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True, but the brute fact of Ancient Rome is mute as to why the practice is immoral. And on your own terms you have no principle with which to condemn it.

I certainly do, which is the current knowledge of child manipulation and the long term impact. From Wikipedia, the long term effects can include "life-long depression, self injury, self-mutilation, Borderline Personality Disorder, Anti-Social Personality Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which often leads to a reduced corpus callosum), flashbacks, psychotic breaks with reality, alcoholism, substance abuse, promiscuity, celibacy, prostitution, an inability to form intimate relationships, self-hate, guilt, anger (which is often directed inwards as well as outwards), emotional hypersensitivity, defensiveness, a lifelong inability to trust others, emotional numbness, an attraction to partners who are dominant and/or abusive, and general mental deterioration including loss of IQ." I would classify the majority of the above conditions as suffering and simple, built-in human compassion should make anyone adverse to endorsing such.

If you don't have any problem with different cultures believing different things then you should have no problem with the Romans practice of child rape.

I do have a moral problem with actions that cause unnecessary or unwanted human suffering. To what or whom do I credit this moral compass? Our development as a social, trusting, compassionate society. Look at the natural world. Social species almost universally exhibit some form of altruism and a protective instinct for their society's members and culture (land, rituals, etc). Non social species exhibit these characteristics much less frequently.

If morality is societal convention on what basis do you condemn the Romans for not following the golden rule?

On the basis of compassion. If *I* would not like to be in someone's shoes.. I would expect they would not want to be in their own shoes.

If your specific morality comes from your society then Corrie Ten Boom was evil for following the golden rule instead of her societal norms when she risked her own life to hide Jews from the NAZIs.

In the eyes of the Nazis, yes. In our eyes, no. In the majority of humans, no. Why? The argument is compassion. It's a good argument that the great majority of people would accept. In that way, it's "objective".

However accurate the depiction of the long term impact of child manipulation is, it is still merely descriptive. It is not prescriptive; it does not say why one ought not to do that.

I do have a moral problem with actions that cause unnecessary or unwanted human suffering. To what or whom do I credit this moral compass? Our development as a social, trusting, compassionate society.

You are describing the way you think society developed, but you do not say why historical development creates an obligation to refrain from causing unwanted human suffering.

Look at the natural world. Social species almost universally exhibit some form of altruism and a protective instinct for their society's members and culture (land, rituals, etc). Non social species exhibit these characteristics much less frequently.

So what? A mere description of animals that have been conditioned by their environment to act in certain ways that benefit the survival of the species doesn't address why one ought to act with altruism and a protective instinct for society's members and culture (land, rituals, etc), especially if doing do conflicts with one's self interest.

In the eyes of the Nazis, yes. In our eyes, no. In the majority of humans, no. Why? The argument is compassion. It's a good argument that the great majority of people would accept. In that way, it's "objective".

You are describing subjective views of past human behavior, but you are not saying why is there an obligation to be compassionate, especially if doing so is conflicts with one's self interest.

Cordially,