On Moral Authorities

[Ignorant]

No point, that's not the foundation of my moral system.  Whats expressed above would be hedonism in one form or another.  The pursuit of pleasure.

If you equate happiness with pleasure, then you'd be right. In other words, if the ______________ was "pursuing and obtaining as much pleasure as possible", then it would be hedonism. Does happiness mere pleasure? I don't think so. Clearly, you don't think a life seeking nothing but pleasure is the happiest of human lives. The point is that how you understand human happiness and how to bring it about determines also what you think is moral.

I think that once we appeal to individual judgment as a moral authority we have ceased to refer to moral authority in a meaningful sense, maybe in a practical sense...as in, as close to a moral authority as anything gets.  In this, again, we see the notion that power, the ability to exert moral judgement on others, makes one a moral authority which could only -be- true in the more meaningful sense of a moral authority if might made right....which isn't something I'd agree with in any case.  

I couldn't agree more. Would you agree that, if there is no such thing as an "object" (in the subjective vs. objective sense) we could reliably call "human nature", then there is no rational means for human to approach a judgment about the morality of a human being?

Though I have to say...that on the balance of what we see in the world with all these competing moral systems, I'd say that all of the above looks to be the case, at least as practically employed by human beings and insomuch as we have a lessened bar for moral authority expressed therein.  In short....whats expressed above seems to -be- how we "do morality" - but I'd chalk that up to us being less-than-rational creatures who consistently fail even by their own moral standards to adhere to moral standards, lol.

Well I'd mostly agree with that. I painted with a very big brush. Most competing moral systems fundamentally disagree in their philosophical anthropology (i.e. in their definition of humanity/human happiness), and therefore understandably in their moral norms and values. With a very broad brush, there are two camps: nominalist/voluntarist/Nietzsche, and realist/aristotelian/natural-law. 

Either:

Human nature itself is the ultimate object about which subjects make moral judgments. 
Subjects, consciously or not, evaluate human action based on their own answers to the questions: "what is human nature/In what consists a well-lived human life?" and "which actions will bring about the best individuation of a well-lived human life in my own personal context?"

or 

There is no human nature and no object about which subjects make moral judgments 
Subjects, consciously or not, evaluate human action based on their answers to the questions: "who/what must I obey?" and "what must I do/what does my authority tell me to do?"

The second one seems like a boring and frustrating way to live, but that is just me.