You're probably thinking like a consequentialist[1], but they're thinking like deontologists[2]. They are two totally different philosophical viewpoints on how you determine what is ethical.
Consequentialism says you look at something's effects and work backward from there. Deontology says you do it by interpreting some moral code. (Usually one received by divine revelation from a source wiser than you, which is why you'd believe you should do it that way.)
Obviously you're free to reject deontological ethics, but It's more accurate to say "I disagree with how they do ethics" than to say "what they're doing is not ethics".
if any arbitrary rule becomes ethics, then everything is ethics and nothing is ethics. Don't read outside becomes ethics, don't eat while standing becomes ethics, anything you can think of becomes ethics, and thus loses all meaning as ethics.
So I think its fair to say "random rules aren't ethics" instead of your qualification, which is what you get when you're so mired in the names of things you don't think that people can make statements on whether something is ethics or not, which is outright not true.
> you don't think that people can make statements on whether something is ethics or not
Ethics are subjective, not objective. I think people can make statements on whether something fits within their definition of ethics.
If you can think of an objective way to define ethics, one that all reasonable people operating in good faith would agree with once they heard it, then you'll have done something no philosopher has ever achieved.
Ethics are a function of values. First you place values on different things, like happiness or virtue or the preservation of life or obedience to god (if you think there is one). Then you work out the implications of how those values influence the decisions you make, and then you have ethics.
As long as you're doing this process, it's ethics. It's somewhat analogous to math in that once you define some axioms, then you can do math. Different people might choose different axioms, after which they won't agree on everything, but they're both still doing math.
Except that religious rules aren't 'random rules', they're believed to be of divine origin, there's no meaningful distinction between 'divine rules' and 'divine ethics', but there is a distinction between 'rules' and 'ethics'.
The moral position is against wearing fancy clothes that most can’t afford. Clothes are cheap now, but a modern parallel is to take a moral position against flying private jets.
That sounds like an expression of envy masquerading as moral uprightness.
It's one thing to dress modestly[0] and to exhibit moderation (circumstance will determine what is appropriate dress for the occasion, whether it is appropriate for one's station in life and within one's means, and so on). It is another to deny others goods simply because others do not have access to them. The latter is envy and a vice.
In the case of things like Elizabethan sumptuary laws ( https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/proclamation-against-exce... ), it was definitely an old money vs new money thing. Conspicuous consumption was disruptive to the social order, and tended to force an "arms race" of spending which led to a sort of "precarious upper class" situation who could afford it only by going into debt.
Does anyone have a well sourced "origin story" for why mixed clothes might have been prohibited in Judaism?
> Religious edicts are inherently an expressions of morality
That seems to misconstrue the nature of law, and we're talking about religious law here (though the distinction between religious and secular law is made first by Christ in Matthew 22:21). There is nothing inherently wrong about eating a cheeseburger per se. The combination of meat and cheese isn't intrinsically evil. So you have to ask what the purpose of these various restrictions are. Naturally, all law has a moral good in mind. That's what law does: it determines the moral or natural law within the given circumstances for a certain end, so a prudential element is involved (and still further in its application).
One answer is that these dietary and clothing restrictions exist as a discipline that perfects its practitioners spiritually. For example, Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays not because it is intrinsically immoral to eat meat on Fridays, but because canon law includes this restriction as an act of penance that is binding on all Catholics. Same with fasting required by canonical law. The discipline of self-denial, of the care shown to meet the law's requirements, its sacrificial nature, point to a higher end for which something is sacrificed. I mentioned penance, which is very important here, but the development of temperance is another, where temperance is the virtue of moderation and spiritual order, which is to say true freedom from the irrational, destructive, and slavish indulgence of the appetites that human beings easily fall into. There is also the cultivation of right obedience that conforming oneself to such practices facilitates. Willfulness is opposed to reason and reasonable faith and trust in divine providence, and human beings are well-versed in acting willfully and even against what they know is right (which is the definition of sin).
Another function of, e.g., Jewish dietary law was to set the Jews apart from other people in preparation for some divinely chosen end.
In any case, the point is that these prohibitions and restrictions are not necessarily condemnations of some behavior or practice as such, considered in itself. They can involve restricting practices that in themselves are morally good as an instrument for some other end. Sacrifice works that way. We sacrifice lower goods for higher goods.
For any given law there may be a preceding reason, but that reasoning is ultimately derived from some kind of base morality, hence my use of the term 'expressions'.
>One answer is that these dietary and clothing restrictions exist as a discipline that perfects its practitioners spiritually.
And what is the need to perfect oneself spiritually?
>Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays not because it is intrinsically immoral to eat meat on Fridays, but because canon law includes this restriction as an act of penance that is binding on all Catholics.
Penance is described by catholics as 'good', which is a moral judgement.
>We sacrifice lower goods for higher goods.
Right, but trading a lower good for a higher good is still an expression of morality, you're just preferring the greater good of the two.
Consequentialism says you look at something's effects and work backward from there. Deontology says you do it by interpreting some moral code. (Usually one received by divine revelation from a source wiser than you, which is why you'd believe you should do it that way.)
Obviously you're free to reject deontological ethics, but It's more accurate to say "I disagree with how they do ethics" than to say "what they're doing is not ethics".
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology