Is right and wrong discerned by each person for themselves or is it ultimately determined by a higher authority?

If there is no divine standard, then “man is the measure of all things.” Right or wrong would not objectively exist. Morality would be nothing but whatever is, is. Nothing could be called “evil” or “wrong.” For wrong to exist, there must be something right that it deviates from. What is that right if it is not God? Is morality determined by popular vote? Is a thing right or wrong depending on how many people are doing it? If there is no creator God, then humans are merely products of mindless, non-rational matter. If that is so, then how and where did the ideas of morality, “ought-ness” and sacrifice and service for others originate? If there is no divine standard, right and wrong are whatever each person wants it to be. What is right with me, may not be right with you. Without God and a divine standard, then we in effect become our own god to do whatever pleases or serves us our appetites and passions. No one could condemn anyone for anything because everyone is doing their own thing. What would give anyone the right to condemn or approve anyone else’s behavior?

If there is no standard of right and wrong, if there is no legitimate way to pronounce any action evil or good, then anything a person does is acceptable, at least to that person. Others may condemn him, but on what basis do they do so? If he is pleasing himself, making himself happy, then who can speak against anything that he does? To call something evil, there must be a basis for doing so. There must be a “good” or “right,”” before anything that deviates from that can be called “”bad“ or “wrong.” If there is no standard, and no accountability to a standard, then every person is free to do whatever he wants and no one has the right to condemn or criticize his behavior. This would mean that anything a person does, whether it is cutting down a tree, polluting the air, poisoning the water, squashing a bug, lying to his friends, cursing his parents, torturing babies for fun, shooting school children, raping children, trafficking in sexual slavery, or stealing from the elderly cannot be called evil or wrong.