There isn’t a single settled answer—this is one of the classic questions in philosophy. The main options are:

- **Moral realism / objectivism:** Some moral truths are real and independent of human opinion, like “torturing children for fun is wrong.”
- **Subjectivism / constructivism:** Morality is created by humans—shaped by emotions, culture, social cooperation, and agreements.
- **Error theory / nihilism:** Moral claims try to state objective facts, but there are no such facts, so all moral claims are false in that strict sense.

A practical middle view is:

- **Humans invent moral systems**, but
- those systems are often **constrained by objective facts** about human nature, suffering, cooperation, and consequences.

So, for example, nearly every society condemns some form of unjustified harm, because humans are social creatures with shared vulnerabilities.

If you want the shortest answer: **morality is probably not purely objective in the same way physics is, but it’s not completely arbitrary either.** It’s largely human-made, yet grounded in real features of conscious beings and social life.

If you want, I can also give you:
1. the strongest argument for objective morality,  
2. the strongest argument for morality being invented, or  
3. how major philosophers and religions answer it.
