Moral universalism

Moral universalism is the view that at least some moral principles apply to all people across cultures and circumstances. It allows that duties may vary when relevant circumstances differ.

Moral realism: The view that moral claims can be true or false independently of individual beliefs or preferences. Universal principles are often treated as truths that hold independently of local endorsement.
Human rights: Basic rights and freedoms held by people simply because they are human. Their claim to belong to everyone is a prominent political expression of universalism.
Natural law: The tradition holding that moral principles can be grounded in human nature or reason and known independently of enacted law. It offers a historical account of moral rules whose authority crosses political boundaries.
Ethical relativism: The metaethical view that moral truth or justification is relative to a framework rather than universally valid. It denies the cross-framework validity that universalism asserts.
Moral principle: A general standard used to judge actions, institutions, or character as right or wrong. Universalism concerns the scope of principles that guide moral judgment.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A 1948 United Nations declaration setting out a common catalogue of human rights. It states rights as a shared standard while emerging from international debate.
Immanuel Kant: An eighteenth-century German philosopher whose ethics grounds duty in rational principles valid for all persons. His ethics gives universal validity a central test for moral rules.
Particularism in ethics: The ethical position that moral reasons vary with context and cannot be reduced to fixed general principles. It challenges the idea that one principle governs every morally relevant case.
Moral relativism: The view that moral judgments or standards depend on cultural, historical, or individual frameworks. It challenges the claim that moral standards hold across cultures.
Global justice: The study of what justice requires among people and institutions across national borders. Universal duties can extend moral concern beyond the boundaries of a state.

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