Missing Something

Here's a section from my paper.  I have a suspicion that I'm missing something obvious here.  If someone sees it, let me know.


 An act’s appropriateness or rightness, rather than being determined by a single factor, relies almost entirely on context in its evaluation.  While consequences may be considered, they are not the exclusive determining factor.  So an act may be considered moral or right if it is done in a right way, for the right reasons, with the right object, at the right time, or perhaps any combination of these or more elements.  Aristotle’s is perhaps the most famous example of a system of this kind.  But what determines the rightness of a certain action in certain circumstances?  I suppose that this could be determined by social codes or subjective notions, but there seems an overarching principle lying behind such possibilities to the effect of, “you should obey social codes, etc.”  But if this is internal to the system, just another social code, as it were, it provides no outside justification for adhering to the system.  A person must therefore, for no moral reason, decide to willingly place herself within the subjective justificatory system.  What sort of reason would she have, then, to perform certain kinds of moral action if not a moral reason?  One could, of course, argue that it is a pragmatic consideration, and that it is simply easier or that it works practically.  Then the ground of the morality of the system is either non-moral, which seems impossible, or morality is defined as that which works best (understood in a practical sense) in a certain situation.  The Stoics are perhaps most closely allied with this view, stating that one should act according to the law of nature.  Things are designed to run smoothly in a certain way, and one should go along with the flow of the universe, in a sense, without resisting.  This is virtue (arête).