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

Ave Atheism and Moral Realism Pro wants us to think that the status of atheistic moral realism is "extremely hard to see", "dire", and faces many problems. His ideas are shared by many people who believe that atheism and moral realism can't be compatible. I argue that we should reject this request; It's belied based on an actual survey of the status of philosophy. There, we find that that the project of atheistic moral realism is alive and well in philosophy. Historically, philosophers have created moral ontologies without god for thousands of years, but even in modern times we see publications on atheistic moral realism from philosophers Quentin Smith (Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy) and Shelley Kagan (Normative Ethics), the world famous ethicist. A recent study called 'What do philosophers believe?' by David Bourget and David J. Chalmers, published in Philosophy Papers, indicates that 72.8% of philosophers are atheists, while 56.4% are moral-realists. [1] This means that there are many philosophers who are also moral realists, at least enough to deal damage to the idea that atheistic moral realism is absurd. There is nothing inherently false, flawed, or wrong with the idea of moral realism on atheism. In fact, there is a good reason to think that moral realism on atheism is actually more plausible, at first glance, than theism. As naturalistic moral realists, it's necessary that whatever morality is based on it, it's not supernatural. It's almost certain that the natural world exists. However, as a theist, you have to base your morality on something supernatural: something which has a debatable existence. There is a clear contrast between the two; atheist morality is based on something which almost certainly exists, while theistic morality is based on something which may or may not exist. This gives atheistic moral realism a prima facie advantage over theistic morality. Objective moral values and obligations are essentially tied to personhood In regards to "(I) ", we're told about what atheistic moral realism has to accept, and what it must say, presumably for no reason other than that Pro says so. It's supposed to be absurd to suggest that there are true statements which do not depend on the existence of people. The absurdity comes from the idea that these true statements are just "floating around" somewhere in an abstract realm. If we take Pro on his argument, something is absurd 1) if it is a necessary truth that does not depend on people, and is 2) just 'floating around' absent of their existence. Let's take this apparent absurdity and apply it to something philosophers know to be true: counterfactual statements. In David Lewis' theory on counterfactual statements "Where c and e are two distinct possible events, e causally depends on c if and only if, if c were to occur e would occur, and if c were not to occur e would not occur." [2]This counterfactual statement doesn't rely on any person to exist. E causally depends on C whether or not any people exist. It is also a necessary truth. Ergo, it is a necessary truth that does not depend on personhood. According to the standard that Pro put forward, this obviously coherent and intelligible counterfactual statement must be absurd and unintelligible. (Yes, I understand that he's talking about ideas that are instantiated through personhood. I'm only making the argument that his standard of absurdity and unintelligibility is false.) Furthermore, it's not even clear that atheistic moral realism depends on these abstract necessary truths. For example, in evolutionary moral realism, normative values depend on evolution, so there aren't any moral values floating around before life exists. [3] Ayn Rand's atheistic meta-ethics also don't depend on such things: "Rand's metaphysical arguments make two points central to her axiology and ethics. (1) Values are not just a human phenomenon but a phenomenon of life: life necessitates value. Thus, values are neither intrinsic properties of things, nor subjective, neither free-floating Platonic entities, nor mere matters of desire or preference, culture or time." [4] Atheistic moral realism does not depend on having necessary truths floating around, so Pro's attack does not establish the implausibility of atheistic moral realism, but only certain theories of atheistic moral realism. Concerns related to personal dignity Pro says that reductionism as an account of consciousness is implausible. The only justification he gives for this assertion is to quote a theist philosopher named MD Linville. On it's own, this is hardly enough evidence to discount reductionism as an account of justification, so I don't think Pro has met his burden of proof in showing that it's an implausible idea. While I await further support in my next round, I'll offer a small argument for why our consciousness--the way we think, who we are, is explained by physical states in the brain. Pro tries to explain personhood in terms of a soul rather than physical states in the brain. We can call this is the "soul hypothesis"; the idea that my thoughts, actions, and everything that makes up my identity, are more or less dependent on a soul rather than physical states in the brain. It is a prediction of this hypothesis that the way I act and think should remain the same even if the physical states of my brain have changed, because my identity in this respect has nothing to do with my brain. This hypothesis has been experimentally falsified: "Prominent behavioral characteristics in TBI patients have included altered emotion (including restricted emotions with occasional inappropriate or uncontrolled emotional outbursts); impaired judgment and decision–making (including difficulty arriving at decisions as well as poor decisions); impaired initiation, planning, and organization of behavior; and defective social comportment (including egocentricity and impaired empathy). These impairments tend to be accompanied by a marked lack of insight. The abnormalities often are not evident in interviews or over brief time frames, but rather become apparent when the patient’s behavior is considered over a period of months or even years (Barrash, Tranel, & Anderson, 2000)."[5] While these experiments are not logically contradictory with the soul hypothesis, the hypothesis that our identity depends on physical states in the brain is a better explanation of them. This means that the hypothesis explains more, making it preferable to the soul hypothesis. Cosmic Coincidences Pro argues that evolution makes it implausible that we would come to know moral truths in an atheistic universe. He says that evolutionary mechanisms are concerned with adaptation rather than truth, so it's entirely possible that we ended up with false moral beliefs just because they're beneficial to survival. However, this problem holds true for the theist as well. I can argue that evolution makes it implausible that we would have justified and rational beliefs about necessary, all-good beings that ground morality using the same exact reasoning. We can easily use Pro's reasoning to demonstrate that it's entirely possible for us to end up with false beliefs about god because they're beneficial to survival. Pro's theistic account of the validity of our cognitive faculties is question begging. He says that god guided evolution to make sure our cognitive faculties would be sufficient to have justified true beliefs about the world. He's using his cognitive faculties to establish the validity of his cognitive faculties, which assumes their validity in the first place! Otherwise, the argument would be baseless. So what we have here is a case of somebody assuming their cognitive faculties in order to justify them through god. There is simply no non-circular way of saying that god is the reason our cognitive faculties are valid, because the only way of arguing for this is through the use of cognitive faculties, which is the very thing you're trying to prove is reliable! Therefore, it follows that the problem of the validity of cognitive faculties, given evolution, is a problem for both atheists and theists. As my friend poetaster once remarked, 'We're all off the hook because we're all on the hook"[6]. Theists and atheists have to deal with this problem, so this isn't a reason to think that theistic moral realism is better than atheistic moral realism. Conclusion There are no prima facie reasons to doubt atheistic moral realisms, but there are prima facie reasons to consider atheistic moral realism to be more plausible than theistic moral realism. Pro's standards on what constitutes absurd and unintelligble would lead us to doubt ideas which are obviously true. Furthermore, his criticisms that atheistic moral realism depends on truths that are just "floating" around does not take into account many theories of atheistic moral realism. Therefore, it is not an attack on atheistic moral realism, but an attack on certain theories about atheistic moral realism. Pro's criticism of reductionism is weak because it relies on one biased quote from a theistic philosopher published in a book devoted to arguing for theism. His evolutionary argument is weak because it's a problem for both theists and atheists, implying that it doesn't make theism's moral realism more probable than atheism's moral realism. Vale References [1] http://philpapers.org...[2] http://plato.stanford.edu...[3] http://link.springer.com... [4] http://plato.stanford.edu...[5] http://www.nasponline.org...[6] Personal communication on Skype