morality

Plural

moralities

1. 1.Recognition of the distinction between good and evil or between right and wrong; respect for and obedience to the rules of right conduct; the mental disposition or characteristic of behaving in a manner intended to produce morally good results.

   • It may be true that you cannot legislate morality, but behavior can be regulated.
   • Science and art without morality are not dangerous in the sense commonly supposed. They are not dangerous like a fire, but dangerous like a fog.
   • Masters and Johnson wanted their work to be taken seriously, and wanted to stay a step ahead of the morality police, so they tended to write in almost comically dense medicalese.

2. 2.A set of social rules, customs, traditions, beliefs, or practices which specify proper, acceptable forms of conduct.

   • I have to live for others and not for myself: thats middle class morality.
   • He smiled a little. "Morality is the average conduct of the average man at a given time and place. It is based on custom and expediency."

3. 3.A set of personal guiding principles for conduct or a general notion of how to behave, whether respectable or not.

   • His morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions.
   • Deputy District Attorney Bill Tingle called Jones "the devil's right-hand man" and said he should be punished for his "atrocious morality."

4. 4.A morality play.

   • The Moralities displayed something more of art and invention than the Mysteries; in them virtues, vices and qualities were personified, and something like a plot was frequently to be discovered.

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Synonyms

• ethics

Word family

• moral