Explaining morality as mere authority leaves its ultimate origin unexplained

Evidence

Without going back to this source, man appears a battlefield of drives and prohibitions equally devoid of meaning and contingent. All psychoanalysts systematically refuse the idea of choice and its corollary, the notion of value; and herein lies the intrinsic weakness of the system. Cutting out drives and prohibitions from existential choice, Freud fails to explain their origin: he takes them as givens. He tried to replace the notion of value with that of authority; but he admits in Moses and Monotheism that he has no way to account for this authority. Incest, for example, is forbidden because the father forbade it: But why did he forbid it? It is a mystery. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 126

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages Freud’s Moses and Monotheism; this is the existentialist challenge to Freudian authority-based ethics the reader wants for Continental foundations. — connects to: Morality precedes society and society merely manipulates an already-existing moral structure — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 514; Morality originally meant devotion of I to thou before being abstracted — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 6550; Moral obligations derive from objective ideality, not from society or individual will — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 356 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Lays out the existentialist objection: positing ‘choice’ and ‘value’ as prior to drives, contra Freud’s given drives and arbitrary prohibitions.

Broader Connections

• Morality precedes society and society merely manipulates an already-existing moral structure #expands (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 514
• Moral obligations derive from objective ideality, not from society or individual will #responds-to (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 356
• Moral capacity arises socially but not from societal institutions #qualifies (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 499
• Morality originally meant devotion of I to thou before being abstracted #qualifies (0.75) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 6550
• Explaining inhumane conduct alongside moral conduct is the harder test of moral theory #expands (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 50