There’s a big difference between saying “morality is the product of human minds” and saying “morality is purely arbitrary”. Similarly, there’s a big difference between saying “there are objective reasons why we make the moral judgments we do” and “all moral questions have objective answers which in no way depend on human minds”.
Life is not a zero sum game. I think nearly everyone would agree that it would be advantageous to nearly everyone if one could somehow guarantee that neither one’s self nor one’s loved ones would be killed at the cost of forgoing the ability to kill one’s enemies. I think this fact, not repeated arbitrary assertion, is the basis for the nearly universal belief that “murder is wrong”. I think the fact that, in many societies, refraining from killing those outside one’s own tribe does nothing to prevent those outside the tribe from killing one’s self or one’s loved ones, and not arbitrary bigotry, is the reason that in those societies killing those outside one’s tribe does not count as murder.
There’s a big difference between saying “morality is the product of human minds” and saying “morality is purely arbitrary”. Similarly, there’s a big difference between saying “there are objective reasons why we make the moral judgments we do” and “all moral questions have objective answers which in no way depend on human minds”.
Life is not a zero sum game. I think nearly everyone would agree that it would be advantageous to nearly everyone if one could somehow guarantee that neither one’s self nor one’s loved ones would be killed at the cost of forgoing the ability to kill one’s enemies. I think this fact, not repeated arbitrary assertion, is the basis for the nearly universal belief that “murder is wrong”. I think the fact that, in many societies, refraining from killing those outside one’s own tribe does nothing to prevent those outside the tribe from killing one’s self or one’s loved ones, and not arbitrary bigotry, is the reason that in those societies killing those outside one’s tribe does not count as murder.