Morality is Objective (Tournament Debate)

To start this debate, I will quote my opponent a few times, and answer some neccesary points in his argument. MY OPPONENTS ARGUMENTS"Is rape wrong? Is murder wrong? If there is no moral truth then how could anything be wrong? "I believe Rape/Murder is wrong. Not every person in the entire world does, this is why Morality is subjective. I will be touching on murder later in my case. But there is no such thing as a moral truth, just what we determine are moral, and true. My morals are synonymous to yours in several areas, however, not every one believes our morals to be true. In fact there may be millions, that even out number us in our moral belief, to prove that our morals can never be proven true outside of our hope and beliefs. "I would ask my opponent, is there such a thing as right and wrong and if so who determines what right and wrong is. "I believe that the subject of what it right and wrong is determined by the societies, and individuals condoning the moral action. You and I can say that we believe another society has got it wrong all we want, but at the end of the day, that is just our relative opinion, and there is a mass who believe otherwise. "What if my personal set of morals conflicts with yours who’s right? If I stole from you because my personal morality told me it was the right thing to do, you couldn’t argue with that. "No one is universally "right". I would say I am right, and the thief could potentially say he was right (if he truly believed that what he was doing was right). The thief may have had a motion that was inherently good to him. Maybe he was stealing so that he could feed his family, or maybe I was corrupted, and my money was earned through ways that justified his action. Or maybe he was brought up to believe that theft is okay. No matter what the scenario, there is no objective moral way to say that he is wrong in his actions, outside of my own distaste of his action. "Moral subjectivity allows for genocide without repercussion aside from a backlash based on emotion. " All Moral subjectivity does is state the obvious fact that there is not a moral set of rules that every individual must follow. Based on history, and the way things have changed over the course of the years as societally acceptable, or un-acceptable, and the differences in cultural morals. But how does Genocide go without repercussion? Maybe there isn't a moral repercussion (I have a point about this in my case), but there is likely a society that will react as a result of a Genocide. . http://en.wikipedia.org... MY CASE Contention 1: There cannot be a universal set of Moral Laws It is impossible. Societal views change and vary between cultures all around the world, and change throughout history. Concepts we view as moral now, contradict concepts those of history have pursued. Let’s take one common issue: Murder. I am going to safely assume that my opponent would support that murder falls under his view on moral objectivity, as a violation of moral conduct. The problem is, that murder is circumstantial. If you were to hear about a man killing another man in the street in the cold blood, you would probably say that the person is of bad moral behavior, based on our subjective read on morals. However, in most societies in history, moral standards were much different. For example, in a lot of societies, people were killed by governments and societies, for such reasons we today would classify as moral. So if people were getting murdered publicly for reasons that contradict reasons we today agree with, how can morality be subjective? Were the actions accepted by millions of people inherently wrong from the beginning of time? If they were how can we justify this? Philosophically, it is much more logical to believe that morality varies between people and societies, rather than being universal. Here are some examples of societies that condoned killing:. http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...https://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...http://en.wikipedia.org...There are also plenty of dictators in the world who have accepted mass genocide and killing, proving that with all this death accepted by a society, that Morality must be Subjective. Contention 2: Moral Consequences If Morality is universal, why aren’t there universal moral consequences? When I say consequences, I use the word loosely, by the way. Consequences can range from societal punishment for actions, all the way to the feeling of guilt. But let’ talk about the feeling of guilt for a second. This is a feeling that usually follows a person committing a wrong action. Let’s say you have been raised and taught to believe abortion is a violation of morality. Your friend has grown and learned that Abortion is acceptable. Your friend doesn’t feel guilt for having an abortion. Your friend cannot be punished for having an abortion. There is no moral consequence for their action, other than it offending people of the opposing view type. But if there is no physical consequence, no guilt, anything, than we can safely determine that morality is subjective. Morality between the two individuals obviously differs, but nothing establishes this rule to make it believable enough to say that one person’s morals are more correct than the other. . http://plato.stanford.edu... Contention 3: What are the moral laws, who made them, and what makes them universal? What are the moral laws, and how do we know what they are? If we presume they are made by a God, than we submit to universal fallibility. God cannot be physically or aesthetically proven outside of faith principals, and belief. While I hope this debate doesn’t get into God, the question remains. There is no written document, or known set of rules by all people to clarify what exactly these rules are. And to be universal, that would at least require most people to know of what they are and act upon them, would it not? What makes them universal In the first place? Conclusion: There are so many loop holes, and problems that go into objectivity that it is difficult to say with any clarity we are all bound by some hidden moral system. We as societies differ so much on things like, slavery, murder, etc, that we can never say that one thing is more right than the other. There is also no reason to assume Objectivity. Why wouldn't’t assume right from the get-go, that morality is subjective based on dis-agreeances in philosophy resulting in mass debate? Subjectivity thus is the much easier philosophy to buy, as it is assumed, and doesn’t have loopholes, as Objectivity has.