“Objective” means existing independent of people’s beliefs, opinions, and desires.

“Universal” means applying to all situations, regardless of context.

“Morality” and “morals” refer to any standards or norms of action and behavior. As I use these terms, they include both norms which concern actions and behaviors that affect others and those that don’t. They include norms which concern actions and behaviors that benefit others and those that don’t. They also include norms which concern actions and behaviors that fall under the term etiquette.

To define the terms “morality” and “morals” as pertaining only to norms which concern actions and behaviors that affect others, or even only to norms which concern actions and behaviors that benefit others, while common, is ultimately nothing more than intellectual sleight of hand, for it allows those engaging in what is defined ahead of time as moral discourse to condemn those who do not take part in or do not agree with the terms of that discourse as defined, as immoral or amoral, including the negative connotations typically associated with those terms. Essentially, it allows those who define morality as pertaining only to actions and behaviors that affect others to dismiss the views on normative conduct advocated by those who disagree without any argument. The point of view which holds that morality only concerns actions and behaviors that affect others does not recognize the equal legitimacy of different views, e.g., that people ought to behave egoistically, but does not establish that these alternative views are not equally legitimate through rational argument.

To define the terms morality and morals as pertaining only to actions and behaviors that affect others also lacks historical precedent. This understanding of these terms was certainly not shared by the moral philosophers of the ancient Greco-Roman world or even medieval scholastic philosophers. These philosophers believed the goal of ethics was to discover the good and live according to it, that is, to live the good life, a goal which has no necessary relationship to actions which affect others.

If morality and morals do not pertain to actions and behaviors other than those that affect others, then it makes little sense to claim that Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans were concerned with morals. However, all of them were concerned with morality and morals as I understand those terms.