In context here, a "rule" is shorthand for a general rule, not for any sort of algorithm whatsoever. A rule that describes a specific case by name is not a general rule.

That was mostly a joke :)

(My point, if you could call it such, was that morality need only be consistent, not simple - although most special cases turn out to be caused by bias, rather than actual special cases, so it was a rather weak point. And, apparently, a rather weak joke.)

Thought experiment: Go up to a random person and find out how they avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. Repeat with some other famous ethical paradoxes. Even if some of those have solutions, you can bet the average person 1) won't have thought about them, and 2) won't be able to come up with a solution that holds up to examination.

And yet, funnily enough,most people agree on most things, and the marginal cases are not unique for every person. Ethics, as far as I can tell, is a part of the psychological unity of mankind.

That said, there is the much more worrying prospect that these common values could be internally incoherent, but we seem to have intuitions for resolving conflicts between lower-level intuitions and I think - hope - it all works out in the end.

(Kawoomba has stated that he considers it ethical for a parent to destroy the earth rather than risk their family, though, so perhaps I'm being overly generous in this regard. pulls face)