If we want to live in a well-regulated, peaceful society, then we must create one and maintain it. Instead of referring moral questions to divine commandments, we must also work out our own system of good, generous, mutually beneficial ethics. We can try to generate our own rules—such as “do as you would be done by,” or “treat all human beings as an end in themselves, not a means to something else,” or “choose the action that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number.” These are handy tools for moral thinking, but they are not the same as a set of orders literally set in stone
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