What Is The Good?

If so many people think they are right and good, how do we define philosophical ethics to show that it is an alternative?

First things first. If fundamental questions, without answers, are necessary as discussions, then this is where people learn. They take a philosophy class and argue about whether the table is really a table. They laugh and get sarcastic and fall asleep. But eventually they discover Russell's book and learn that there really is a way to look at the questions as "problems" in philosophy. Once they take this seriously they argue about whether there can be an answer.

Eventually perhaps they succumb to the notion that, on the fundamental level, the answers are not available or possible.

From here a more open-minded perspective can lead them to ethics.

If I can show who or what created the world, I can spend my time making it a better world. Does this mean going out and being an activist? Because if you look at philosophy departments you will see "applied" philosophy everywhere and this is the "going out" and doing that we are talking about. The department leads students on field trips to debates about the environment and about corporate ethics in a capitalist society. But is this philosphy?

I would say no.

The first step is the unanswerable questions. But the next is more positive. The next is building an autonomous moral system in the spirit of what's been learned, in the spirit of objective possibilities (real ethics) but attuned to one's understanding of human nature and society.

What is an autonomous moral system within the context of philosophy? That is the question.