A brass balance scale holds several small wooden blocks opposite a single gray block.

Original artwork, not a still

Alfred North Whitehead

What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker defines morality through what a majority likes or dislikes. On this view, standards change with the people, place, and time. The line challenges the idea that popular approval is the same as a lasting moral truth.

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