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Are the results of both purely local - so there can't be universal rules for anything?
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OK, I probably dodged this one. (Although the point I wanted to make is the one that Beppe followed through). Let's see if we can distinguish between technical knowledge and moral knowledge.
Technical knowledge can be seen as a series of If ... Then statements, something like a computer programme. If you want to bake a cake, then you do this, this, and this. If you follow the programme correctly, there is a measurable and predictable difference to the world. If something goes wrong, either the statements were mistaken, or you didn't follow them correctly, or the world entered an unexpected space/time discontinuum.
Moral knowledge is not of this kind. The results of your behaving according to your moral code are not predictable, nor do they have a regular effect upon the world. Morality, like art, is essentially unconstrained by instrumental considerations. That's why we are suspicious of certain approaches to religion: giving a coin to a beggar because that will earn you a place in heaven is, we feel, hypocritical (which is why grace is preferred to works).
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Would you agree that reading Plato & Aristotle affects our understanding and brings them into our conversation?
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I can't read either Plato or Aristotle: I don't have the Greek. Even those who do have the Greek argue about the meanings of key terms, such as 'katharsis' (or at least, that is what Malcolm Heath says in the introduction to his translation of the 'Poetics'.
Most of the texts that we know have come to us through the filter of Roman Catholic theology. Our understanding of what Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and so on said is still wrapped in theological garments. That's part of what I meant when I said that our moral conversations are post-Christian.