How does (hu)man know what is right versus wrong?

…or what’s good versus bad?

Where are morals built and how do we know they’re good?

I’m not convinced there’s one clean, universal answer, and I’m also not sure that very many of us are reflecting on these questions to have clear answers. (If you are and regularly do, please share!) Personally, I seem to draw on my spiritual and faithful experiences to begin formulating my compass.

Maybe this is where we get the ideas of “value alignment”. I hear that phrase often times when talking about professional partnerships, when people are dating or considering a marital relationship. Even when choosing friends and mentors, value alignment seems common place.

I still ponder, how do we know what is “right” and “good”? Is it relative and dependent on what’s “wrong” and “bad”? Must we be faced with the “bad” to articulate and define the “good”?