I'm afraid I don't see those things as primitives.This is about moral primitives not about primitive morals.
A primitive is a basic element, like elementary particles are primitives in physics or a phoneme in linguistics.
While many view well being as the single primitive to that all morality can be traced back, I assert that at least three primitives have to exist for a full explanation of morality.
Well being is, of course, one of them but without
equality (fairness) the set is not complete. (In my personal view equality is even more important than well being but for the sake of argument I will assume that all primitives are of equal importance.)
But sometimes even well being and equality can not solve all moral questions. We also have to have
self-determination as a moral goal.
So, basically, Liberté, Egalité. Fraternité.
Do you agree?
Do you have a primitive to add?
Do you think the set can be reduced?
For me, the only real "moral primitive" is our human nature. And because our human nature is complex, so is the resulting moral world in which we find ourselves.
We are social animals that do something most social animals do not do: we can also think for ourselves. So yes, well-being plays a part, because the self (unlike bees or ants, other social animals) is not so ready to sacrifice itself for the good of the social unit.
Yet, as social animals, we require the support of our fellow social animals, and in return we give that support back -- but we are capable, when it suits our own purposes, of defaulting on that reciprocity.
But we are also intelligent animals -- we can reason from what is to what may result. And I think that's why Hillel's dictum works so well for me. Notice, for example, that it is subtly different from the usual Golden Rule of "Do unto others what would you have them do unto you." Rather, it reads (I paraphrase), "That which you wouldn't like done to you, don't do to anybody else."
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