, or God’s existence)
- Practicing other faiths (e.g., worshipping alternative gods, engaging in superstitions, engaging in practices or rituals of other religions)
- Rule-breaking (e.g., violating the laws of your country or the rules of your culture, even if those laws are arbitrary or pointless)
- Violating tradition (e.g., non-conformity, or refusing to engage in the traditions of your culture, or flouting traditional roles or norms)
- Disrespect of opinions (e.g., not taking into account the opinions or desires of other people, falsely believing you know more or are wiser than others)
- Defiling (e.g., causing others to be impure, or causing others to take immoral actions, or causing others to leave your religion)
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4. IMPURITY
- Food impurity (e.g., eating certain “forbidden”, “impure” or “disgusting” foods)
- Sexual impurity (e.g., sex before marriage, bestiality, incest, sex with forbidden people, or performing forbidden sexual acts)
- Bodily impurity (e.g., uncleanliness, or making certain disallowed alterations to the body, face, or hair, or taking drugs or intoxicants)
- Social impurity (e.g., spending time with others who are thought to be bad or impure, such as murderers or members of an outcast group)
- Unnaturalness (e.g., engaging in behaviors or social relationships that are viewed as unnatural or in violation of the natural order, or “playing god”, such as by trying to modify natural things)
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5. DISLOYALITY
- Betrayal (e.g., refusing to help someone who has often helped you or with whom you have a long history)
- Familial rejection (e.g., disowning a family member or refusing to help a family member in need or choosing to benefit a non-family member over a family member)
- Infidelity (e.g., to cheat on a romantic partner when in a monogamous relationship)
- Treason (e.g., rejecting your in-group, or bad mouthing your in-group, or harming your in-group, or leaving your in-group for another group, running away in battle)
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6. DISHONESTY
- Lying (e.g., being dishonest, or spreading false information, or allowing others to come to false conclusions)
- Perjury (e.g., claiming that someone did something they didn’t do in order to help yourself)
- Promise breaking (e.g., to violate a contract or go back on a promise)
- Cheating (e.g., getting an unfair advantage, violating rules that everyone else has to follow, or giving what one person has earned to a different person instead)
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7. BAD CHARACTER
- Irresponsibility (e.g., failing to take care of your children, or do your job, or keep your promises)
- Inaction (e.g., not intervening when something bad is happening and you have the power to stop it)
- Wastefulness (e.g., letting food or resources go to waste, using more than is needed, or not making use of your talent or potential)
- Faithlessness (e.g., not believing in God or gods, not believing in the existence of good and evil, not believing that there is such a thing as moral being morality)
- Ignorance (e.g., stupidity, irrationality, lack of knowledge, narrow-mindedness, intolerance of other opinions)
- Selfishness (e.g., not caring about other people, or choosing the benefit of oneself over the benefit of one’s community, or refusing to help others who are in need when you have a lot of resources, or rejecting being part of any community, excessively promoting oneself, or bragging)
- Recklessness (e.g., allowing things of value to come into danger due to lack of forethought or caring, taking excessive risks)
- Sinful emotion (e.g., excessive anger, lust, greed, jealousy, pride, laziness, arrogance, materialistic desire)
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EXAMPLES OF MORAL SYSTEMS
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The Ten Commandments forbid items from 8 of these sub-categories:
- Practicing other faiths (“thou shalt have no other gods before me”)
- Disrespect of God (“thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images…not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain…remember the sabbath day”)
- Disrespect of authority (“honor thy father and thy mother”)
- Murder (“thou shalt not kill”)
- Infidelity (“thou shalt not commit adultery”)
- Stealing (“thou shalt not steal”)
- Perjury (“thou shalt not bear false witness”)
- Sinful emotion (“thou shalt not covet”)
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The golden rule (“Do to others what you want them to do to you”) doesn’t directly forbid any of these items, but making reasonable guesses for what most people would want done to them, it likely ends up forbidding at least some items from every one of the high-level categories above.
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The “Five Precepts” for lay followers of some traditions of Buddhism ask you to refrain from these sub-categories:
- Murder (“I undertake the training rule to abstain from killing.”)
- Stealing (“I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking what is not given.”)
- Sexual impurity (“I undertake the training rule to avoid sexual misconduct.”)
- Lying and Perjury (“I undertake the training rule to abstain from false speech.”)
- Bodily impurity (“I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness.”)
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As I understand it, for some (but not all) Sikhs, the main sub-categories of religious prohibitions are:
- Bodily impurity (cutting hair, taking intoxicants)
- Practicing other faiths (e.g., eating meat of animals killed in a ritualistic manner, engaging in superstitious rituals, and animal sacrifice)
- Sinful emotion (obsessive greed/materialistic desire)
- Selfishness (living a life disconnected from society as a recluse or non-family oriented living, bragging)
- Slander
- Lying
- Infidelity
This piece was first written on April 18, 2018, and first appeared on my website on September 15, 2025.
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