Both. There are both subjective and objective elements to morality and ethics. Some things can be demonstrated to be harmful to the well being of individuals, human relationships and/or human civilization. These objective aspects of morality are the ones which a secular society can reasonably enforce. Other things are a matter of personal preference and commitment – harmful to the person’s personal happiness, identity, and/or integrity. These are things which individuals can only hold themselves accountable to.
This follows from the simple understanding that…
- Objective means that which is the same for everyone (thus established by written procedures giving the same results no matter what you want or believe) and subjective means that which is not the same for everyone (a matter of personal experience only).
- All morality and ethics comes from the fact that actions have consequences. It is just not always the direct, immediate, or obvious consequences which are most important (as in consequentialism). So in virtue ethics, what is most important are the consequences to yourself and what kind of person it means you are. While deontological ethics considers other abstract effects such as duty, human rights and upholding the social order.
Morality also has both absolute and relative elements also. Some things are right or wrong for a reason (i.e. absolute), and other things are simply a matter of convention, often because it is more important that we have a rule rather than what the rule actually is.