It is possible to measure how morally good or bad a person is, overall? We argue that general morality (i.e., a person’s overall moral goodness) is much more difficult to measure than many other psychological traits. Conceptually, it is not entirely clear that there is such a trait as overall moral goodness that applies consistently across people, cultures, and contexts, much less that either researchers or the people who are being measured could agree on its elements. Practically, any measure would need to rely on self-reports, reports by others, direct behavioral observations, or biological measures. There are serious problems (e.g., bias, incompleteness, infeasibility) with each of these strategies. Similar difficulties arise, though less severely, in measuring more specific moral tendencies (e.g., honesty, kindness, and moral values). It is therefore important to be humble about what we can and cannot conclude when attempting to measure a person’s overall moral goodness.

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