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Well, you see, it's not your arbitrary whims about what's moral or virtuous, it's someone else's arbitrary whims, so that makes it okay.

Less sarcastically, I will take the liberty of answering the question for him - I suspect that Corny is an inherently moral person, who is not simply one crisis of faith away from being a thief or pedophile or serial killer. He (she?) might find it shocking and dismaying if it were discovered that morality and virtue were concepts inherently created and defined by humans, rather than handed down by some otherworldly being, but I suspect he would recover from that relatively neatly and continue living according to these human concepts of morality and virtue. Naturally, I trust that cornelis will correct me if this is not the case, if I have somehow misjudged him ;)

... if it were discovered that morality and virtue were concepts inherently created and defined by humans, rather than handed down by some otherworldly being...

I don't think morality and virtue are inventions, although their codification in law and manners is.

I will answer for myself. I am perhaps excessively empathic. I didnt ask to be this way or work toward it; I just happen to be personally distressed by seeing others in pain or discomfort. I am personally made happy by the sight of others being made happy.

When I look around at the world I see people who vary in this tendency. Some I would say are amost pathalogically empathic, and some seem to be entirely lacking in empathy. I assume this is a trait like height or skin color that varies among individuals. To my way of thinking, laws are a kind of prosthetic for people lacking in empathy. They are also a shorthand way of making decisions without having to ponder the consequenses of every little thing we do.

Naturally, I trust that cornelis will correct me if this is not the case, if I have somehow misjudged him ;)

Certainly.

I don't find it shocking or dismaying. I actually do understand that morality and virtue are concepts created and defined by humans.

Plus, being a good Cartesian, I'll entertain a criticism of that view, namely, how do we know that this is the right concept?

Possible answers to his have already been given in the history of our books. All of them seen to follow something that Aristotle says about virtue. He says that ethics is living in accordance with a principle. He points out that this is more than simply material behavior since it involves choice. If we deny choice, that changes the rules and we have to start over and ask again, what is your understanding of virtue.