> What defines "happiness" and welfare is itself heavily rooted on morality, so that statement is self-contradictory. Hell, the idea in itself that "happiness" is something to strive for is a moral concept.
And while nobody can agree exactly on the morality of every single action, people do have broad agreements about moral principles: it's what defines most religions.
Not all, it's the exact opposite. Religions are the worst guides for morality.
Happiness is much easier to derive broad consensus about, simple things like health is preferable to sickness, alive is preferable to dead, safety is preferable to harm, etc...
This is simple consequential ethics, which has guided society for millennia. Societies that follow these simple principles thrive, those that don't wither out and die. And you don't need any knowledge about morality to achieve it.
Whether religions uphold good or bad moral codes is inconsequent to my point, which is that they demonstrate the existence of broad agreements about morality between millions of people.
This is simple consequential ethics, which has guided society for millennia. Societies that follow these simple principles thrive, those that don't wither out and die.
Those principles you're talking about are exactly the principles that asgard1024 mentioned; and that "societies that follow [them] thrive" is exactly why legality is rooted in morality - be it consequential ethics or not.
And you don't need any knowledge about morality to achieve it.
How can you have "broad consensus" without knowing what you're consenting? I think you're trying to separate "consequential ethics" from "morality", but that makes no sense, because as a normative ethical theory, "consequential ethics" is morality.
I think allowing homosexuals to marry is beneficial to society but I'm pretty sure that a huge majority of religious people disagree with that because they choose to follow the teaching of a book instead of following consequential ethics.
Not all, it's the exact opposite. Religions are the worst guides for morality.
Happiness is much easier to derive broad consensus about, simple things like health is preferable to sickness, alive is preferable to dead, safety is preferable to harm, etc...
This is simple consequential ethics, which has guided society for millennia. Societies that follow these simple principles thrive, those that don't wither out and die. And you don't need any knowledge about morality to achieve it.