Why are we not teaching morality in schools?

Like many my age, I stopped believing in God in my late teens. Maybe it was after a philosophy class on Feuerbach, or maybe just too much internet. What I know is that the whole divine setup started to feel more like a plot hole than a revelation.

At the time, I didn’t quite realize it, but losing my belief in God wasn’t just about ditching the Sunday liturgy—it also meant losing the moral framework that came with it. Suddenly, I’d catch myself wondering what I was supposed to do in life. I still had this fuzzy idea of wanting to be a “good person,” but I wasn’t sure what the concept meant anymore. So, I defaulted to a strategy of "be kind to everyone and hope that's close enough."

Then, during my vagabonding through university, I started bumping into new ideas—moral relativism being one that stuck. How did I first hear about it? I stumbled into a professor’s talk because I was hoping someone I fancied might show up. Instead, I got moral relativism. Life’s funny like that.

"Every culture has its own morality! So morality must be arbitrary!" I was very impressed. For the next few years, I took moral relativism as gospel, which, in hindsight, said a lot about the state of my young and confused brain.

Another takeaway from my student years was a certain university ethos: fight power, because the powerful are often the oppressors. It felt pretty intuitive to me—I'd always been wary of power and, honestly, still am. Plus, who wants to be on the side of the oppressor? No one likes waking up in the morning knowing they’re the villain of the story.¹

At some point, I found myself living with a weird superposition of ideas. On one hand, morality is subjective, maybe even a complete human invention. But on the other hand fighting the oppressors is a moral duty and tolerance is one of the highest virtues.

I have to admit, juggling this hodgepodge of beliefs wasn’t exactly a recipe to inner peace. At one point, things got bad enough that I was prescribed antidepressants, and I can’t help but think part of the problem was my own tangled, confused ethical framework.

Is it just the phones?

As stupid as it may sound, one of the things that—I believe—helped me pull out of depression was reading philosophical and scientific works on morality and meaning. For some people that might have the opposite effect, but for me, it was a lifeline.

What surprised me wasn’t how different the various ethical theories philosophers developed were, but how much they actually converged. Suddenly, the question wasn’t “Is there a right answer?” but “How do we get the obvious answers right together?”. Thanks, Parfit. I also realized that my moral dogmas—being kind and hating power—weren’t the whole picture of morality. Too much empathy and tolerance could lead to self-neglect and make it all too easy to become an enabler for bad actors. Weakness doesn’t automatically translate to goodness. Even the downtrodden can be bad.

Slowly, the fog of “what should I do with my life?” began to lift. My dive into morality made things clearer: I was supposed to make the world a better place, to be useful. People would like me for it, and—just as important—I’d like myself more. The goal was simple: contribute some happiness, fight suffering. That was the meaning of life.

Essentially, I arrived at the most ordinary and banal conclusion imaginable, but now, it satisfied me. My journey was unconventional, and my perspective—by definition, unique; I doubt others would necessarily reach the same endpoint. I only mention it because it highlights a broader issue in our current "crisis of meaning."

For centuries, religion held a near-total monopoly on morality, offering a structured guide for how to live. But as more people find these frameworks increasingly implausible, some—like me— ended up adrift, searching for something to anchor us. In the absence of clear moral direction, humans instinctively latch onto whatever feels plausible or appropriate, hoping it will provide some sense of guidance. This chaotic process doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We can still provide some structure, we can decouple the teaching of morality and meaning from religion.

I’m not suggesting we teach a morality in school, but rather morality itself—exploring the approaches of major religions, highlighting their common ground like the Golden Rule, diving into key normative theories, and even looking at what scientific research tells us about meaning and moral behavior. Things like "tit for tat with forgiveness" or other evidence-based strategies for cooperation and ethical living.² Morality is such a crucial aspect of human and societal flourishing that it feels odd to leave it as something you have to figure out from scratch—especially when, for centuries, we’ve had dedicated religious institutions teaching their favorite version.

People will inevitably search for direction and meaning in life, and while we don’t have the Ultimate Truth™, we’ve got some solid leads. Perhaps we should be more upfront with them.

1. It wasn’t until later that I started to realize those simple, good heuristics—the ones telling you to be cautious around power—could twist themselves into something else, something a lot more rigid. A kind of dogma that says any kind of power is bad, period. Over time, I gave it a name: the “oppressor-oppressed moral theory.” Powerful people are always the oppressors, oppressors are villains, and so, naturally, power itself must be evil. Case closed. It’s neat, tidy even as far as moral theories go. Except it’s obviously wrong, for some counterexamples see here.

2. To convince even the most skeptical, you could point out that, even from a purely selfish perspective, morality is a smart long-term strategy for personal happiness. You'll distance yourself from people you consider less moral, and people who see themselves as more moral than you will avoid you. Over time, this leaves you surrounded by people who share roughly your moral standards. But for that to actually be a good thing, you have to act morally yourself.