I am an atheist in the sense that I have a deep and abiding faith in the non-existence of god(s). More precisely, I believe I can objectively argue for agnosticism (one cannot empirically prove or disprove the point) and so either belief for or against the existence of deities is a leap of faith.

I am not alone in this belief and I've seen many discussions trying to argue and synthesize a uniform ethic e.g. secular humanism, for an objective moral standard we can all live by in a post theistic society. Having found too much sophistry in these debates I tried to formulate my own and have come to the conclusion that, at a fundamental level, no such moral standard exists.

And yet morality does exist and in and of itself cannot be eliminated except through the death of the moral agent. What else is ethics if it is not the value system by which we rank order our possible behaviors and choices.

In a seemingly independent line of thought I consider the arguments of the anarchists, specifically my moderate exposure to anarchistic philosophy through the character of Professor Bernardo de la Paz in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress who described himself as a rational anarchist.
It recently occurred to me however that the anarchists are arguing the same conclusion I have drawn in my ethical pondering but limited specifically to the role of governments.

What I am seeking to relate here is that the anarchists arguments are not occurring at a low enough level. It should start at ethics rather than politics. In one sense politics is the use of force, but in another broader and more fundamental sense it is the collective expression of individual ethics. People of common values band together to actualize those values. They conflict with other coalitions and war or negotiate or debate. They simplify their affiliation with identity symbols such as "Party" or "Nation" or "Peoples" or "Tribe" depending on the specific individual values they are collectively promoting.

Nietzsche's warning about the violence which would ensue when we, by killing God, lose the presumption of a unifying ethic, have painted the 20th century in crimson and we cannot disregard his vision in that he so accurately predicted his future. But we must step off that runaway train or ride it to our common doom. I believe the first step is to acknowledge that ethics starts and stops at the individual level. All social actions be it wars or market bubbles or whatever, reduce down to individual actors (although of course there are emergent phenomena in their group interaction).

The question then before (each of) us is how to negotiate the best path forward (in each of our own value systems) in a world of individuals each with their own flavor of moral value. With whom is there no chance of compromise and with whom our only option is war. With whom can we compromise without compromising away all that we value? With whom can we exchange quid pro quo so that each of us gain more of that which we value than we could have alone? And for what are we willing to sacrifice our own personal interests because we value and love that ideal above all else we might hold dear?

I don't think we can move forward except from this morally agnostic position. But I would make one last point that our ethics, our system of values is an organic developing and self reflecting system. It contains its own "meta" in some sense and we must account for this also when we seek to influence the behavior, knowledge, and opinions of those other moral actors we meet in the world.