\n\nWhere does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by.
\nMoral naturalists, on the other hand, believe that we have moral sentiments that have emerged from a long history of relationships. To learn about morality, you don\u00e2\u0080\u0099t rely upon revelation or metaphysics; you observe people as they live.
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All emphasis mine. Via Op-Ed Columnist - The Moral Naturalists - NYTimes.com.
\nI have to say I am highly sympathetic to that view. So was Adam Smith, as noted by the guys as Cafe Hayek:
\n\n\n\n" }It\u00e2\u0080\u0099s worth noting that Adam Smith arrived at the same conclusion 251 years ago. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), this brilliant scholar \u00e2\u0080\u0093 who, in 1776, published an even more influential book \u00e2\u0080\u0093 wrote that \u00e2\u0080\u009cOur continual observations upon the conduct of others insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided.\u00e2\u0080\u009d
\nJust as workable economic arrangements are not, and cannot be, designed and imposed by a higher power, so too, Smith explained, workable morality itself is the product not of any grand design but of the everyday actions, reactions, observations, and practical assessments of ordinary people going about their daily business.
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