Morals

[Whateverist]

I read this piece and thought it was okay, although I am not fully convinced: http://www.strongatheism.net/library/phi..._morality/

I understand how morals come from the basic desire we have to preserve ourselves and our wellbeing.  Society could not exist without morals, and ideally morals protect and enhance our flourishing physically and psychologically.

But what is the basis for valuing life at all?  Certainly society will prevent a serial killer from murdering anymore people if (s)he is restrained.  But what makes her killing wrong?  Why should anyone value life and wellbeing?

Wow.  Just took a look at the article.  

The unit of ethics is values. Values are things that one must work to gain or keep (a simple example of that is nutrition). These values are short-handed ways of expressing moral principles (ex. “we need to eat because otherwise we die”), and moral principles are short-handed way of expressing scientific or social facts (such as the facts about metabolism).

Agreed:  "The unit of ethics is values", leastwise that is what we must moral discussions must be about.

But immediately he launches into "values are things one must work to gain or keep".  That is definitely not what values are most essentially.  That is the simply one opinion regarding "what we should do", which is really the essence of ethics and morality.  If you incorporate a should into your the very definition of what we are studying then you're simply arguing coercively for your own values, not investigating the phenomenon of values.

I would argue that values are the sort of thing which if you reflect on it, you realize you always already have.  Moreover, they will shade what you think should be done about them if you aren't careful.  This author is not careful.  Sure there may be exceptions, psychopaths and moral monsters.  But moral arguments aren't really for or about them.