One of the things that is not under our control, either individually or collectively, is what makes some things morally right and other things morally wrong. We do have the power, both individually and collectively, to claim that something is moral even if it isn’t, or to claim that something is immoral even if it isn’t. But we don’t have the power to make something moral that is really immoral or to make something immoral that is really moral.
Suppose someone says he agrees with this, and then adds, “But I have a power that should interest you. If you’re worried about how to know whether something is moral or not, I’ll tell you: whatever I command is moral.”
I might then ask him, along the lines of the question Socrates asked Euthyphro in Plato’s dialogue, “Do you command it because it is morally right, or is it morally right because you command it?”
Suppose he answers, “If I command it, it is morally right; and if it is morally right, I command it.”
Playing along, I might then ask, “Well, what do you command?”
Imagine he answers, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.”
“Anything else?” I imagine myself asking.
“No. Everything else follows from those two commandments, if they really are two and not just one said in two different ways.”
I might then respond by saying, “It sounds like you think you’re God. Does anyone else have this same power, or only you?”
I imagine him answering that anyone who issues those same commandments, and only those two (or one), has the same power.