But my feelings are so strong about certain matters--for example, my ire when witnessing deliberate cruelty--that it makes me think that there is something intrinsic to the act of cruelty itself that I am recognizing objectively.
Anyone else feel this way?
Of course. Someone who didn't feel that way we would consider a sociopath.
The utilitarian position on this is that the feelings associated with morality are so strong because what morality is dealing with is your most fundamental sense of security. We have moral rules to protect us against the actions of others: 'thou shalt not kill' to ensure that we don't have to spend all our time worrying about being murdered; 'thou shalt not steal' so we don't have to protect our property all the time.
Your feeling of anger when you see an act of cruelty is a pretty impressive sense of empathy when you think about it. You're seeing the person or animal being mistreated as something like you, something that feels just the same as you would under the same circumstances. So, in a sense, the anger you feel has a very personal root - it's just the same anger you would feel if you were the thing being mistreated.
It's just this ability to empathise with another that a sociopath is incapable of. A sociopath, for whatever reason, has never learned that social skill of extending his own self-interest to the interests of others.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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