David Hume asserted that something being wonderful does not imply that it ought to be. Facts and morals are unconnected (and vice versa) - an ought is not an is and an is is not an ought for they are two separate things
Logic proves him right.
Critics say that this does not mean that moral oughts are just feelings and opinions rather than truths. It just means logic is not the way to defend morality - something else is. I would caution that if logic can't do it that does not mean anything else can.
But most people, and all people some of the time at least, do think logically that a fact gives rise to an ought.
1 When you do what you ought to because you ought to, you are doing what is
moral.
2 The boy is feeding the poor.
CONCLUSION: The boy is morally good.
Essentially everybody is wrong about morality.
The argument is really an assumption or emotion disguised as an argument.
Many people merely feel that the boy is moral. That is all that they are doing and they don't want to admit it. Feeling somebody is moral is useless for the Nazis felt Hitler was moral. They will claim to know that the boy is moral which shows that moral thinking does have totalitarian inclinations. That is how ideology starts, "I know!"
The argument makes the assumption that if we can see the boy feeding the poor, we can also see he is morally good. This implies that you are ready to see him as morally bad if he does not. You falsely claim to KNOW he is. But that would mean judging somebody as evil just because you feel they are. Yet morality insists you have no right to do this. Christ said you must not judge by appearances but fairly. Feelings are no reason to condemn anybody's actions.
Here is another version of the argument. This time it is about morality but not morality as in helping others.
1 When you do what you ought to, you are doing what is moral.
2 The boy is going to Mass or saying a prayer.
3 The boy is morally good.
If the previous version of the argument was catastrophic this is terrible beyond words.
Moral philosophy is defined as a science of human nature - it is about what people are and what they are like. If this science finds people exhibit too much duplicity and error with regard to morality then that is one shocking science.
We conclude that if morality is hypocritical, then we can do without religion adding in "morals" that make it worse. The boy is being degraded by the argument no matter how good Christians feel about his behaviour.
LOGIC AND MORALITY
Christianity used to teach that those who hated the innocent deserved to be hated in return. Now it says that they deserve punishment but not the punishment of being hated. If that is true then retribution is wrong - and it has no right to punish anybody. Doing so is hatred. It falls into hypocrisy.
My point: Logic would say the older position was right.
If logic could defend morality, how good is that if some conclusions are immoral?
Also, we noticed how morality is not logically defensible but it is said it can be defended without it.
But surely morality would advocate for, "We can't control everything and should not try. A person has the right to demand that morality be logical and to oppose any attempt to base it on something other than logic"?
If it does not, then we have found a contradiction between morality and logic.
HAPPINESS
Many moralists stress, "People should seek to be happy." That admits that we like to be happy. It connects morals to what we are. We cannot want plenty of sex partners, money, glory and power for themselves. They are not ends in themselves. They are used to trigger the mechanism that allows happiness to be experienced.
If we are here to be happy, then we will and can wish it could be done with avarice and unbridled sex. So all that is wrong with rampant drinking and violent video role playing games is the health consequences. Otherwise if they open the door to happiness - even short-term - they are morally good! They are hypothetically morally good if you can engage in them without harm.
But notice this, "people should seek to be happy" is inconsistent . Should implies, "Force the person to do this on pain of retribution." But forcing a person to want to be happy or to try to be happy is self-contradictory. Happiness cannot be compelled. And to bring in retribution says, "Thankfully those who do not seek to be happy will suffer for it." If happiness is so good then it's a contradiction to say that somebody should be unhappy. To oppose somebody's happiness is to oppose their wellbeing and to act as if you hated them.
We cannot make our happiness happen. Rather we have to do things to let it happen. Working to be happy makes you fear that you will slide and lose the happiness. To turn the quest for happiness into a moral imperative shows that we have no idea what morality even means.
NECESSARY EVIL
To say action x is evil, is to put an ought-not in there. It implies an ought to do the opposite.
Evil, by definition, is that which has to be fought by necessary evil. Evil is that which cannot be tolerated. It says to you, "I am a situation that should not be let to happen. Hate me." So evil goes with a call to be hated. To hate an evil in a person is indirectly hating the person. No wonder people say that they hate the evil one has done and soon end up hating the person with it.
One notion people have is that where the evil is vanquished, good will flood into the vacuum. If I destroy an evil situation. I do not put good in it but put in a space for good to rush in. Strictly speaking I never directly work on good.
Why does that matter?
Because I see morality as being about being truly good - not this roundabout good. I see it as affirming my power to be actively good - which the vacuum image robs me of.
Last thoughts
Suppose that there is such a thing as right and wrong. If we do something, we cannot prove that it really was right or wrong. If we think we can, we are oversimplifying. Ought is not the coherent clear principle it is portrayed as.
"You cannot turn an is into an ought" is logical. Trying to find another way to do it, logically backfires.