Moral arguments

What is the value in making moral arguments? By moral arguments I mean arguments that we should adopt some norm or policy or such because it is good, or right, or just.

I cannot think of an example of an argument commonly made of the form, "X may lead to unpleasant consequences, but we must nevertheless adopt X because it is right." In fact, the only times I can remember hearing such lines of reasoning are when people are defending their chosen rationalization of our innate urge to adapt to our culture's mores. Take the streetcar argument. Your typical deontologist will argue that we must never force someone to serve as a means to another's end, that all humans are ends in themselves. Very nice. But consider a runaway streetcar, headed towards a crowd of schoolchildren. The brakes are gone, but you, the driver, can divert the streetcar onto another track. On this track, it will only hit one very sick old man, whom you recognize and know has not long to live anyway. Most psychologically normal human beings would say that the situation is unfortunate, but of course diverting, killing the old man, and sparing the schoolchildren is the only decent thing to do. The deontologist, possessed, as Max Stirner would say, by "spooks," says no! Justice, though the heavens fall, and our brave Kantian would let the schoolchildren die. (The argument goes through many permutations as the Kantians try to escape the implications, but I think the Kantian attempts just further their critics' point; the Kantians know their beliefs, ultimately, fail.)

Utilitarians have the same trouble, facing such fearsome beasts as utility monsters (let's say that one man feels so much pleasure from watching ten men suffer that society's net utility is increased by letting him torture them; should we do so?) and going through similar permutations as the possessed try to rationalize the irrational and fit their inbuilt, culturally conditioned sense of morality to some rationalistic framework. All moral realists, or more precisely moral rationalists fail precisely because the moral sense is not a product of reason and does not obey the rules of logic. I could go on about this all day, but back to my main point: what is the use of moral arguments, especially in politics?

We're libertarians here, and we argue for a more or less specific set of political policies and social norms. Of course we think society will be better- more peaceful, more prosperous, more free, more pleasant- if our policies and norms are adopted. All libertarians think this, as, mutatis mutandis, do all socialists, neoliberals, etc. No one argues for any political ideal because they think it is right despite thinking the condition of society would be worsened by adopting it. So why can't we take it as read that everyone thinks their ideals are moral and morally necessary and concentrate on function: on whether or not society will actually be improved by whatever is in question, whether a society adopting X will be more or less pleasant to live in.

The objection will be raised, "Why not try to persuade people that their ideals are immoral, and that ours are moral, and that they therefore should adopt ours?" The answer is implied above: just as no one says, "Yes, we will all be worse off if we do X, but nevertheless we must," no one says, "Even though I think society will be bettered by X, I have been persuaded that X is immoral and must be abandoned." (Well, perhaps ethical philosophers do, but I am restricting myself to psychologically normal adult human beings. The possessed behave in strange ways.)

Anyway, that is why I think moral arguments are useless. Excoriate me below.