There is nothing beyond your own preferences, “ethics” of any kind are preferences too.
I don’t think I believe this, although I suspect the source of our disagreement is over terminology rather than facts.
I tend to think of ethics as a complex set of facts about the well-being of yourself and others. So something is ethical if it makes people happy, helps them achieve their aspirations, treats them fairly, etc. So if, when ranking your preferences, you find that the universe you have the greatest preference for isn’t one in which peoples’ well-being, along certain measures, is as high as possible, that doesn’t mean that improving people’s well-being along these various measures isn’t ethical. It just means that you don’t prefer to act 100% ethically.
To make an analogy, the fact that an object is the color green is a fact about what wavelengths of light it reflects and absorbs. You may prefer that certain green-colored objects not be colored green. Your preference does not change the objective and absolute fact that these objects are green. It just means you don’t prefer them to be green.
I don’t think I believe this, although I suspect the source of our disagreement is over terminology rather than facts.
I tend to think of ethics as a complex set of facts about the well-being of yourself and others. So something is ethical if it makes people happy, helps them achieve their aspirations, treats them fairly, etc. So if, when ranking your preferences, you find that the universe you have the greatest preference for isn’t one in which peoples’ well-being, along certain measures, is as high as possible, that doesn’t mean that improving people’s well-being along these various measures isn’t ethical. It just means that you don’t prefer to act 100% ethically.
To make an analogy, the fact that an object is the color green is a fact about what wavelengths of light it reflects and absorbs. You may prefer that certain green-colored objects not be colored green. Your preference does not change the objective and absolute fact that these objects are green. It just means you don’t prefer them to be green.
...and also about how certain cells in your eye function. Which doesn’t change your analogy at all, but it’s sometims a useful thing to remember.