[Raak] Hm, I don't think I'll bother continuing with this. Nothing you've suggested as an example needs more explanation than simply that humans enact moral (and legal) consequences upon one another according to the collective effect of shared or accumulated beliefs. This is the main reason muggers (nowadays) can have little success (even ignoring the fact that poverty is probably as much a cause of mugging as vice versa). Sure, all this might be the manifestation of some deeper mechanism, but it could just as easily be a bottom-up emergent phenomenon (rab can correct my terminology if I'm using this expression wrongly) that arises out of our brain chemistry and its interactions with the environment etc. etc. From what we know, this seems to me the most conservative and most available explanation. Why invoke absolute good, absolute evil? It still seems to me that you might as well invoke God. Certainly the notion of absolute good and evil, once you start trying to define them to the letter (in the case of say, the actions of Iraq's invaders and Iraq's resistance), admit of as many conceptual problems as the notion of God. Unless you can tell us more about the reasons for your willingness to entertain your leap of faith (and you've said you can't), I feel we're really just pushing words around.
[rab] Good idea re defining morality. We could take our pick from the 11 definitions, some claimed obsolete, offered by the OED. The ones it thinks are current are:
Moral virtue; behaviour conforming to moral law or accepted moral standards, esp. in relation to sexual matters; personal qualities judged to be good.
Moral discourse or instruction; a moral lesson or exhortation. Also: the action or an act of moralizing.
Conformity of an idea, practice, etc., to moral law; moral goodness or rightness.
The quality or fact of being morally right or wrong; the goodness or badness of an action.
The branch of knowledge concerned with right and wrong conduct, duty, responsibility, etc.; moral philosophy, ethics.
A particular moral system or outlook; moral thought or conduct in relation to a particular form of activity.
[Projoy] Quite. I had a think about definitions, came up with one and devised a framework for thinking about this whilst queuing in the bank this morning. Then the teller muttered something about ISAs and it all vanished. Oh dear. I also have more pressing things to worry about, in that I have in two weeks an interview for a job I really, really want and for which I expect the competition to be fierce. So I really need to pull out the stops, so if you don't hear from me it's cos I'm doing my homework.