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This is exactly the problem of most secular ethical systems. As you say, in the end they have to be honest and just admit that they are subjective, relative and underspecified.
Bootstrapping ethics and morality from bottom up does not work and it was admitted since Hume that it is bankrupt endeavor. The main problem being that if you adhere to any kind of humanism and secularism where you start with human mind as the presupposition, then you do not have access to any justified universals. The frustrating thing is that many people holding these ethical systems either do not understand this conundrum, or they are just willfully ignorant about them.
This is often much worse for these supposedly "intelligent" people, especially if they adopt some form of utilitarianism and consequentialism, where they can rationalize their delusion and sometimes outright schizoid view of the world to promote a very let's say "interesting causes". Just look at Effective Altruism that is supposedly filled in with the smart people and they care about topics like insect welfare, rationalization of how purchase of 15th century UK luxury manor Wytham Abbey is actually in line with utilitarianism and many more.
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