Insofar as these kind of things are culturally determined, I'd see them as providing the standard by which the culture in question is to be measured.
Agreed. And which "measuring stick" is used in making this value judgment? The very same one produced by the personal cultural experience, the "moral education" of the one making the judgment.
All research has this inherent bias. The "scientists" of sociology take great pains to compensate for it in their research methods. That's what I meant by saying that concepts like "right and wrong" are highly subjective and subject to both exploitation and evolution.