Morality is an Objective Construct

We'd like to first rebut our opponent's arguments, and then go on to our own. While reading this speech, you may wish to have our opponent's arguments on hand. Refutation 1: General Morality is Objective Our opponent here posits that several basic tenets of morality(murder, theft, betrayal, etc. ) are accepted as immoral across culture and time. This argument, therefore, forms a sort of "general baseline of morality" across civilisations. While this could be true, we must look back to the definition of objectivity: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations. As this sets such a high standard, it is(in this case)easy to disprove. A single piece contradictory evidence would show influence by personal interpretation and thus eliminate the possibility of objectivity. This case can be found in the form of the radical Sunni jihadist movement known as the Islamic State, which routinely commits horrible crimes against the people within their captured territories. By showing such callous disregard for human life, they demonstrate their interpretation of such acts as moral. This argument thus disproves such a baseline of morality as objective. Refutation 2: Evolution is an Objective Arbiter for Morality our opponent states that what is moral coincides with the survival of the human species, which forms an objective arbiter. He(? ) then provides an example which shows murder to be evolutionarily disadvantageous. We'd like to challenge the idea that what is perceived as moral coincides with the survival of the human species in all cases, regardless of interpretation(objectively). As we have proven in an earlier argument, the Islamic State and other jihadist organisations slaughter local minority groups en masse, while still believing these actions moral, despite being evolutionarily disadvantageous. Again, the mere existence of this interpretation disproves objectivity in this case. Without the presence of evolution as an objective arbiter of morality, this argument is rendered invalid. Our opponent then states that "those who fail to follow objective morality are eventually weeded out (due to response killing, imprisonment, and various other factors) until finally, natural selections determine the objective morality for humanity, for the species to survive. " Regardless of whether or not those who fail to follow evolution as an objective arbiter of morality are then killed, their differing interpretations still disprove evolution as moral regardless of interpretation(objectively). In short, killing those who disagree does not render invalid their disagreement. Refutation 3: "Just because something changes over time does not make it subjective. "This is more of a rebuttal than anything, but we'll attempt to treat it as an argument for the debate. Our opponent provides an example: "Take the assumption that the Earth is flat. This was believed by humanity until fairly recently. Then, due to some evidence, humanity accepted that the world was round. So, the human understanding of the Earth went to flat to round over time. Does that mean that the shape of the earth is subjective because it changed over time? Or is it true that the world has always been round, but the human understanding of it has changed when presented with different information? "This is fundamentally comparing apples and oranges. Whereas the world's shape is a matter of scientific fact, and is completely measurable,testable, and material,outside of interpretation, and therefore objective, morality isn't something you can't test you can't run an objective test as to whether it's morally permissible to use the death penalty. Refutation 4. "Objective Morality exists, but has not been fully discovered yet. " his reasoning for this was using a scientific basis making inapplicable to morality. As well as I would ask how does one discover the moral truth until he clarifies this, the argument can be dismissed. With this, we have effectively refuted all of our opponent arguments.