Peanut Gallery for Tanager & Wiploc on the Moral Argumen

[wiploc]

This is the peanut gallery thread for those who wish to comment on Tanager and wiploc's one-on-one discussion of the question of whether objective morality requires the existence of a god.

I couldn't fit all that in the title, above, so I just called it the moral argument.

Tanager and I won't post here until after our one-on-one thread closes. But we may respond to comments here in our one-on-one thread.

Exception: Once our one-on-one thread exists, one of us will come back here one time to post a link.

[wiploc]

The one-on-one discussion thread is up:

viewtopic.php?p=910824#910824

[Divine Insight]

Since you invited comments I'll bite:

In the OP of your Head-to-Head you make the following statements:

Tanager's position -- if I understand it -- is that objective morality is possible if a god exists, but not possible otherwise.

My own position is this prejudice: If objective morality is possible with a god, then it is also possible without a god; if it is not possible without a god, then it is also not possible with a god.

I have to agree with Wiploc on the above. I agree that objective morality would be independent of whether or not any God exists. In fact, if we are going to say that this God is "objectively moral" then there would need to be an objective moral standard that even this God would need to meet.

The problem with theological arguments for a need for an absolute 'Moral Authority' is that they fail to recognize that the 'authority' itself would still just be the subjective opinion of their God unless their God was forced to adhere to some sort of absolute moral code that somehow exists even beyond the control of the God himself.

So the idea that a God is required in order to have an 'absolute objective morality' fails even on a purely theological or philosophical level.

The Tanager then states the following:

By objective morality, I mean something like: "certain things are really good or evil and certain actions are obligatory or impermissible, regardless of one's opinions on the matter." These are truths about the thing or action itself, not truths about the person making the moral claim.

I actually agree with this idea on a level of pure philosophy. However, this doesn't appear to fit in with theology, especially not with Biblical theology.

Think about it. The Biblical God has clearly done things that would be considered to be immoral if a human had done them. So any attempt to appeal to any "absolute objective morality" with respect to the Biblical God would be a lost cause for sure. This is why theists often fall back to "Divine Command Theory". In other words, if God says it's ok, then this makes it ok. But that flies in the face of any absolute objective morality and places morality back on the ground of being totally subjective based on the whim of whatever the God feels like doing at any given moment.

~~~~~~

Finally, addressing this from a matter of pure practicality the following seems quite obvious to me.

Even humans can't agree on what constitutes sound morality. If there were such a thing as absolute morality shouldn't we think that people could agree on what that should be?

One of my biggest problems has to do with just looking at the behavior of the animal world. I've seen animals tear up other animals in the most horrific ways that would surely be "immoral" if there were any absolute objective morality to appeal to. This poses a huge problem of why a creator God would have created animals that conduct themselves in extremely "immoral" ways. (i.e. being naturally designed to do things that are clearly horrible and "wrong" by an human standards).

The argument here that theists often give is that animals don't know what they are doing. They can't tell right from wrong, so they are somehow 'exempt' from morality. But I say that this argument fails miserably. Because if the animals can't be held culpable, then their creator/designer most certainly should be held culpable for having designed them to behave that way.

Consider the following AR-15 Robot scenario.

Let's say that I design a robot that is armed with an AR-15 rifle with an unlimited magazine. I program the robot to simply shoot at anything that moves. Period.

Then I set the robot loose and be sure not to move until it has wandered beyond my sight.

Now there's a deadly robot wandering around armed with an AR-15 and it has been programmed to shot at anything that moves. When it eventually comes to a place where there are people moving around it starts shooting at them. Most likely killing many of them.

The police finally manage to destroy this deadly robot and they quickly discover that I'm the one who designed it and set it loose.

QUESTION #1: Should I now be held responsible for the deaths this robot has caused?

I can't imagine anyone suggesting that I should not be held responsible? Are you kidding me? They'd quickly give me life in prison and deservedly so.

And now for the more important question:

QUESTION #2: If a God has created and designed deadly animals that randomly attack and kill humans, how is that any different?

I suggest that it's no different at all. The creator of deadly animals who set them loose where they can kill innocent people may as well have designed the AR-15 Robot described above.

How is there any difference? There isn't.

So the mere fact that animals do not behave in a manner that is compatible with any 'absolute objective morality' pretty much seals the deal that if there is a creator who created and design them, either this creator cannot be moral, or there is no absolute objective morality.

Again, the only possible excuse would be "Divine Command Theory" and the idea that if a God subjectively wants to create deadly animals, then he's allowed to do it because "Absolute Objective Morality" doesn't apply to him.

So now, the idea that this God needs to exist in order for "Absolute Objective Morality" to exist makes absolutely no sense at all since he clearly would need to be exempt from it anyway.

I don't see how we can attribute absolute objective morality to a God unless we are going to embrace the idea that killing innocent humans is NOT immoral.

This would certainly change most people's idea of what morality should even be.

[William]

Essentially morality cannot exist independently of consciousness, and since consciousness is only ever a subjective reality, as in it's predominant position is one of subjectivity, then objective morality doesn't actually exist. This does not of course mean that morality cannot be sourced in GOD, if indeed GOD is the source of all that is and = Consciousness (as in, is the source of all consciousness.)

[William]

[Replying to post 3 by Divine Insight]

Think about it. The Biblical God has clearly done things that would be considered to be immoral if a human had done them. So any attempt to appeal to any "absolute objective morality" with respect to the Biblical God would be a lost cause for sure. This is why theists often fall back to "Divine Command Theory". In other words, if God says it's ok, then this makes it ok. But that flies in the face of any absolute objective morality and places morality back on the ground of being totally subjective based on the whim of whatever the God feels like doing at any given moment.

I have been thinking about this idea lately. It appears that something once deemed...'pagan' (for want of a better word) or simply unacceptable - once put through the 'wash and rinse cycle' of Christendom becomes 'sparkly clean and pure'.

One example current to now is 'Easter'.

Christmas is another.

The crucifix, another.

As Christendom has invaded other cultures, it has adopted those other cultures 'paganism' and basically made it acceptable when ... 'washed in the blood of Christ' so to speak.



This is one image presently circulating the internet...

[Divine Insight]

Essentially morality cannot exist independently of consciousness, and since consciousness is only ever a subjective reality, as in it's predominant position is one of subjectivity, then objective morality doesn't actually exist. This does not of course mean that morality cannot be sourced in GOD, if indeed GOD is the source of all that is and = Consciousness (as in, is the source of all consciousness.)

The only problem with the idea that 'morality' is sourced in a God who is itself a subjective conscious entity, is that then even God's morality is nothing more than the subjective opinion of the God. So this still wouldn't make it 'objective' or 'absolute'.

As I pointed out in my previous post, this then reduces to "Divine Command Theory" where anything the God decides to do is automatically 'moral' simply because God himself decided to do it. This would then still be a 'subjective morality' that changes dynamically depending on the mood the God happens to be in at the moment.

Another way to look at this is that this then boils down to absolute moral 'authority', rather than an absolute objective morality.

The problem with this is that then the very concept of 'morality' becomes a concept of authority. Whoever has the highest power automatically has the final say in what they subjectively deem to be moral or immoral. Including allowing for exceptions when the moral authority himself decides to violate his own previous declarations of what constitutes morality.

Obviously if there exists an entity that is omnipotent and no one could resist or defeat his power of authority over them, then that authority has the final say in everything. But is that truly compatible with a concept of 'morality'?

I wouldn't think so.

So any so-called 'morality' that is sourced in a conscious entity who gets to decide subjectively what he deems to be moral or immoral on the fly seems to fly in the very face of any concept of objective morality.

And if this God-consciousness must conform to some absolute objective morality himself, then he cannot be the 'source' of that absolute objective morality.

So the very idea of any God being the 'source' of morality is riddled with extreme problems. Even if that God just happens to only do things that are 'absolutely good' by everyone's subjective agreement, and no one could argue against them. There would still be the question of why this God is behaving this way? If he's doing so because he chooses to do so via his pure free will choice, then by what standard can we say that his choices are 'moral'? Just by majority consensus?

And if he has no choice but to do what's moral, then there must exist an absolute moral code that even transcends the God.

It either needs to be "Just God's Opinion". Or it needs to exist as some absolute moral code that even transcends the God himself.

So any attempt to try to have a God become the 'source' of some imagined absolute objective morality is highly problematic.

And finally, I can't imagine how anyone could argue that the things attributed to the God described in the Bible conform to any sense of 'absolute morality'.

The Head-to-Head debate they are having asks:

Does Objective Morality Require the Existence of God?

It seems to me the answer to the question must necessarily be "No". Because, if that were the case, then there would be no way to determine whether the God itself is moral. What standard could you compare it to? It would supposedly be the standard.

This especially becomes highly problematic in the case of the Biblical God because if God is the standard of morality, then the Biblical God either violates his own standards, or basically has none.

[William]

[Replying to post 6 by Divine Insight]

The only problem with the idea that 'morality' is sourced in a God who is itself a subjective conscious entity, is that then even God's morality is nothing more than the subjective opinion of the God. So this still wouldn't make it 'objective' or 'absolute'.

This is somewhat why I stated that 'objective' or 'absolute' morality doesn't exist.

'Somewhat' in that the idea of the source of subjective consciousness and any related morality therein needn't be described as "nothing more than the subjective opinion of the God" as if somehow subjective opinion doesn't count. Your expression implies that it doesn't count. Is that what you are saying?

Taking that to the level of human beings, we cannot conclude therefore that human opinion regarding morality is a valueless thing, any more than subjectivity or consciousness is.

Just because morality is not an absolute objective thing, does not mean is has no value as 'opinion'.

As I pointed out in my previous post, this then reduces to "Divine Command Theory" where anything the God decides to do is automatically 'moral' simply because God himself decided to do it. This would then still be a 'subjective morality' that changes dynamically depending on the mood the God happens to be in at the moment.

This implies that GOD is subject to moods in the same way humans are. Moods can be controlled, even through ones understanding of morality.

So the implication that moods determine morality based upon the idea that morality is shaped through opinions which are shaped through moods, is something of misdirection as far as argument goes.

Another way to look at this is that this then boils down to absolute moral 'authority', rather than an absolute objective morality.

The problem with this is that then the very concept of 'morality' becomes a concept of authority. Whoever has the highest power automatically has the final say in what they subjectively deem to be moral or immoral. Including allowing for exceptions when the moral authority himself decides to violate his own previous declarations of what constitutes morality.

Obviously if there exists an entity that is omnipotent and no one could resist or defeat his power of authority over them, then that authority has the final say in everything. But is that truly compatible with a concept of 'morality'.

I wouldn't think so.

So any so-called 'morality' that is sourced in a conscious entity who gets to decide subjectively what he deems to be moral or immoral on the fly seems to fly in the very face of any concept of objective morality.

One can argue that an ultimate position of authority is the best way to measure morality but this fails in relation to GOD and human beings because GOD allows human being to work it out for themselves and thus we can and we do assume what we like about said 'authority' and morality...so one would be best to make sure they 'get it right' on that opinion.
One can argue for example, that any stories re GOD making rules re morality which the GOD then breaks of commands humans to break are more likely fabrications than truth. It behoove the individual to learn to tell the difference...even as part of the recipe for learning morality.

One can of course decide that authority is the measure of morality, but one would be risking getting that wrong, even in terms of human social interactions plainly show. Our tendency to trust the word of those in suits and ties with money power and influence in positions of authority as our beacons of morality prove time and again to be erroneous.

Therefor a GOD who allows for us to learn for ourselves, is more likely a true GOD than one who makes authoritative claims and is allowed to break [his] own rules 'because' of this assumed position of authority.

And if this God-consciousness must conform to some absolute objective morality himself, then he cannot be the 'source' of that absolute objective morality.

This is only if there actually did exist an 'absolute objective morality' which I have already said cannot be the case.
This does not mean that a GOD cannot be the source of true morality though.

Morality is subjective. So in order for it to be true morality, depends entirely on the entities own honesty, regardless if one is a GOD entity or a human entity, or any entity which has the ability to ascertain 'what is true morality'?

So morality might be just a matter of opinion, but what about true morality?

For example, would you agree that true morality is that I do you no purposeful harm and you do me no purposeful harm?

Is that act a matter of mere opinion, or is there something more to it than that?

So the very idea of any God being the 'source' of morality is riddled with extreme problems. Even if that God just happens to only do things that are 'absolutely good' by everyone's subjective agreement, and no one could argue against them. There would still be the question of why this God is behaving this way? If he's doing so because he chooses to do so via his pure free will choice, then by what standard can we say that his choices are 'moral'? Just by majority consensus?

First you would have to explain to me why you think that a GOD who just happens to only do things that are 'absolutely good' by everyone's subjective agreement, and no one could argue against them, that this is 'riddled with extreme problems',

What extreme problems would there be then? It is not a case of majority consensus anyway, since EVERYONE agrees and no one is arguing against it.

And if he has no choice but to do what's moral, then there must exist an absolute moral code that even transcends the God.

Not at all. The moral code is created by the GOD consciousness. No code created by the GOD consciousness transcends the GOD consciousness. Obviously such code can be violated by consciousness within form, such as human beings, but there are always consequences.

So it is not a matter of 'no choice but to' but rather 'the best choice is to follow the code one has developed in relation to morality' because 'consequence' for not doing so is what determines 'best choice'. To have 'no choice' is simply to not exist. To have 'no choice but to' is simply determining the best course of action in regard to consequence. That in itself does not equate to "there must exist an absolute moral code that even transcends the God.'

It either needs to be "Just God's Opinion". Or it needs to exist as some absolute moral code that even transcends the God himself.

Again. Simply implying morality is 'just opinion' is erroneous. opinion has its part to play, but is not what true morality is.

Going back to the example I offered re true morality, that true morality is that I do you no purposeful harm and you do me no purposeful harm, is this just our opinions involved here if we decided together that it is best for the both of us that we do not purposefully harm one another, or are there other things involved with that recipe which are not just about 'opinion'?

So any attempt to try to have a God become the 'source' of some imagined absolute objective morality is highly problematic.

Again, you have had to wander away from what I said - which was 'absolute objective morality' does not and cannot exist.'

The Head-to-Head debate they are having asks:

Does Objective Morality Require the Existence of God?

It seems to me the answer to the question must necessarily be "No". Because, if that were the case, then there would be no way to determine whether the God itself is moral. What standard could you compare it to? It would supposedly be the standard.

This especially becomes highly problematic in the case of the Biblical God because if God is the standard of morality, then the Biblical God either violates his own standards, or basically has none.

The point of my first post in this thread was to say that the question is erroneous because it is clear that Objective Morality cannot exist. So whether it 'requires' a GOD or not is besides the point. It does not exist in order to 'require' anything, and furthermore, should an ultimate GOD creator exist, it does not mean that somehow therefore Absolute Objective Morality must exist or can be created to exist.

[Divine Insight]

Hi William.

I didn't mean to appear to be arguing with you personally. I was just bouncing off the comments you made to elaborate on what the consequences would indeed be.

This is somewhat why I stated that 'objective' or 'absolute' morality doesn't exist.

Exactly. And I was agreeing with you on that point.

'Somewhat' in that the idea of the source of subjective consciousness and any related morality therein needn't be described as "nothing more than the subjective opinion of the God" as if somehow subjective opinion doesn't count. Your expression implies that it doesn't count. Is that what you are saying?

I'm saying that it doesn't count as absolute objective morality. Yes.

Taking that to the level of human beings, we cannot conclude therefore that human opinion regarding morality is a valueless thing, any more than subjectivity or consciousness is.

Just because morality is not an absolute objective thing, does not mean is has no value as 'opinion'.

I don't recall ever suggesting that human opinions do not have value to humans.

My opinions certainly have value for me. But that doesn't make them absolute objective truths of reality.

So can you explain why you are conflating human subjective value with absolute objective morality? I don't see a connection.

As I pointed out in my previous post, this then reduces to "Divine Command Theory" where anything the God decides to do is automatically 'moral' simply because God himself decided to do it. This would then still be a 'subjective morality' that changes dynamically depending on the mood the God happens to be in at the moment.

This implies that GOD is subject to moods in the same way humans are. Moods can be controlled, even through ones understanding of morality.

So the implication that moods determine morality based upon the idea that morality is shaped through opinions which are shaped through moods, is something of misdirection as far as argument goes.

It's not a misdirection if the God is changing his moral behavior based on his moods. That would certainly suggest that the God either has no absolute objective moral values, or isn't prepared to follow them if did have any.

One can argue that an ultimate position of authority is the best way to measure morality but this fails in relation to GOD and human beings because GOD allows human being to work it out for themselves and thus we can and we do assume what we like about said 'authority' and morality...so one would be best to make sure they 'get it right' on that opinion.
One can argue for example, that any stories re GOD making rules re morality which the GOD then breaks of commands humans to break are more likely fabrications than truth. It behoove the individual to learn to tell the difference...even as part of the recipe for learning morality.

I would certainly agree with this, but if we embrace this view then all the popular God myths and doctrines that underlie many of our modern day religions would need to be rejected. The only religions that would still be afloat after that would be the religions that don't make any claims about the behavior or character of any anthropomorphic Godheads.

One can of course decide that authority is the measure of morality, but one would be risking getting that wrong, even in terms of human social interactions plainly show. Our tendency to trust the word of those in suits and ties with money power and influence in positions of authority as our beacons of morality prove time and again to be erroneous.

I totally agree and this was indeed my main point. Authority alone can never be a basis for morality. So the idea of a God as the ultimate moral authority just because he's omnipotent doesn't hold water. That was my point.

Therefor a GOD who allows for us to learn for ourselves, is more likely a true GOD than one who makes authoritative claims and is allowed to break [his] own rules 'because' of this assumed position of authority.

Agreed. But if you plan on embracing that ideology then you really have no choice but to dismiss all the Abrahamic religions that have a God dictating how humans must behave.

So once again, I agree with your underlying philosophy, but that philosophy simply isn't compatible with many popular religions. Certainly none of the Abrahamic religions.

And if this God-consciousness must conform to some absolute objective morality himself, then he cannot be the 'source' of that absolute objective morality.

This is only if there actually did exist an 'absolute objective morality' which I have already said cannot be the case.

Ok. Again we're in agreement.

This does not mean that a GOD cannot be the source of true morality though.

What do you mean by 'true morality' when you have just dismissed the idea of any 'absolute objective morality'?

You're now moving into the realm of meaningless semantics.

Morality is subjective. So in order for it to be true morality, depends entirely on the entities own honesty, regardless if one is a GOD entity or a human entity, or any entity which has the ability to ascertain 'what is true morality'?

I don't see where this criteria could ever hold up.

Consider homosexuality and same-gender marriage. Clearly there are people who have different subjective opinions on whether or not this situation is 'moral'. Are you suggesting that a certain group is being 'honest' in their subjective view of whether or not this is moral, while another group is being 'dishonest'?

I personally feel that in this particular situation the entire concept of 'morality' here is entirely a human invention. And it is indeed 'nothing more' than personal opinion. Or 'nothing less' than personal opinion if you prefer. The point is that all it amounts to are humans passing personal judgements about certain behaviors.

And if you have a God who creates morality via his personal judgements, then sure, he wins simply because he's omnipotent leaving no one in any position to disagree with him. But would that truly make something 'right' or 'wrong'?

I don't think so. All it would make it is whether or not some God was personally pleased or displeased about something. If that's the foundation of morality that a pretty sad situation. Especially considering that this would be the same God that created people with strong desires to behave in ways that he would disapprove of and they would not.

So morality might be just a matter of opinion, but what about true morality?

What do you mean by 'true morality'?

Until you define what you mean by that term it's meaningless semantics.

And this is especially true after you have already renounced 'absolute objective morality'.

What in the world would constitute 'true morality'? And where you you possibly find it, or discover what it is?

You have already suggested that it would have something to do with honesty, but that quickly becomes extremely problematic.

For example, would you agree that true morality is that I do you no purposeful harm and you do me no purposeful harm?

I would subjectively agree that appears to fit the definition of what we mean by the term 'morality'. But keep in mind that humans coiled this term and invented this concept. So morality being based on (i.e. defined on) previous concepts of what humans tend to agree are 'right or wrong' then it's already going to contain a lot of previous human consensus. And most humans will subjectively agree that they don't like for other humans to harm them. It only follows from LOGIC that this should then be extended to the ideal that other humans don't like to be harmed either.

So this particular situation becomes a subjective consensus between humans based on the idea that no one likes to be harmed, and LOGIC then dictates that if we consider that to be 'wrong' then it must also be 'wrong' to harm others.

Is that act a matter of mere opinion, or is there something more to it than that?

It's all opinion. Why does there need to be anything more to it?

The only time you need something more is if someone is going to be 'judged' to have done something moral or immoral. That's the only time the concept becomes useful. And we don't even really need it for that. We could make social laws with consequences for breaking laws with no need for any concept of morality.

In fact, many of our laws currently have no basis in morality. For example, if you fail to pay the state taxes you could end up in jail. But when did it ever become 'immoral' to not pay taxes to a state?

We have no need for the concept of morality really. It's basically a totally useless concept unless we want to 'judge' someone as having done something that we personally disapprove of. We then use the concept of 'morality' to pretend that morality is on "our side". We pretend that we stand on the "moral high ground".

It's just a way for one human to look down their nose at another and somehow feel justified in their arrogance.

So the very idea of any God being the 'source' of morality is riddled with extreme problems. Even if that God just happens to only do things that are 'absolutely good' by everyone's subjective agreement, and no one could argue against them. There would still be the question of why this God is behaving this way? If he's doing so because he chooses to do so via his pure free will choice, then by what standard can we say that his choices are 'moral'? Just by majority consensus?

First you would have to explain to me why you think that a GOD who just happens to only do things that are 'absolutely good' by everyone's subjective agreement, and no one could argue against them, that this is 'riddled with extreme problems',

What extreme problems would there be then? It is not a case of majority consensus anyway, since EVERYONE agrees and no one is arguing against it.

Ok, I confess, that this would be a pretty interesting situation if we were to ever encounter it. The fact is that we have never seen anything even remotely approaching that situation in reality.

So it's basically a worthless hypothetical. Especially in terms of having any real world value.

And if he has no choice but to do what's moral, then there must exist an absolute moral code that even transcends the God.

Not at all. The moral code is created by the GOD consciousness. No code created by the GOD consciousness transcends the GOD consciousness. Obviously such code can be violated by consciousness within form, such as human beings, but there are always consequences.

So it is not a matter of 'no choice but to' but rather 'the best choice is to follow the code one has developed in relation to morality' because 'consequence' for not doing so is what determines 'best choice'. To have 'no choice' is simply to not exist. To have 'no choice but to' is simply determining the best course of action in regard to consequence. That in itself does not equate to "there must exist an absolute moral code that even transcends the God.'

You answered your own concern here when you said:

"To have 'no choice' is simply to not exist."

A God who cannot violate his own moral code would have 'no choice'. So you have just defined your God to "simply not exist".

It either needs to be "Just God's Opinion". Or it needs to exist as some absolute moral code that even transcends the God himself.

Again. Simply implying morality is 'just opinion' is erroneous. opinion has its part to play, but is not what true morality is.

There you go with that meaningless undefined semantics of 'true morality'.

You've already rejected the idea of any 'absolute objective morality'. So you cannot now appeal to a ill-defined semantics of 'true morality' that has no definition.

Going back to the example I offered re true morality, that true morality is that I do you no purposeful harm and you do me no purposeful harm, is this just our opinions involved here if we decided together that it is best for the both of us that we do not purposefully harm one another, or are there other things involved with that recipe which are not just about 'opinion'?

I see no reason to think that this is anything more than just humans agreeing on their own subjective opinions. If there was a hungry lion nearby that lion would probably not give a hoot at all about what humans opine about the so-called 'morality' or 'immorality' of harming humans.

It's just an opinion unique to humans.

So any attempt to try to have a God become the 'source' of some imagined absolute objective morality is highly problematic.

Again, you have had to wander away from what I said - which was 'absolute objective morality' does not and cannot exist.'

Then why do you keep talking about 'true morality' like as if it would be some sort of 'absolute objective moral standard'?

All you've done is play musical chairs with semantics whilst ignoring the fact that you haven't defined your terms.

The Head-to-Head debate they are having asks:

Does Objective Morality Require the Existence of God?

It seems to me the answer to the question must necessarily be "No". Because, if that were the case, then there would be no way to determine whether the God itself is moral. What standard could you compare it to? It would supposedly be the standard.

This especially becomes highly problematic in the case of the Biblical God because if God is the standard of morality, then the Biblical God either violates his own standards, or basically has none.

The point of my first post in this thread was to say that the question is erroneous because it is clear that Objective Morality cannot exist. So whether it 'requires' a GOD or not is besides the point. It does not exist in order to 'require' anything, and furthermore, should an ultimate GOD creator exist, it does not mean that somehow therefore Absolute Objective Morality must exist or can be created to exist.

But then you contradict yourself by introducing a "new undefined term" called 'true morality' that you are now going to attempt to use in place of the original term of 'absolute objective morality'

All you've done is play a meaningless undefined game of semantic musical chairs.

You're no further ahead then you were with the original term of 'absolute objective morality'. You're still demanding a single absolute morality that you have simply renamed as 'true morality', but you haven't even offered a meaningful definition for it.

(Looks like we're having our own debate on this topic in the Peanut Gallery)

I don't think that was the purpose of this thread.

[peterk]

I just wanted to take a moment and say well done to the two initial posts in this primary dialogue. I prefer affirming other people whatever their views, and I think the tone of this discussion so far is brilliant. When I have time I'll try to add one or two thoughts of my own.

[Divine Insight]

From the Head to Head debate:

3: Moral realism is true. (Premise)

I personally see no reason to accept this premise.

I would also suggest that this is a fairly ill-defined premise in any case since the very concept of "morality" is ill-defined.

I mean, consider the following:

If we embrace the idea that moral judgements are indeed human subjective opinions, then the idea that "Moral realism is true" isn't saying anything other than it's true that humans hold moral opinions.

I understand that proponents of 'Moral Realism' attempt to argue that there exists objective evidence that some things appear to be objectively moral or immoral. However, I suggest that this very idea is wrong because it simply accepts what humans consider to be 'good' like 'well-being' for example represent some 'absolute good' and can therefore be made objective.

Finally, I would suggest that even if we embrace this type of view of 'moral realism', it could only be taken so far in any case. Once again we could never argue that something like homosexuality or same-sex marriage could be twisted into something that is objectively moral or immoral. Clearly some behaviors simply don't loan themselves to absolutes.

Therefore even if we embrace things that we feel are "obvious" like everyone agreeing that well-being is a "good thing". That still isn't going to serve as a foundation for objective moral realism when it comes to other things (like personal relationships) that are clearly highly subjective and could never be made objective.

So I personally reject the idea of "Moral Realism" as the basis for any sort of absolute morality or objective morality. It may hold up for some primal concepts, but it's necessarily going to break down as behaviors become far more open to subjective opinions.

There's also the obvious disagreements concerning how someone should be treated after they are known to have committed an obvious atrocity. Take the recent school shooting in Parkland Florida as an example. People are already arguing over whether it the shooter should be put to death or given life imprisonment. Some argue that life imprisonment would be too good for the shooter and they would rather see him put to death. Others are arguing that putting him to death would actually be letting him off the hook and that life in prison would be the greater punishment.

So they can't even agree on what a moral punishment should be. How in the world could we bring something like the concept of "Moral Realism" into this. Many may argue that the killing was clearly immoral (but that's ultimately based on the idea that it goes against the well-being of those who were killed or harmed).

But when it comes to which is the more moral punishment for the shooter, 'moral realism' suddenly looses any meaning.