How are objective ethics established in a secular world of tolerance and moral relativism?

A wise man once wrote a story about a sailor at sea who one day asked some basic questions he had never asked before; like how does the boat even stay afloat? How does the boat navigate its course amidst other boats traveling in its own shipping lanes and what was he even doing on the boat swaying back and forth on the high seas in the first place? You might ask how on earth that has any relevance to do with the topic of discussion. I’ll get back to that later.

But on a personal note I’ve always wondered how does one in a secular society find what grounds them in life to be who you are and what you value and hold dear? How do you establish this value that you’ve found in your own existence and what is the cause of such necessity to uphold this point of view of reality in your life right now? What is the grounding and foundation for you arriving at this conclusion? What are the criteria that you’ve used and based this upon to reach such a conclusion?
Also how does this fit in with what other people view personally and their own outlook and perspective on life? Are we to all have the same opinion on life or is it better to have and uphold uniquely differing opinions on life instead? Can there be leeway for a multiplicity of views and whose views are to give that leeway? What is the basis upon this leeway and flexibility that you’ve given in your own personal views and outlook on life? How are you able to be tolerant of other world views and incorporating of these other views and to what point are you willing to sacrifice your personal views to include these other differing views as a possible candidate to replace your own?

But why even care? Why do you even care first of all about what grounds you as an individual? Why do you even care about what grounds others as an individual and how does that affect you or does that even affect you in the first place? Why would it possibly even affect you in the first place? Can we function as a society without placing value on what actions we consider we must ought to do and must ought not to do? But then if we establish such an action as what we must ought to do or must ought not to do then we are implicitly establishing a necessity of such action to be a correct or incorrect one and thus true to begin with or not true instead. But how did we get there and why do we and would we even care to begin with?
But you cry foul, alas we can and would care because we need to establish the right conduct for a civilized society to function in the first place, you missed that obvious fact which you even pointed out previously a few sentences ago!!! Sure but you are missing one important point why would I care whether society continues to function or not in the first place? What if my own personal choice in what I’ve decided is the truth is anarchy for the masses!!! Once again we are left begging the question what is truth and how did we get there!!!

I remember a young man that as a teenager wanted nothing to do with society for all he cared society could crash and burn, after all why as an individual would I want to contribute to a society where the whole purpose in your working career was to suck up to people and possibly even lie about other people to get ahead, get a promotion and climb the corporate ladder. We can all pretend that doesn’t happen but we’ve all probably come across stories from people we know that have had something like that happen to them. Why would we deny that exists, why would we want to deny that exists in the workforce? It is just part of evolution really to out survive your fellow colleagues in this rat race after all. But this view as a young teenager is just an odd ball view right? I’d like to think so but I can distinctly remember many teenagers with an anarchy symbol on their backpacks as they headed off to school as a high school student. It reminds me of a saying from a quite well known and famous punk rocker whose very words were something along the lines of “Anarchy in the U.K” of course I believe that song starts off with “I want to be an anti-christ…” and “I wanna destroy the passer by…”. Of course I believe that same fellow Johnny Rotten ended his career with the words at the end of the very last concert they performed by muttering to the crowd with his cockney English accent “Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”. Why Johnny, why Johnny Rotten would you ever cry foul about being cheated? Did your anarchy not work out according to plan and how you liked it? But you got what you wanted. Why would you have any ill feelings over being cheated? It reminds me of what Richard Dawkins once said that in this life some people are just going to be more privileged than others which is true, some are also going to be more fit than others to survive and make more significant progress than others, some are also going to be fit enough and smart enough to cheat on others so they go without, why if you have been cheated on would you ever have any ill feelings about it, it is just part of evolution after all, a theory that apparently is so profound and glorious why would you have an animosity towards it besides adulation and praise instead?

Getting back to the story of the sailor at sea, the wise man who mentioned this story was none other than C.S Lewis himself and as Ravi Zacharias pointed out the man at sea asking himself why does the boat even stay afloat reflects our own personal ethics and how they stay afloat, the man questioning how the boat navigates its course with other boats in its midst reflects the social ethics and how they interact with other peoples ethics which one gives leeway if any does at all and how well does that work. The man questioning why he was even at sea at all in the first place reflects the essential ethics i.e. why we would even care to ask these questions in the first place. It reminds me of another wise ancient teacher who also used to talk in parables who once said “but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14 of course it was also stated by him, God to his prophet Isaiah as well in the book of Isaiah chapter 44 verse 3 “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessing upon your stock”. Truly I tell you these living waters are what keeps all of us vessels afloat.