If God does not tell us what is moral and what is not, then why do we need Him in order to determine the validity of morality?

If anything, it seems from what you write that we are the ones who determine what is moral and what is not according to agreements, not according to God, because God is not a directing body.

The analogy to science seems mistaken to me, because in science there is an objective truth that we simply need to discover by improving our empirical observations. For example, if one person claims that smoking reduces the chance of cancer and another claims that smoking causes cancer, one of them is empirically and objectively wrong by virtue of the fact that we have an objective measure that can decide who is right and who is mistaken (the measure of empirical experiments). In morality, we do not have a sufficiently objective measure other than consensus, but consensus in morality, unlike consensus in science, is something more subjective, and there is no objective measure by which the correctness of the consensus can be proven. And if there is no objective measure, then it really cannot be compared to science.

Likewise, consensus in morality can also be influenced by wealthy power groups that have enough money to launch huge campaigns that persuade people to adopt their moral outlook, and then the moral outlook changes not because we discovered the truth about what is moral and what is not, but because we were exposed to influential campaigns that persuaded us.

Because there is no objective measure of what is moral and what is not, it is impossible to neutralize variables here in order to determine whether a change in social morality stems from a genuine understanding by society of what is moral, or from an influential campaign that managed to persuade us.

I answered your first question. You can see details in column 456.
You did not understand what I said about science. This is not a comparison between morality and science, but a clarification that the existence of a dispute does not necessarily mean a multiplicity of truths (or the absence of truth).
And by the way, there are influences of intellectual fashions in science too. The picture you described is shallow and utopian. Thomas Kuhn addressed this. But as I said, this is not relevant to my point.

I think you missed my argument about the fact that morality has no objective measure, unlike science.

The existence of a variety of moral views in itself may not indicate symmetry between all the views, but when a variety of moral views comes together with the absence of an objective test that can determine what is moral and what is immoral, then in such a situation morality is less like science, because in science there is an objective test that can determine which theory is correct and which is not.

There are believers who argue that the Torah is the source of morality and that what is written in the Torah is the objective and correct standard for morality—with them the argument is different. But you argued that the Torah mainly presents Jewish law and presents less morality, so according to your approach it is not possible to derive our moral standard from the laws in the Torah. Therefore, it seems that according to what you are saying there is not really an objective standard that will help us determine what is moral and what is not moral. And if there is no such standard, then the default position is that all moral views are equivalent, or at least subjective, unless proven otherwise.

I didn’t miss it. You are pointing to a diagnostic difficulty. But the fact that we have no empirical way to know what the truth is does not mean that there is no truth. Beyond that, there are ways. The fact is that people are sometimes persuaded in a moral argument. Not always, but in science too it is not always the case. And finally, as is known, for me intuition is an observational tool, and so is moral cognition.

The claim that the source of morality is divine and therefore objective and eternal is refuted by the very fact that the Torah contains many laws that no religious person today would think are moral. How many religious people today would think that slavery, death by stoning for a child who rebels against his parents, execution for someone who smoked a cigarette on the Sabbath, and forced marriage to a woman who was raped, for example, are moral? A person who thinks that the source of morality is in the Torah must conclude that all these are completely moral, but how many religious people really believe that these are moral acts? It is not for nothing that they twist themselves into various explanations, such as that God did not determine that these are moral but only tried to improve behaviors that existed then—for example, He did not abolish slavery completely but tried to improve it by establishing laws that anchored this or that right of the slave. But it is clear that all these are after-the-fact excuses, after the religious world too was deeply influenced by Western moral conceptions and was pushed into a corner to find explanations for acts that are plainly immoral. If we were to ask a Jew from the period of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) or the Sages whether all these are moral, it is hard to believe that he would think not. Only today, after the influence of thinkers from the Enlightenment period, do religious people somehow try to find an explanation for how, in fact, all these are moral, but there is some reason or other why God approved them in the Torah and, in any case, after the destruction of the Temple they are not practiced in actual Jewish law, so one can relax.

In fact, the claim that there is absolute morality is merely a claim with no basis. While it is true that the very fact that morality depends so deeply on society, culture, history, different philosophical conceptions, and so on is not in itself a refutation of the argument that morality is absolute, one should turn the table and demand proof that morality is indeed absolute. So far, I have not heard such a proof. All the supporters of this view do is claim that this is the case, but never with convincing support. Everything we know about morality around the world and throughout history supports the claim that morality is not absolute, and whoever wants to argue otherwise—the burden of proof is on him. I would be glad to hear proof that morality is absolute that is not based on the assumption that it is.

A strange comment. What you write at the beginning is nothing but the reasoning for my view that Jewish law is detached from morality.
As for the second part, I can also ask you whether you have proof that what you see actually exists or whether it is a fantasy. People experience that there is valid morality. You can always argue against them that this is a fantasy and that they should bring proof (every proof itself relies on foundational assumptions, and therefore you can always claim that everything is made up). Regarding valid morality too, I simply ‘see’ it (that is, experience it directly), and therefore in my opinion there is valid morality. That is all. And that is how it is for the overwhelming majority of people in the world. See column 456.

You wrote this:

“But the fact that we have no empirical way to know what the truth is does not mean that there is no truth”

That means that given that we do not know what the truth is (assuming there even is such a thing), then the default position is that all approaches are for now equal unless proven otherwise (because any moral approach could in theory be the truth).

“Beyond that, there are ways. The fact is that people are sometimes persuaded in a moral argument”

The fact that people are persuaded may be related to the fact that the other side knows how to persuade, or perhaps stir feelings of guilt in them, or all sorts of other reasons.

“And finally, as is known, for me intuition is an observational tool, and so is moral cognition”

Intuition and moral cognition change depending on the subject of the dispute and depending on the culture.

There are people whose moral intuition tells them that euthanasia is one huge moral injustice and turns the state into a murderer under color of law, and there are those whose intuition tells them that it is moral to help people who are suffering.

There are people whose intuition tells them that abortion is a great moral wrong toward fetuses, and there are people who say it is legitimate because of a woman’s freedom over her own body—those are just two examples of situations of opposing intuitions; there are endless examples like that. How would you decide between them?

Where is the objective measure of intuition that will determine which moral view is more correct?

But we do know what the truth is. You are again returning to the same mistaken identification between our lacking empirical confirmation and our not knowing.
Anything is possible, and therefore everyone acts as he understands. One who experiences the existence of valid morality assumes that there is valid morality and does not see persuasion as some empty act, as you do. One who does not—does not. The same applies to intuition. This is not the place to get into it. I have columns and books about this.

I’d be glad if you could refer me to columns that discuss the topic, thanks.

Two Carts, Truth and Unstable.
Here on the site, see the columns on intuition, especially 653. And on morality, 456 and others.