There is no objective basis for morality.

I will tentatively agree with Con that the physical Laws of Nature (e.g. the Laws of Thermodynamics) are objective, however Con still needs to provide further clarification of Con's definition of the "Laws of Nature". In Round 1 Con stated, "It was obvious that your goal was to kill that man. You morally followed the Laws of Nature to fulfill your goal." In Round 2 Con states, "You morally followed the Laws of Nature in the pursuit of your goal to commit suicide" and "The physical Laws of Nature is the omnipotent set of rules for the machinery of nature." What "Laws of Nature" did I follow when I killed the man on the beach and when I killed myself? To be clear, I am not asking about the laws of nature that may have caused the man on the beach, or me, to die (e.g. I strangled the man preventing him from getting oxygen and because the laws of nature dictate that a human needs oxygen in order to live and I deprived the man of oxygen he died), rather I am asking about the laws of nature, the omnipotent set of rules for the machinery of nature, that Con believes I was following when I formed the goal to kill the man and when I formed the goal to kill myself and what laws I was following when I acted to fulfill my goals. This needs to be clarified so that we can be sure that we both mean the same thing when using the term "Laws of Nature". For reference, Con's main argument appears to be in paragraphs 4 through 9 in Round 2, starting and ending with, "Only the physical Laws of Nature...upon failure one usually feels unhappiness (negative feedback)", and most of the quotes I provide are from these paragraphs. Con claims that the scope of Con's argument is in the physical domain and not the metaphysical domain because Con is dealing with the physical Laws of Nature and not some subjective set of human rules commonly referred to as a code of ethics or a moral code. However, Con does not confine the scope of the argument to the physical domain but moves it squarely into the metaphysical domain by providing Con's very own moral code of "When one follows a set of rules, one is moral. On the other hand, when one does not follow a set of rules, one is immoral." Now, if Con had stated something like, "When one follows a set of rules, one follows a set of rules and when one does not follow a set of rules, one does not follow a set of rules" I would agree that Con's argument is in the physical domain and not the metaphysical domain since this would be an objective statement of facts, but this is not what Con has done. As soon as Con's moral code was stated, a metaphysical question arose: "Why is one moral when one follows a set of rules and immoral when one does not follow a set of rules?" At this point, Con has not provided an objective Law of Nature (e.g. another Law of Thermodynamics) that answers that question and I do not believe that there is an answer because the act of labeling something as either moral or immoral is subjective; not independent of individual thought (this is Con's thought), not perceptible by all observers (Pro, for one, does not perceive this the way Con perceives it), and does not have reality independent of the mind. I could just as easily provide my own moral code of "When one follows a set of rules, one is immoral and when one does not follow a set of rules, one is moral" and it would have just as much reality independent of mind as Con's moral code. Now Con may be attempting to answer the metaphysical question when Con states, "When one follows (morally) the Laws of Nature in the pursuit of a goal, upon success one usually feels happiness (positive feedback). When one does not follow (immorally) the Laws of Nature in the pursuit of a goal, upon failure one usually feels unhappiness (negative feedback)." However, much like labeling something as moral or immoral, the act of labeling a feeling, especially someone else's feeling, is subjective. Just because Con may feel something upon the successful pursuit of a goal and calls that feeling happiness, does not mean that anyone else, upon the successful pursuit of a goal or even the successful pursuit of the same goal as Con, will feel something, or feel the same thing, or call that feeling happiness. Con acknowledges as much by the use of the qualifier "usually". The use of the term "usually" means that it is possible that if you follow the Laws of Nature in pursuit of a goal (acting morally under Con's moral code) upon success, you could feel either happiness or unhappiness. Further, even if this is Con"s attempt to answer the first metaphysical question, the attempt raises an additional metaphysical question of "Even if one did feel happiness when one follows a set of rules and successfully pursues a goal, why does the feeling of happiness mean that one is moral when one follows a set of rules?" Additionally, in my last round I asked Con to provide objective definitions for "positive feedback" and for "happiness" and it appears that Con has now equated "happiness" and "positive feedback" with the statement, "...one usually feels happiness (positive feedback)." I must ask Con for clarification because if "positive feedback" and "happiness" are synonymous then Con's statement from Round 1, "Since we have life, survival is a form of positive feedback and a prerequisite for human "Happiness"" reads as: "Since we have life, survival is a form of positive feedback and a prerequisite for human positive feedback", or "Since we have life, survival is a form of happiness and a prerequisite for human happiness". To continue the island example, an objective statement about killing the man on the beach would be something like "I killed the man on the beach" or "The man on the beach was killed." But Con has described the killing of the man on the beach as me following the Laws of Nature and successfully pursuing my goal of killing the man. Therefore, according to Con's moral code, since I followed a set of rules, the killing of the man on the beach was moral. Once the act is labeled as "moral", or "immoral", or "murder" or "self-defense" or "entertainment" or "an act of God" or "the successful pursuit of a goal" or anything thing else you have moved from objective to subjective because someone else could label the act in a completely different way and unless an objective reason is given for the label (and one has not been given in this case) there is no more objective basis for one label than for another label. Throughout this debate so far, it appears that Con has attempted to demonstrate that there is an objective basis for morality with a variation of the "is-ought problem" (1). Con seems to imply that since there are objective laws of nature (is), then there is an objective basis for morality (ought). Con has added the concept of "a goal" to the problem which would state the problem like: if you want to achieve X and there is a set of rules that dictate how X is achieved (is), then you should follow the set of rules to achieve X (ought). It appears that Con believes that following the rules to achieve X constitutes morality and that this morality is objective. While I would agree that the objective laws of nature tell us what we ought to do in order to achieve certain goals (e.g. if my goal is to stay alive, I ought to eat food and not poison because the laws of nature dictate that the human body will stay alive by eating food and will die by eating poison), I do not think that these same objective laws of nature tell us what we ought to do in order to achieve other goals nor, as I have demonstrated, do they tell us anything about morality. In the last paragraph, Con states, "...I'm looking forward for Pro's burden of proof that the physical Laws of Nature are not "objective."" The burden of proof for this debate is not for Pro to demonstrate that the physical Laws of Nature are not objective; it is for Pro to demonstrate that the arguments provided by Con that the killing of the man on the beach was either moral or immoral are not objective. Con has proposed a moral system and used that system to determine that killing the man on the beach was moral and over the course of this round I have demonstrated that Con's moral system is not objective. Thus far, Pro's burden of proof for this debate has been met. 1) http://www.philosophy-index.com...