Thank you for the answer.

Seemingly, moral behavior is the most basic thing imaginable and understood by everyone. For that reason, the gentiles are obligated in the seven Noahide commandments even if they never heard of them or of the Torah of Israel. Why should they be punished if they did not keep them? After all, they did not have their own Sinai revelation. Rather, clearly morality is embedded in human beings in every place and at every time, and there is no reason to command it. We expect everyone to observe it, and therefore whoever violates it is liable. If so, it is not clear to me why the Torah needs to tell us at all that the morality embedded in us is the divine will and that we must obey it even if it is not commanded. What is the Torah adding?

I really do not agree. On the contrary, the fact is that many who define themselves as atheists feel bound by morality. That is, there can be a view that morality obligates independently of God, or alternatively that if God did not command it then it does not obligate at all. So the Torah teaches us that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to behave morally.
It is true that in my notebook I showed that the view that morality can exist without faith is a philosophical mistake, but the fact is that many fall into that error. Others ground morality in convention or utility considerations, thereby emptying it of content. “And you shall do what is right and good” teaches that both of these are mistaken.

If I remember correctly, the Rabbi says in the series on Torah and morality that the command “and you shall do what is right and good” tells me that I can rely on morality, which at root comes from feeling.
Basically, the Torah tells me to trust morality, because it too needs intellectual approval and an anchor.

I understand. Basically, “and you shall do what is right and good” is a kind of philosophical anchor for human morality. We obey morality because it is the divine will. So in fact this is extremely important, because without that philosophical basis morality really has no meaning. But here the difficulty about the gentiles returns: why should the Torah obligate distant nations that never heard of the Torah of Israel and have no philosophical basis for morality at all, for failure to observe the seven Noahide commandments (or moral matters in general)? They were never commanded about this, and their basic morality has no philosophical grounding.

By the way, where can one find the series on Torah and morality?

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/0BwJAdMjYRm7INkVVWkswM3ozOEU?usp=drive_web

That is how I understood his words, maybe he will correct me.

He has a place on the menu with all the lectures.

Morality does not come from feeling but from reason. But that rational conclusion is based on belief in a commanding source, because otherwise we would think this is just some non-binding feeling embedded in us.

Someone who truly reached the conclusion that morality does not obligate him has no claim against him. He is under compulsion. The claim exists only against one who understood that there is binding morality and did not act accordingly.

Thank you very much, P.

And if someone is philosophically mistaken? For example, an atheist who believes in moral duty and does not understand that his position has no philosophical grounding—would his very belief obligate him regarding murder, for example?

There is philosophical grounding for his position, only he himself does not understand it. If he is moral, then he is in effect a covert believer. See my fourth notebook.

Seemingly he is דווקא a covert denier. In practice he believes in morality and observes it, but really his assumptions contain the assumption that morality has no meaning. If I am not mistaken, this is similar to what you say about various people who leave religion—that although they did observe commandments, their belief system was atheistic from the outset. And one could even say this about distant nations that can behave morally—they do not really know that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects them to behave morally, and therefore they are really covert deniers (in the moral context).

I do not understand that logic. How are they covert deniers? They are open deniers, since that is what they explicitly say—that they do not believe in God. But their commitment to morality points to an implicit belief of which they are not aware.

I will explain what I mean. Seemingly, one cannot say that someone is obligated by morality as long as he does not know that it is a divine command. That means that an ordinary person who never heard of the Torah seemingly should not be liable in a case of murder, since he was never commanded about it. This is just like the law of a child taken captive among non-Jews. Yet from the laws of the seven Noahide commandments it seems that one is liable for morality even without a divine command, and that is what is unclear to me.

First, belief in God does not mean belief in the giving of the Torah. God—and not the giving of the Torah—is a philosophical condition for moral obligation.

But there are many who do not believe in Him (that is what they declare), and nevertheless they are committed to morality. If they murder, there is room to hold them liable, since they understand that morality does obligate. What I noted is that this also points to an implicit belief within them, but that is not necessarily important for their moral responsibility for their actions. It is like someone who knows that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180, but does not know the axioms of geometry or the proof. Can we demand of him that he know this proposition and act accordingly? In my opinion, yes.

The laws of the seven Noahide commandments do not teach that one is liable without a command. Not at all. On the contrary, the descendants of Noah were commanded, and therefore they are liable. But for them the command is a condition for halakhic obligation, whereas here we are dealing with moral obligation.

Thank you very much for the reply; you helped me a lot in sorting this out.

With your permission, one more question on the topic: seemingly it appears from Avot (1:1) that all the moral matters appearing in that tractate originate in the tradition from Sinai. “Moses received the Torah from Sinai… they said three things…” etc. What is your view on this?

That does not seem right to me at all. There is a description of the transmission of the Torah, but that does not mean that the things brought there were transmitted as a tradition from Sinai. On the contrary, until Shimon the Righteous, no Torah teachings said by a particular person are presented there at all. The description of the transmission is laconic and anonymous, as though the transmitters are hollow pipes.
See my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9B%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%90-%D7%93%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%95-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%94%D7%95%D7%90-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%90-%D7%94%D7%95%D7%94-%D7%99/