WORLD MORALS EDITION XXI

World Morals — a shared human inquiry

An interactive atlas of moral teachings across the world's religious and secular traditions — from ancient scriptures to modern ethics.

Explore the teachings How to read the evidence

Comparative atlas · Original English corpus · Evidence before conclusions

A mapping is not a verified quotation. Workbook labels are preserved. An absent mapping does not mean rejection. We do not rank the moral worth of any system.

Moral teachings: 610
Religious systems: 52
Nonreligious systems: 41
Source evidence rows: 10620

Many traditions. One invitation to understand.

Find a teaching, follow its source anchors, and explore common ground without erasing differences. Every number describes only the systems represented in this edition.

Search corpus (English or ID)CategorySystemSource anchor typeWorkbook confidence (not verification)SortReset

610 teachings found · Edition XXI

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M057 · Property, Work and Economic Justice

Avoid envy and covetousness

Do not resent or improperly desire what belongs to another.

M235 · Religious Community and Leadership Ethics

Avoid gambling and predatory games of chance

Do not exploit hope, desperation, or addiction through gambling.

M056 · Property, Work and Economic Justice

Avoid greed

Resist excessive attachment to wealth or status.

M130 · Character, Virtue and Self-Mastery

Avoid hypocrisy

Do not claim standards knowingly rejected in practice.

M008 · Truth, Speech and Knowledge

Avoid idle or irresponsible speech

Do not speak carelessly when words may create foreseeable harm.

M406 · Duties to Future Generations

Avoid imposing irreversible burdens on future people

Do not leave future generations avoidable catastrophic risks, unmanageable waste, depleted resources, or unjust debt.

M134 · Character, Virtue and Self-Mastery

Avoid intoxication or impaired judgment

Avoid practices that undermine responsibility.

M137 · Character, Virtue and Self-Mastery

Avoid laziness and neglect

Do not abandon important duties through indifference.

M592 · Ananda Marga Yama and Niyama

Avoid mental as well as physical theft

Do not take, desire to take, or wrongfully withhold what belongs or is owed to another.

M300 · Responsible Business Conduct

Avoid misleading consumers

Provide accurate information and do not exploit confusion, vulnerability, or deceptive design.

M165 · Animals, Environment, Health and Technology

Avoid needless destruction

Do not destroy living systems or cultural goods without reason.

M124 · Character, Virtue and Self-Mastery

Avoid pride and arrogance

Do not exalt yourself by demeaning others.

M189 · Religious and Spiritual Responsibility

Avoid religious hypocrisy

Do not use claims of piety to conceal exploitation, cruelty, or corruption.

M158 · Community, Education and Spiritual Responsibility

Avoid scandalizing or corrupting the vulnerable

Do not normalize wrongdoing that predictably harms others.

M105 · Family, Sexuality and Relationships

Avoid sexual exploitation

Do not use coercion or vulnerability for sexual advantage.

M187 · Religious and Spiritual Responsibility

Avoid spiritual coercion

Do not manipulate fear, authority, or dependency to force religious compliance.

M268 · Public Health and Health Equity

Avoid stigmatizing illness

Do not demean or exclude people because of disease, disability, or health status.

M577 · Seventh-day Adventist Whole-Life Ethics

Avoid substances that impair health and judgment

Abstain from harmful or irresponsible use of alcohol, tobacco, narcotics, and other intoxicating substances.

M024 · Life, Violence and Peace

Avoid unnecessary violence

Do not use force when less harmful means are reasonably available.

M428 · Buddhist Moral Discipline

Avoid wrong livelihood

Do not earn a living through practices that foreseeably cause serious harm, exploitation, or moral corruption.

M326 · Journalism and Public Information Ethics

Be accountable and transparent about reporting

Explain decisions, correct errors promptly, and provide channels for legitimate criticism.

M128 · Character, Virtue and Self-Mastery

Be grateful

Recognize benefits received and respond with appreciation.

M040 · Life, Violence and Peace

Build conditions for durable peace

Address injustice, fear, deprivation, and exclusion that fuel conflict.

M604 · Jehovah's Witness Christian Conduct

Build family life through regular moral instruction

Strengthen households through shared study, responsible example, communication, fidelity, and care.

FIELD GUIDE · PURPOSE AND BOUNDARIES

World Morals: practical use and context

World Morals is a source-oriented atlas for readers comparing moral teachings across religious and secular traditions. It provides ways to explore a finite corpus while keeping the difference between a recorded mapping and independently verified evidence visible.

↑ Back to the application

A glass globe connects manuscripts in a circular hall for studying world moral traditions — conceptual artwork — Application artwork reused from its publication image family. The interactive interface is above.

Start with a teaching, then follow its evidence

Choose a teaching or a system rather than beginning with a universal conclusion. Read its definition and source basis, then inspect the associated mappings. Open the source and methodology views to understand how a relationship entered the corpus. A label such as official source or specific anchor describes a record’s provenance category; it is not a substitute for reading the cited passage in context.

Use the comparison lab and matrix to formulate questions. Shared mappings may suggest a topic worth investigating, while differences may reflect wording, edition coverage or research gaps. Neither a checked cell nor an empty cell establishes what every adherent believes or how a whole society behaves.

A careful comparative reading exercise

Select a familiar moral theme and compare its records across two systems. Write down the source labels, what has actually been quoted and what remains a summary. Follow the source references before drawing a conclusion. Record a disagreement or missing passage as an open research issue rather than filling the gap with an attractive generalization.

For a classroom discussion, separate three questions: what the dataset records, what a primary text says, and how people interpret or practice it. The atlas directly organizes the first question. The other two need contextual reading, historical scholarship and, where appropriate, the voices of the communities being discussed.

Coverage is not a ranking of traditions

The corpus is an edition with explicit scope and unresolved research statuses. Counts describe records and relationships, not moral superiority, global prevalence or the completeness of a tradition. Geographic and historical displays disclose where research is missing. English source material remains in its original language even when navigation and explanatory interface copy are Spanish.