The idea is that it’s the product of our evolved nature as social animals. It’s determined by our nature–our moral sense–to a degree, and by our environment to a degree.
There has been many times a large society of people got together and did what I would consider immoral and even evil. They cooperated to the success of that particular group. They even cooperated to stay alive but yet we now have laws since Nazi germany from the Geneva convention that saying cooperation toward war crimes is still a war crime and it’s not an excuse for say a accountant at a concentration camp to say he was just doing his job.
The problem with this moral sensibility idea is it’s entirely determined by society and our nature.
To me, it looks like the problem, period. Nazi Germany rose up smack in the heart of Christian Europe, where the cumulative effect of over a thousand years of so-called “objective morality” did not seem to have much effect in stopping it. So we’re all in the same boat here.
I’d rather rely on my moral sense. If I simply put my faith in an “objective morality” how am I to know that another “objective morality” won’t come around tomorrow and replace it?
For that matter, how do you know your “objective morality” is good? How do you know God isn’t evil if you’re simply blindly following this morality? Don’t you have to assess it? How are you doing so if so? Did God also give you the moral sense so that you could properly assess his objective morality?
It doesn’t make much sense to me. It looks to me like we just have to rely on our ability to make moral assessments the best we can. Putting faith in an idea like “objective morality” is precisely a path to a dictator’s morality, not a block to it.
- I’m not entirely sure our nature is “good”. Maybe it’s not bad not either but I could not say we are innately “good” with any definition of good that I can think of.
We’re human.
If I was a child in Nazi germany. My parents and family were all nazis and fed me Nazi ideas from birth. My friends all also all Nazis, my school was teaching me that the world will be better if we make a pure Race and Jews and gays and gipsys are the problem. They even had “scientific” reasons and philosophical ideas they taught me and it there no other competing ideas. I get sent to hitlers youth camp and even the fuerer himself came and pat me on the back and said Im doing the right thing and it’s good. It will make the world better place. I later become a gas chamber operator at a concentration camp. Am I evil? Because my survival did kinda depend on cooperation. I cooperated with the society I’m in. I though it was for the good and had pure intentions that this was right and it will make the world better. Later even following and cooperation i get punished for crimes against humanity and recieves consequences. What went wrong? Should I have known innately what im doing is wrong? Or is it just moral sensibility and it happens that other people decided I’m wrong? Who’s actually immoral?
I have to say you really go for the home run in your analogies 
Yes the gas chamber operators at concentration camps were acting immorally. If they didn’t get it because they were indoctrinated or whatever, tough shit, they should have. Maybe they could think about it before they received whatever brutal retribution they deserved. That’s my assessment and I contend that that one is just not rocket science.
If we wanted to talk about more garden variety crimes, nothing is written in black and white. Is it? I’m missing it if it is. Moral problems require our assessment and we may not always agree. That’s reality.
Look Master, I brought you this delicious squirrel! Am I Good Dog? What, you don’t like squirrel? Okay, well I got rid of this pest for you. Now am I Good Dog?
Many people will note that the New Testament has superseded the Old. I haven’t heard of a Christian who accepts slavery in this day and age. I guess they are out there, but certainly far out of the mainstream.