Modern secular culture lost its authoritative list of moral wrongs

Evidence

Uneasily recalling our exposure to philosophy courses, in which we discovered the difficulties in defining and defending our everyday concepts, we “ordinary persons” recognize at some level that we may not be able to clearly define and defend our particular concepts of “good” or “wrongdoing.” Unlike some other cultures, or our own culture in the past, we do not have an agreed-on, authoritative list of actions that constitute wrongdoing. We used to have lists of sins, but because we no longer put much stock, as a culture, in the religious principles that generated these lists, we cannot much rely on them as defining the set of moral wrongs. Thus, we have to generate such a list from some underlying philosophical principle. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3858

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the loss of religious authority as a moral anchor, echoing themes in Parable of the Sower and modern secularization debates.