I believe I addressed that point in the following sentence that you seem to have passed over: "As for those doctors who are made to study calculus despite not feeling particularly inclined towards the subject, the fact that people wish to learn doesn't mean that they want to learn everything, and especially doesn't mean that they want to learn what someone else orders them to learn."
Sorry - maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not saying we should resolve where it comes from, I'm asking you where you think it comes from.
And I'm declining to get into that right now.
But on the other hand, if we can't tell the difference between universal truth and someone's opinion of what that truth is, how do we know there is such a thing? Even if I grant your assertion that such universal truths exist and are not matters of opinion, I don't see any way for some third party to differentiate between your "universal truth" and my personal opinion, especially if I forego the label of opinion and present my opinions as matters of universal truth.
I agree it doesn't present a cut and dried solution, but it involves having a certain amount of faith that, on the deepest levels, we all have the same understanding, or ability to understand moral truth, even though as different individuals may try to convince themselves otherwise - something you might call "living in denial". For example, I think we've more or less settled the issue between us about a human right to life. I think it's a pretty safe bet (though there's no way of testing it objectively) that pretty much anyone who would be completely honest with himself, would know that he has a right to live and to not have pain inflicted on him needlessly, and the general right to be left alone, unharassed by others. And as I've said earlier, once he could see that, it's easy enough to extrapolate and say that if he has these rights, everyone else does, too. But you're right, there are some who'd come up with a whole plethora of arbitrary rules for people, and claim that they're speaking from universal truth. All I can say is that I believe that they're not being honest with themselves, or they're not being honest with us. But if you are being honest, and you know something to be true, it doesn't make it any less true if you can't prove it objectively, and it doesn't lessen your obligation to act on that truth. Not easy, I know, but such is our lot in life as mortals.
LOL - even if I let you off the hook here, I don't think you'll be able to avoid that question forever. Sooner or later, the answer will have to come, and then I think you'll find that a surprising number of people on this earth are of the opinion that your "universal" truth only applies to a "universe" that consists almost entirely of the Christian West. IOW, your claims to universal truth are going to evaporate as soon as you present where you think those universal truths come from to the athiest, the Hindu, the Shintoist - okay, maybe not the Hindus. IIRC, part of Hinduism is the belief that everything is an extension of their gods, including other religions. They'd claim your God as nothing more than a facet of theirs ;)
Be that as it may, claims to universal truth can only carry weight with someone who already accepts the thing you are using as a foundation - you can really only preach to the choir, so to speak. Unless you're going to duck the question ;)
I agree it doesn't present a cut and dried solution, but it involves having a certain amount of faith that, on the deepest levels, we all have the same understanding, or ability to understand moral truth, even though as different individuals may try to convince themselves otherwise - something you might call "living in denial". For example, I think we've more or less settled the issue between us about a human right to life. I think it's a pretty safe bet (though there's no way of testing it objectively) that pretty much anyone who would be completely honest with himself, would know that he has a right to live and to not have pain inflicted on him needlessly, and the general right to be left alone, unharassed by others. And as I've said earlier, once he could see that, it's easy enough to extrapolate and say that if he has these rights, everyone else does, too. But you're right, there are some who'd come up with a whole plethora of arbitrary rules for people, and claim that they're speaking from universal truth. All I can say is that I believe that they're not being honest with themselves, or they're not being honest with us. But if you are being honest, and you know something to be true, it doesn't make it any less true if you can't prove it objectively, and it doesn't lessen your obligation to act on that truth. Not easy, I know, but such is our lot in life as mortals.
Or, if I might be so bold as to restate - first we start with some axioms. Some people might claim certain things as axiomatic that ought not to be, so we'll need to discuss and decide which of those proposed principles are actually axiomatic, and which we'll actually use to guide us. Then, we'll reason our way to the law itself.
See, now I'm reading this and wondering what we're disagreeing about in the first place.... ;)