Moral Standards

• Moral beliefs set our moral standards. If your moral belief is that you will not kill anyone, you are exercising a moral standard every time you follow through with this belief and avoid killing anyone. A belief is an intangible idea; a standard is the real-life product of these ideas.
  
  

Subjectivity

• Moral beliefs are subjective. Most people can agree with basic morality, such as "don't steal" or "don't kill," but the nuances can become a complex grey area. Some people think it's acceptable to kill someone else if it is in self-defense, while others are complete pacifists. Some extremists, however, think it's acceptable to kill anyone who doesn't conform to their beliefs. So, when discussing or acting on moral beliefs, it is important to remember that they are subjective, not objective.
  
  

Cultural Beliefs

• Moral beliefs are often influenced by cultural beliefs --- the moral beliefs we follow are the moral beliefs upon which we (mostly) agree. Cultural moral beliefs can be dangerous because, when you are in your own culture, they seem absolute. In most Western cultures, women's suffrage is a moral belief that most people hold dear; in Saudi Arabian culture, women aren't even allowed to drive, much less vote. If each of these cultures was a vacuum, with every person in them only interacting with each other, these moral beliefs would essentially be absolutes. However, the fact that the world is composed of a number of different cultures creates conflict between these cultures' accepted moral beliefs.
  
  

Description

• Moral beliefs often rely on how they are described. "It is OK to hit someone if they have threatened you," may be a moral belief. However, the word "threaten" is vague. Does threatening mean verbally threatening? Does it mean standing in front of someone in a dark alley? Does it mean coming from a certain demographic? Each of these three situations is very different, and when you consider your moral beliefs, you need to think about how you are defining the words that define the beliefs.