But isn’t that precisely what any number of the moral and political objectivists do? You’re either reasonable and think like them or you’re not and don’t.
But we still need a context. What is deemed reasonable and unreasonable in a particular set of circumstances? And how do individuals then connect the dots between things deemed rational to them and things deemed ethical?
How do you do it?
Or, for any number of religionists, the connection is made between behaviors deemed sinful or not. Through God.
Or, for Buddhists, things deemed enlightened or not. Through…what exactly?
Cite some examples from your own life of behaviors you have witnessed [your own or others] that you deemed to be both reasonable and unethical.
Stealing is rational for an individual - he gets stuff for nothing. But it’s damaging to a society to have people stealing. It’s considered unethical in practically every community. (Yeah, some communities consider it okay to steal from those outside the community but within the community, it’s a wrong.)
Ethics is about groups of people.
For an individual, there has to be a balance between self-interest and group-interest. You could say that someone who steals has too much self-interest, he’s misjudging, he doesn’t see the benefits or consequences, but you can’t say that it’s irrational.
But how does that change the unimaginably vast sets of circumstances that any particular individuals might find themselves in that shaped and molded their thinking and behaviors in regard to stealing this particular thing in this particular situation? You can pile up your “general descriptions” of human social, political and economic interactions but where are the philosophers/ethicists able to come even close to the role that God/Enlightenment plays for the religious here?
Or what of those who argue that property itself is theft? Those who insist that the capitalist system is inherently immoral. That “stealing” can all be perfectly legal if the laws sustain only the interests of some and not others. Or considerably more the interests of some than others.
Or those who scoff at all of these “intellectual” scrapes and are quite content to go on acting out only that which they construe to be in their own selfish interest?
And then those “here and now” about to gobble up the biggest slices of pie pork as the federal government here in America doles out billions trillions to “the corporations” as the coronavirus wrecks the lives of millions that don’t have access to connections on K Street.