How do athiests determine their moral code?
All of those things contribute, but also one’s own upbringing, as well as one’s own logical thought process. Your parents are the first beings responsible for your morals. When you tell your 2 year old toddler not to hit your 1 year old baby, you are teaching that toddler that violence is “wrong”. Society and laws cause a sort of imposed morals. I know that if I rob a bank, I’m going to go to jail. I am therefore not going to rob a bank. (No, that is not the only reason. It is a factor.) And your own logical though process, perhaps the same as what you referred to as an “inner compass” contributes as well. Once you mature enough, you begin to evaluate some of the rights and wrongs taught to you by your parents. To use two trivial examples: my parents taught me it’s wrong to spit. Well I don’t live with my parents anymore, haven’t for a decade. But I still don’t spit. Why? It’s “wrong”. It’s unattractive, it’s rude, it’s messy, it makes you look somehow “low”. My parents also taught me
