Does "be predicated upon" mean "be predictably based on"?

Context:

Next, Harris goes on to outline what he terms a "science of good and evil" – a rational approach to ethics , which he claims must necessarily be predicated upon questions of human happiness and suffering. He talks about the need to sustain "moral communities," a venture in which he feels that the separate religious moral identities of the "saved" and the "damned" can play no part. But Harris is critical of the stance of moral relativism , and also of what he calls "the false choice of pacifism ." In another controversial passage, he compares the ethical questions raised by collateral damage and judicial torture during war. He concludes that collateral damage is more ethically troublesome. "If we are unwilling to torture, we should be unwilling to wage modern war," Harris concludes.