moral compass

moral compass

That which serves or guides a person's knowledge, sense, or intuition of correct virtues, morals, or ethics. Our country's moral compass has surely gone awry in recent times, as our priorities seem now to favor the wealthy accumulating more wealth at the expense of any other concern.
See also: compass, moral
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • box the compass
  • compass
  • feel (one's) way
  • feel one's way
  • feel your way
  • on a hunch
  • pearly
  • funny feeling
  • babysit with (someone or something)
  • gut instinct
References in periodicals archive
The ability to empathize is a stepping stone to a moral compass. Children have a natural capacity to "try on" new roles.
Would Ms Watson prefer our children to have no moral compass, no capacity to understand this kind of horror?
Like the French aristocrats isolated inVersailles before the French Revolution they don't have any sense of shame and have lost any sense of moral compass. 'Let them eat cake?'' Yes indeed.
As a man with a strong moral compass, Sin is adamant that Hywel pays for deceiving Cwm FM's listeners with their 'fake' broadcasts.
Ignoring her moral compass, Jane continues the affair with Jake, only to develop feelings for the divorced architect Adam (Steve Martin), whom she has hired to remodel her kitchen.
Quite regularly the so-called moral compass is mentioned.
Brown came to power, unelected, but with a supposed moral compass. Trouble is, no one seems to know where the preacher is going with it.
Anyway, satisfied with my toilet roll holder purchase, I went this week in search of something far more precious and even more difficult to find - a moral compass.
In an apparent reference to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has claimed to be guided by a moral compass, the Archbishop also observes that "without these anxieties about the specific costs, we've lost the essential moral compass".
WE all know about Gordon Brown's "moral compass" - he and his sycophants keep telling us.
What Muslims need today is a moral compass that is clear and unambiguous, a leadership and unifying voice that inspires and gives hope and allows us to realise the vision of the Holy Quran' as a community raised for the benefit of mankind, enjoining good and forbidding evil.
For a minute there we could have been forgiven for thinking that here, at least, was one rich, over-paid and over-privileged footballer who had some compassion, some sense, some kind of moral compass.
The freakish protagonist has his moral compass set to local, not national or ecclesiastical, concerns.
The Essex's plight prompted me to reflect on how quickly our moral compass is spinning these days as we leave our Judeo-Christian moorings and cast ourselves onto the uncertain seas of a godless social order--voluntarily no less.
Dole himself seems to have the moral compass of a pit viper.