Comment by lo_zamoyski

Then you do not understand integrity, and you have relativized morality (albeit in an inconsistent way; that the culture is one way or another should somehow determine morality is itself a moral judgement).

Morality is not a social convention. Morality concerns what you or I or any individual person should do as that individual. Because we are all human beings with a shared nature, the same general moral principles hold for all of us. Morality is about being a good person. Not a nice person. Not "good" in the opinion of others. Not a "goody two-shoes" or a suck-up. Good in the sense that you choose and do what you ought. The good life is the moral life, and it is absurd to say otherwise.

It is not good for you or me or anyone to lack integrity with the objective good. This is what too many people fail to understand. They think morality is just some set of external rules someone made up that have nothing to do with one's own flourishing as a human being. No, immoral acts corrupt the person choosing to perform them. They corrupt him from the inside. They cripple a person and rot him out. They stunt development and derail him, pushing him onto self-destructive trajectories. They produce misery. You will not find an immoral person who is joyful. Maniacal, maybe, but not joyful.

Of course, the concrete and particular choices we ought to make and acts we ought to choose in a given situation requires prudence, a quality we can only develop with experience. But prudence does not override moral principles. Lying, stealing, murdering do not become licit by circumstance.