Theism offers a more likely context than atheism for affirming moral realism.

AveLet’s look over the debate and see if we can make any conclusions. I intend for this round to serve as a justification for a Con vote rather than a point-by-point rebuttal to Pro's last round, even though I'll touch on some new points he brought up.When one makes an argument for a resolution, they’re supposed to demonstrate that the resolution is correct. In this case, the resolution is saying that moral realism combined with atheism is unlikely. Pro’s burden of proof, therefore, is to show that putting moral realism and atheism together is improbable. He has to demonstrate that there’s something improbable about moral realism without the existence of god. He can’t get away with simply showing one idea of moral realism without god is implausible, or even four. No, he has to prove that there is something inherently implausible about moral realism without god, no matter what form of atheistic moral realism you chose. He has to show that it doesn’t matter if you choose utilitarianism, ideal observer ethics, or contract ethics; They’re all implausible if atheism is true. I point out other forms of atheistic moral realism that Pro hasn’t addressed because it’s pertinent to the resolution. He can’t get away with simply attacking atheistic moral realism with abstract necessary truths, but he has to go further and attack atheistic moral realism without these abstract necessary truths as well. That’s why I bring up Any Rand’s metaethics, or evolutionary moral realism. They’re mentioned because they expose the fact that Pro hasn’t fulfilled the resolution. If Pro didn’t want to have to do this, he should have made the debate “Theistic moral realism is more plausible than any given atheistic moral theory”, or something like that. But he didn’t, so this is the resolution you should base your vote on.Pro's last round asks why I even brought up the fact that atheistic moral realism has been a project for thousands of years. Well, I explained my motivation: "The whole purpose of mentioning the status of atheistic moral realism in philosophy was a direct response to his negative descriptions." Pro tried to say that atheistic moral realism is "dire", "extremely hard to see", and so on. As the defender of atheistic moral realism in this debate, I have to show that these adjectives are false, and I did so using empirical evidence. It's not "dire", because something that's been around for thousands of years is not in a fight for survival, and it's not "extremely hard to see", because some of the greatest minds have seen, and continue to see it. I feel as if Pro continues to misunderstand this argument, despite my explanation for its motivation. He first thought I was suggesting that he thinks atheism and moral realism are logically incompatible, which clarified as erroneous in R3.I’m also concerned about the double standard being employed here. Remember that I gave an argument against dualism based on neuroscience in my opening statement. Pro objected to this argument by pointing out that there is a form of dualism, emergent dualism, which my argument doesn’t touch. Now, in his last round, he tells us that you don’t need to rule out every single alternative to establish something as unlikely. Isn’t he contradicting himself here? He objected to my probabilistic case against dualism by noting an alternative, but now he tells us that you don’t need to rule out every alternative to establish something as unlikely. I don’t see how this is fair on the part of Pro.I don't think that Pro's made a good effort to respond to my points, when I made a good effort to respond to his. Let's recall some important points in this discussion that Pro doesn't seem to mention substantially in his last round.Pro argued that if an inverted qualia is even possible, then qualia is not reducible to brain-states. I argued that this actually begs the question against reductionism in the first place, because inverted qualia are only possible if reductionism is false. Pro hasn't given us a new form of this argument which doesn't have the same question-begging assumptions.With another point on qualia, we're told that since qualia doesn't feel like a brain state, then it can't be reducible to brain states. Like I pointed out, this is like saying that since a glass of water doesn't feel like H20, then it's not H20. Yet, that's exactly what water is. When you vote in regards to this point, please ask yourself this: What has Pro said that can't be used to prove that a glass of water isn't H2O molecules?I also have scruples about Pro's application of the law of identity. He seems to be saying that since the experience of qualia is not explainable by physics, yet brain states are, they have to be different things. This is supposed to be true because if A=A, or qualia = brain state, then anything that's true for one side has to be true for the other. I don't see how this works, because identity relations don't apply to psychological experience. If they did, then the following argument would be true:P1) Superman is someone Lois Lane believes can fly.P2) Clark kent is not someone Lois Lane believes can fly.C) Superman is not Clark Kent. [1]Pro tried to compare my argument in the section "Atheism and Moral Realism" to saying that logical positivism is not absurd because of its popularity in the 20th century. I pointed out and explained why this is a defective analogy in my last round. Pro never got back to us on this point.I offered a prima facie case for atheistic moral realism in my opening statement. My argument was that naturalistic atheist moral realists have to base on morality on nature, which almost certainly exists, while theistic moral realists have to base morality on a god, who may or may not exist, giving atheistic moral realism an advantage. Nowhere in this debate did Pro offer any response to the premises of the argument or its conclusion.I mentioned an experiment which is suppose to serve as an argument for reductionism. Nowhere was this specific line of reasoning responded to.He says that he gave a case for why non-reductionism leads to epiphenomenalism. When I hear "case", I think of a series of reasons which justify a conclusion. Did Pro give a case? Let's look at his only justification in the debate."And the non-reductivist will say while consciousness isn't reducible to the physical it however supervenes upon it. But, as Jaegwon Kim notes, this leads to a form of epiphenomenalism, which leaves no room mental causation.""Jaegwon Kim says so " is not a case. Pro has failed to substantiate this part of the argument.Pro finally tries to answer the fact that his arguments about evolution and atheistic moral realism could be applied to belief in god itself. He points out that it would be a survival advantage to know how many lions are attacking you, so evolution can guide us towards true beliefs. However, in his own words, this is a mundane example. It doesn't help Pro establsih the legitimacy of belief in god itself as well, which is not a mundane issue. Pro, for example, believes that there is a necessary being who is the reason for the purpose of the nature and existence of the world. This belief about god relie s on complex metaphysical principles like the Principle of Sufficient Reasons, and concepts analytically entailing their own instantiation, as in the case of a necessary existent. That's certainly not a mundane belief, and it can't be justified by pointing to lion chases.Pro says that there are good reasons to think that the hyperactive detection device is reliable. This is a lot of jargon, so I'll clarify with a simple example; Imagine that you are a Cro-magnon human being standing next to a bush. You hear a rustling in the bush. You can assume that this is the wind and stay still, or you can assume that this is a predator and run. Evolution benefits attributing agency, in this case a predator, to the rustling in the bush rather than the wind. This is because the person who stands by the bush thinking it's the wind could be wrong, leading to their death, while the person who runs has a better chance of survival. It's better to assume too much agency than too little agency.Pro argues that this agent detection is reliable. This is obviously false. Think about your own agent detection. Perhaps you were home alone as a child and heard a noise, and then felt afraid because you thught somebody was in the house. This is exactly like the Cro-magnon human who attributes a predator to the rustling in the bush rather than the wind. This is your "reliable" agent detection hard at work! From our own experience, we can see that our agent detection is generally false, and causes us to be afraid of things that aren't there. Agent detection, therefore, leans towards false beliefs about reality rather than true beliefs. How, then, is it reliable?ConclusionPro's arguments, in many places, are not supported sufficiently. He also doesn't give enough attention to the crucial objections I brought against his argument, which I went over earlier in this round. Sometimes they beg the question against the very thing they're trying to disprove. The voter should ask themselves this one question: Has Pro shown that that there’s something improbable about moral realism without the existence of god? Based on this round, I submit that the answer is a "no".I want to thank Pro for this excellent and enlightening debate. I hope the audience enjoyed it as much as I did! I have a great and deep respect for PCP's understanding of this topic, and I look forward to debating him in the future.Vale ReferencesVisual Reference Guide: Philosophy, pg 209