[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

There are two dominant perspectives on what moral values consist of. I'll call them "from above" and "from below". All of the other moral systems, utilitarianism, natural law, divine command ethics, moral relativism, nihilism, they all fall into one of these two categories.

The "from above" view does NOT require some big in-the-sky deity. All it states is that moral value exceeds individual acts, and individual acts can have the property of the value. In other words, there is something external to an action that can either apply or not apply, and that something is not determined by the act itself. An act can be "good", and that "good" means something apart from the act itself.

The "from below" view holds that there is nothing that exceeds the act itself, and that all moral language is only just language - it is a way of grouping together a bunch of features about certain kinds of acts, and referring to them by common characteristics.

...
So, here's how this fits. I think it is impossible to get from naturalism (atheism, lack of any non-material or non-natural dimension to reality) to any of the "from above" view on morality.

More than that: Even people who end up believing in a "from above" view have to use a "from below" methodology to decide which one to follow.