&gt; <i>but it doesn&#x27;t make them not-bad.</i><p>I disagree. I&#x27;ve never found a coherent absolute ethical framework. Not even &quot;Don&#x27;t kill people.&quot;<p>When anyone is arguing that something is bad, that person has to appeal an authority or belief. Often the reasoning leads to utilitarianism: &quot;If we want society to continue, we should ban murder.&quot; But that&#x27;s still an if&#x2F;then statement. Beneath the if&#x2F;then is an appeal that society is good or desired.<p>&gt; <i>And humanity definitely has base instincts - if we didn&#x27;t, we wouldn&#x27;t need governments and police.</i><p>This viewpoint becomes popular with Hobbes in the 1600s. I disagree with the term &quot;base instincts,&quot; which negatively connotes those things. I&#x27;ll change it to &quot;randomness&quot;; i.e. in a society of nondeterministic people, some will try to kill the others. Government and police try to reduce that kind of randomness. But from that same randomness we get music, science, justice. I&#x27;m speaking loosely of course.<p>I think of my American government as social contract, not as protective parent.