Morality Cannot Be Baselined

So how do we decide what is moral and what is immoral ? There are many common cases where the answer is clear to most. Or are they ?
Honesty and harmlessness are almost universally accepted as virtues. But the list seems to end right about there. Well, they are very broad qualities and encompass a whole lot of concepts and very sweeping in their coverage. But the devil is in the details. Even a simple concept like honesty can be very difficult to precisely define. For many religious men, honesty includes honesty towards God. I've known several people who believe - in all honesty, without any hypocrisy of thought (but not action) - that life is only worth living if it benefits others - that there is no virtue is living a self-serving life.

And then there are those who believe in the morality of bigotry. Even among such people, there is no clear baseline for what is moral. The Hindu politicians publicly proclaim the equality of religions but prefer to treat Muslims as somewhat inferior. The converse is also as much true. So the evil politicians are to blame? Not quite! Several times every year, we read about communal violence and killings. Who were the players in this game? Of course, the common men. Someone, perhaps an evil-politician, supplied the spark. But the fuel was there, ready to burn

In a different context, Galileo was almost killed because the powers-that-be considered his ideas immoral (blasphemous, it is all the same...) Socrates was killed likewise. So was Jesus.

Even today, many in India consider it virtuous for a woman to be not seen or heard . There are occasional instances of Sati, (female-)infanticide, human sacrifices etc. all in the name of religion. But these just make news. These things don't touch our lives everyday - we the privileged lot.

There are things that do touch us though. I'm taught to be honest and treat all people the same. You just have to try to take a liking to a person of a different caste/sub caste/religion/gender to get a feel for the heat. Then the anonymous voice of the society says, "Ah! she doesn't respect her parents, society and religion". What the fuck? Where did all the crap about 'all men are made equal' go ?

Let's think of abortion, think about Kashmir, gay marriage, divorce, sex, pornography, patriarchy, capital punishment.... In every turn of life, every thought, every philosophy - there are differences in opinions and accepted standards. One person's ideal is another person's immorality. How do we ever reconcile ?