Theistic morality

[The Omnissiunt One]

Please explain to me to what absolute moral standard you are referring here. Is it not just your moral standard with which you judge the past? Is it the moral standard of the slaves? Is it the moral standard of slave traders at that time? I don't see how that can be? It seems to me that you are asserting some mother of all moral standards here without the evidence to support it. Slavery is condoned in the bible but nowadays seen as wrong by the church. Isn't that a clear indication that there is no absolute reference for moral?

Historically speaking, there has certainly never been one underlying moral code which all people shared. That doesn't mean that there isn't a rationally based moral code which would have been true in the past, regardless of what people believed. Denying this would pave the way for moral subjectivism or moral nihilism, and I think we've agreed that this isn't a practical viewpoint to hold.

You don't need any absolute moral standard for that. It's just an economic choice for synergy over battle that both involved parties can benefit from given the boundary condition are in place (like mutual trust of a certain degree). Also observe that the economic rule itself is an IS not an OUGHT. Given the right conditions it will play out no matter whether there is explicit rephrasing of it into prescriptive moral codes. You cannot derive an ought from an is but it may be practical to sync an OUGHT to an IS, i.e. it may be beneficial to all involved.

If I've understood you correctly, you're saying that morality is essentially an agreement about how to behave, based on the fact that mutual moral agreements are benefical for all parties involved. This certainly explains how morality comes to be in the first place, but it doesn't explain why we shouldn't hurt a baby, a mentally disabled person or a dog, none of whom can confer any reciprocal benefit on us. So, our morality is more complicated than that, generally.