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I think all of you guys are avoiding the real issue. You all want some sort of moral foundations that are independent of what you think and feel. You want something that will allow us to avoid CHOICE and RESPONSIBILITY. You'll never find it.

Fred and Ayesha want to get their morality from God. Dee would love to get at least part of her morality from "reason" along the lines argued by Alan Gewirth. Barring that, she would appeal to a hypothetical contract. John would also like to base things on a hypothetical contract, although his contract is different from Dee's. Hers is libertarian and his is social democratic.

My point is that the foundations built around God or natural law or pure reason or a hypothetical contract have all crumbled. The only way to establish 'foundations' is to CHOOSE them, to CREATE them, to ASSERT that they are the foundations. Morality is our construct. We choose it and we are responsible for what we do with it. There are no foundations outside those that we choose.

Of course, whatever we choose must be consistent with logic and the findings of the best science available. But we cannot eliminate the key role played by choice.

You will say that people will not agree. There will be conflict. And you are right. We can't avoid that either. We have to make our choices, argue about them, and fight for them politically. That's it. That's the human condition.

Sorry, guys. That's the way things are. The rest is a philosopher's dream.