Morality is Objective

"[T]his debate is not about what is moral or immoral, but it is about the nature of morality." According to this statement, I have stayed completely in the confines of the debate, and all my points are germane. I feel I need to make some clarification as my opponent has misconstrued my arguments. first, "First my opponent contends that all things exist in two forms; [sic] the ideology, and the reality." Not exactly. The chair example was only made to simplify the idea. I was stating that there is no essential, innate meaning in any object. All ideas and meanings are constructed, and we seemingly naturalize our ideas and meanings behind an object. Plato's philosophy does not provide such a conclusion. "My opponent also uses the philosophies (albeit minimally) of Nietzsche and Foucault; however [sic] we must realize that these individuals reject the existence of morality. This is particularly important as my opponent has professed to have based a large portion of his argument on these two theories." Certainly, these two philosophers did reject morality; however, what they rejected was much closer to what you would call objective morality. There was nothing essential about morality for them. Besides, this would be unimportant because I had specified which of their ideas I was using. "After this my opponent gets into a discourse on a country expanding itself, and on a society conforming to certain standards in order to survive. However [sic] this is not morality; this is the social contract." This is interesting. Pro justifies conquest, or expansion onto inhabited land, with a need to survive. Sorry, no one in the US at the time of Manifest Destiny needed to expand their horizons to survive. More importantly, we see here that Pro constructs an answer to the question I raised and a justification for that answer. His answer and his justification are laden with his interests. Obviously, he does not want to be considered a thief, which I would not consider him one; however, many Native Americans may differ in their evaluation. P.S. Pro, Manifest Destiny was not a social contact, especially not for the Indians. "Finally my opponent presents the illustration of a black man and the stigma the [sic] all black men are criminals; However [sic] this argument is dealing with the issue of stereotyping, not of subjective v.s. objective morality" I explicitly said that I was not going in depth on racial issues; however, I explained how we impose "morality" on certain bodies. The criminalized black man was only a example of a body that historically represents "crime" in the US. The main point was that we impose morality onto objects. Now, I will turn to Pro's arguments in his second round. When we look to such as [sic] resolution as this, one thing is brought to light as being substantially clear. True morality is not a subject that can be flippant in nature; [sic] but is directly polar in nature. This is not an observation. This is conjecture. This is where a genealogical analysis could come in hand. It would uncover "morality's" historicity. Morality is not polar, meaning either objective or subjective, but as I argued it is more complex and plural (subjective could be used to describe morality as well). Just because I argue it is subjective does not mean that my perspective is the only other perspective that exists in opposition to your perspective. "If we accept that stealing is wrong, then this should be the standard; that stealing is wrong. we should not have to make this ideal of of whether or not stealing is wrong subjective because of a person's needs/ or wants. Say an able bodied man was slightly hungry, and stole food from an old woman on social security in order to satisfy hi hunger; this would be blatantly wrong, we would see this as a blatantly immoral action as they are depriving another human being of their food." I could create a hypothetical situation that would bring "stealing" into question, but I will refrain. Because we conceive of different meanings that constitute stealing, we could never come to a consensus of what constitutes "stealing," and therefore, could never actually construct an objective moral criteria in which to condemn it on all grounds. Pro's argument diminishes complexities within society. For instance, does this society actively produce inequality? In pro's argument, we get no sense if the hungry man is hungry because he just forgot to eat breakfast, or if his society is actively prohibiting him from food sources. Additionally, we can see clearly that the definition of "stealing" benefits the woman in Pro's argument. "Again, if we accept the standard that stealing is wrong, we must continue to accept this standard through all scenarios; failing to do so rejects all of what morality is, all of what morality stands for." Pro unintentionally raised a good question. What does morality stand for? This is a broad question with numerous answers. As I argued before, it is not as important to figure out which answer is "correct", but in which way was it constructed and why was it constructed in that way. He also states, "By keeping a strong, solid standard between the moral and the immoral; [sic] we do not allow human emotion to come into play, and thus limit what s [sic] true." Human emotions are in play regardless if we construct a solid standard between morality and immorality. We cannot get rid of our emotional responses; however, we can come to realize them and become aware of how they affect our understanding of morality. Please vote Con because my arguments were more substantial. Pro has not actually made an argument as much as he has made judgements without much substantiation. I have made my intentions clear within each point of my argument while he has hidden behind a veil of "objectivity."