I would not expect them all to have associated with those attitudes some compelling moral reality beyond their own moral sense, any more than they would associate "yummy" with compelling cosmic yummyness.

This may be a bad comparison. "Yummy", once you break it down into specific preferences over flavors, corresponds very, very well to food chemistry.

I wouldn't expect them all to have conceptually alienated their moral sense as some inexplicably compelling force, though I see how such conceptual moral alienation would be possible, likely, and would serve the interests of those who would manipulate the alienated, particularly when they are in a position of relative power in the first place.

Effective manipulation of the moral sense is the true steel, and alienation of that moral sense is a powerful start.

Ooooh, I sense a Marxist talk coming on? Go on, go on!