It doesn't lead so much to the conclusion that good and evil are meaningless concepts, I think, as to the conclusion that as good and evil depend on your premises then the vital question of ethics is to find the correct premises.
The problem is that you can't, by definition, prove that the premises are correct by using reason (if you could they wouldn't be premises, they'd be conclusions).
So anyway there are always reasons. Religions are all about reasons. Why can't you work on the Sabbath? Because you're a member of the people that God has marked out as special, and one of the ways we show that specialness, our distinctness from all the other peoples around, is by not working on the Sabbath. That's a reason, and it's a good reason if you accept the premises that being marked out by God as special, and doing things differently to the other peoples around in order to demonstrate that specialness, are good things. It's not a good reason if you don't accept those premises. And reason can't help you with whether to accept those premises or not. You have to decide whether they are true.
Similarly, 'The last ten times you did it you were ill' is a only a good (moral) reason if you accept the premise that being ill is bad. And there's no rational reason to accept that premise. Being ill is certainly unpleasant, but that's not a rational reason to avoid being ill, it's just a matter of preference.
When you get right down to it, all reason can tell you is how to best achieve a goal. That's your hidden assumption in the demand that there be 'a reason': you are asking, I think, for 'how does this help me achieve a goal?' You think that asking you to avoid working on the Sabbath is unreasonable because you can't see how it helps towards any goal that you consider worthwhile.
But that fundamentally depends on what goals you consider worthwhile. And you can't have a logical reason for picking one goal over another because, well, premises. So you have to decide what the true goal is (if indeed there is one). And that will depend on how you explain the existence of the world.
Is this making any sense? Basically, you seem to be asking for ethical positions to be justified on the basis of how useful they are for achieving some goal, when actually that's putting the cart before the horse: ethics is first about deciding what goal you ought to be pursuing, and then seeing what falls out of that. so you can't ask whether a given bit of ethical advice, like 'Don't work on the Sabbath', is 'reasonable' without first establishing the framework of ethical goals in which you're operating.
no subject
The problem is that you can't, by definition, prove that the premises are correct by using reason (if you could they wouldn't be premises, they'd be conclusions).
So anyway there are always reasons. Religions are all about reasons. Why can't you work on the Sabbath? Because you're a member of the people that God has marked out as special, and one of the ways we show that specialness, our distinctness from all the other peoples around, is by not working on the Sabbath. That's a reason, and it's a good reason if you accept the premises that being marked out by God as special, and doing things differently to the other peoples around in order to demonstrate that specialness, are good things. It's not a good reason if you don't accept those premises. And reason can't help you with whether to accept those premises or not. You have to decide whether they are true.
Similarly, 'The last ten times you did it you were ill' is a only a good (moral) reason if you accept the premise that being ill is bad. And there's no rational reason to accept that premise. Being ill is certainly unpleasant, but that's not a rational reason to avoid being ill, it's just a matter of preference.
When you get right down to it, all reason can tell you is how to best achieve a goal. That's your hidden assumption in the demand that there be 'a reason': you are asking, I think, for 'how does this help me achieve a goal?' You think that asking you to avoid working on the Sabbath is unreasonable because you can't see how it helps towards any goal that you consider worthwhile.
But that fundamentally depends on what goals you consider worthwhile. And you can't have a logical reason for picking one goal over another because, well, premises. So you have to decide what the true goal is (if indeed there is one). And that will depend on how you explain the existence of the world.
Is this making any sense? Basically, you seem to be asking for ethical positions to be justified on the basis of how useful they are for achieving some goal, when actually that's putting the cart before the horse: ethics is first about deciding what goal you ought to be pursuing, and then seeing what falls out of that. so you can't ask whether a given bit of ethical advice, like 'Don't work on the Sabbath', is 'reasonable' without first establishing the framework of ethical goals in which you're operating.
S.