Morality, or ethics, is the study of right and wrong. It’s one of the oldest questions in religion and philosophy: when we go back to the earliest written texts, we find that they are all concerned in one way or another with how people ought to behave in a social context.
In most cultures, morality is based on some version of empathy or compassion – the ability to understand what someone else feels, and act accordingly. In Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, this is expressed as the Golden Rule: “do unto otherwise as you would have them do unto you, and what is hateful to you do not unto another.”
This simple rule has been re-articulated in a wide variety of ways by various philosophical and religious traditions, but the core of morality is fairly similar across traditions. They understand the implications of the doctrine differently, but they agree on its basic outline.