paralysis

[Angrboda]

This is simply not true.  We evolved to function as a group of individuals, not as solitary individuals, so certain group behaviors form a natural imperative for us.  Morality of the group is one such behavior that while not possessing permanent, objective characteristics, does nonetheless provide for the setting of group norms that are binding on all members of the group, as a consequence of how the group treats rule breakers.  There is morality, even if it is changeable and dependent on group behaviors.  That doesn't make it any less real

That's all fine and nice. But all of this is your own take on the issue. Your entire argument is not binding to anyone. It might be a nice and humane argument, but not binding at all. Its still relative to your own understanding. So again we're back at the "blank canvas of infinite possible moralities" issue.

It's not a proscriptive norm, it's a description of who and what we are, biologically and psychologically. Those are objective facts which are bourne out by animal studies and human studies. So, no, we aren't a blank canvas, as we come prewired for certain behaviors which combine to form morality. It's not just a point of view, and your suggesting that it is just makes no sense.

That consensus morality tends to converge upon certain "absolutes" is evidence against this "blank canvas of morality" view that you are presenting...

The institutions of family, culture, and government serve to perpetuate a system of morals and stabilize it against the possibility of radical change...

This is not to say that a society couldn't change its morals such that killing your disabled person is moral, but that it does not align with recent societies and is thus de facto immoral

Your last statement completely wipes out the first two. If killing a disabled person can shift from being immoral to moral is not a radical shift, I don't know what is.

And this is exactly my point. How can you even begin to identify a "radical" shift? What is the source against which you're making the judgment whether something is radical or not?

I think a good term for this would be "boiling frog morality", following the idea that if a frog jumps into an already boiling water, they will immediately jump back out. However, if they start inside normal water, and then you gradually boil the water, the frog stays inside until their probable death.

What exactly are you arguing here? That morality must be changeless to be morality? How does that follow from anything? The fact that morality can change is a positive, not a negative. You've still yet to grapple with the fact that this morality is a process, and it is the parameters of that process which set the ground conditions for even having a morality. What's the alternative, that some inscrutable set of morals from one specific society set the bounds of morality for all of time? Why that particular society? You're complaining that changing morals are arbitrary (they're not), and what you have to replace it with is equally arbitrary.

That depends on the objective morals in question.  Even if there are objective morals, you're simply interpreting the scenario as falling under them.  Remember that the bible didn't proscribe either rape or slavery.  This is an example of people following 'objective' morals that we today would consider unthinkable.  These two issues may well lie outside the bounds of any objective morals and be a mere human invention.  What evidence do you have that killing the disabled person is covered by an objective ethic, as opposed to being merely dragged along on the boundary of other morals that truly are objective?

You are confusing two things: the objective morality itself, and the details that can be obtained from it. For example, if the objective morality says no one is allowed to kill. Period. Then this simple objective morality statement fits a large number of scenarios. Such as a killing a disabled person, killing infants (e.g. after birth abortion), etc.  So even though the sentence "killing a disabled person" did not exist in the objective moral, it is still absolutely covered by that objective moral.

To give a legal analogy, consider the US constitution. The constitution represents the essential elements of the law of the land. However, you still need constitutional judges and courts in order to apply that constitution to specific detailed cases. Are these detailed cases mentioned literally in the constitution? of course not! But the rulings of the constitutional judges use the constitution as a "flash light" the tells you what to do in that very detailed scenario. So the final result is that the detailed scenario is constitutional, even though it was not literally mentioned in the constituion.

Ignoring your misunderstanding of Common Law, what you are describing is still an inference, an inference which might be wrong. There was a time when blacks and women didn't have any rights. That too was an inference from the generalities of the society's morals to the specifics of independent cases. It was, and is, liable to error. So, no, a general code doesn't prevent you from falling into error on the specific cases. Think of abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade, that was an application of constitutional law, one which many in the U.S. disagree with. You're implying that if it derives from a more general code, then it is necessarily correct, but that's just not so. Even if it were a clear application of principle in the disabled person's case, all things being equal, there will arise cases that aren't infallibly derived from the general principles. (Remember that the case in question is just an example; it changes nothing in my argument if I substitute "kill a fetus" for your disabled person, yet it disrupts your entire line of argument. We're arguing general principles here, not specific cases.)