Is there moral knowledge?

 Pablo Picasso's Demoiselles, 1907

Is there moral knowledge? this is a question of great importance.

without moral knowledge, it becomes difficult if not impossible to evaluate human actions.

getting these standards right has taken more than 30 centuries of human history.

moral norms are the generally accepted rules of most societies. 

there is a historic/evolutionary argument to be made for moral norms, since late homo erectus and homo sapiens.

the main point is that the human species could not have survived in groups without moral norms. these norms presuppose human society.

what are moral facts??

See the diagram; we start at the bottom, with "killing your own" in the herd. The obvious consequence of such action is the erosion of the social fabric. The elders impose a punishment. This has two consequences 1. they already have a sense of behavior modification through punishment, 2. they maximized group survival. 

1. & 2. are moral facts. 

What we mean by "fact" is not necessarily "2+2=4" or "H₂O is water." 

moral facts are "softer" facts. This means that they are not as hard as physical or mathematical facts. 

Take a look at these propositions:

"gender is softer than sex,"
"incest is wrong,"
"Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso is a masterpiece of Cubism,"
"Veuve Cliquot is a very good champagne,"

The four statements are correct, but they represent a different degree of factuality. We call these facts intersubjective.  It means that they are made true by many people who share points of view on the subject.

SO: A MORAL FACT  IS A MORAL NORM SUPPORTED BY THE BEST CONSENSUS.

Here is a diagram:

Process of consensus: see that the opinions leading to consensus are negotiated via cause/effect, inter-subjectively, from the outside into consensus, and from consensus into best consensus. best consensus is more reliable than regular consensus because they are more cogent to the world and thus more "resistant" to changes from the outside

BEST CONSENSUS CAN NOT BE PRODUCED OVERNIGHT.

Over the centuries, the slow layer-upon layer of reasons becomes a formidable value accumulation.  

AND YET THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT BEST CONSENSUS = TRUTH!!

There were many instances in the history of human thought when the best consensus of the time proved to be simply FALSE.