Types

• According to the Standford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy, morality can be defined as either a code of conduct put forward by a society or group, or as a description of what any normal, rational person would consider the right thing to do.
  
  

Function

• Holding citizens up to a standard of morality has had both positive and negative effects over time. The Salem witch trials are an example of puritan morality gone wrong, when fear has been allowed to rule. Most of the laws enforced by the police today, on the other hand, help maintain a civil society.
  
  

Recent History

• The rigid standards of morality established early on in America, and governed mostly by the church, have lost their foothold in the last hundred years. The influx of many immigrants has led to a more pluralistic society --- so rather than everyone being held to the same Christian morality, diversity of thought and action is allowed. Much of the loosening of society's morals happened in the 1960s and '70s, when controversies like civil rights, women's rights and the Vietnam war led to a splintering of American identity and widespread questioning of the role of morality in society.