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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics, which he claims must necessarily be predicated upon questions of human http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism, and also of what he calls "the false choice of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifism." In another controversial passage, he compares the ethical questions raised by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage and judicial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.