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I am not sure the possibility of an objective basis is taken seriously enough.
Yes but there is a spectrum of meaning. There is the ephemeral meaning of hedonistic pleasure or satiation (I want a doughnut). But we sacrifice shallow for deeper meaning; unrestricted sex for love, intimacy, trust and family. Our doughnut for health and better appearance. And then we create values that span wider spatial and temporal areas. For something to be meaningful it will have to matter (be a positive force) in an as much as possible wider spatial area as well as extend (as a positive force) into the future.
Moral relativism, if properly followed to its conclusion, equalises good and evil and renders the term 'positive' void. And then:
Since we are considering evolution we can make the case that cultures evolved a morality that corresponds to certain ways of being that, though not objectively true, approximate deeper objective principles. An evolution of ideas.
I think the problem we are facing is that, since such principles were evolved, they are not discovered through rationality but through trying them out. The danger is that if we do not find rational evidence quickly (or more efficiently explore our traditions with humility) we might dispense with core ideas and have to wait for evolution to wipe the erroneous ideas out.
Human morals, human preferences, and human ability to work to satisfy those morals and preferences on large scales, are all quite successful from an evolutionary perspective, and make use of elements seen other places in the animal kingdom. There's no necessity for any sort of outside force guiding human evolution, or any pre-existing thing it's trying to mimic, therefore we shouldn't presume one.
Let me give an analogy for why I think this doesn't remove meaning from things (it will also be helpful if you've read the article Fake Reductionism from the arch... (read more)