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

Again, thanks to Con for agreeing to debate this topic. I look forward to having an interesting and enlightening exchange. I propose that there several points that favor theism over atheism with respect to affirming moral realism - that is, theism offers a better account of moral realism than atheism because there are several features of moral realism that make more sense on theism than on atheism.Objective moral values and obligations are essentially tied to personhoodThe first problem for the atheist who affirms moral realism - and especially for the atheistic moral realist who is also a naturalist as my opponent is - manifests at the most basic level. Moral values and obligations are essentially tied to personhood. The are numerous worries in the neighborhood.(I) Concerns related to the intelligibility of non-personal values and obligations(II) Concerns related to personal dignity(I) That is, moral values are instantiated through persons. Imagine if there was just some moral value of justice that just exists. What would that even mean to say justice just exists? We can readily make sense of the claim that person is just, but it would make no sense to say that justice exists in the absence of any persons as a mere abstraction. It seems clear that if there were no persons (including God), then there would be no moral values. But an atheistic moral realist - one who accepts that there are some necessary moral truths - will have to accept some necessary truths just exist "free floating" in the absence of persons which seems absurd and downright unintelligible.Another worry about these necessary moral truths as abstractions is that the seem to require us to do things. That's just what moral obligation is. If I have a moral duty to be just and equitable in issuing a prison sentence then I am morally required/obligated to do so. Moral obligation has an inherent social aspect to it (and thus, essentially involving persons). If I fail to meet a moral obligation there is a sense of shame and blameworthiness that goes with it because there were specific intentions and expectations that I failed to meet. Obviously, this would lead one the conclusion that they have wronged someone. None of these sort of attitudes make any sort of sense on atheistic moral realism that posits essentially impersonal necessary moral truths/values.Given my opponents world view, it remains extremely hard to see - some might think impossible - how one is supposed to see how these sort of personal values and obligations arose from a valueless and obligationless and impersonal universe.Given theism, on the other hand, things hardly seem so dire. Theism already posits that personal God exists that instantiates all of these properties, values and makes sense of the social nature of moral obligations. The world, at the as level, is already infused with values, potential for obligations, and personhood in the God. It seems obvious that theism better accounts for objective moral values and obligations. This is something we would expect on theism, but not on atheism.(II) Given moral realism it's plausible to suppose that persons have moral standing. [2] And if they have moral standing then it's plausible to suppose something like Kant's respect-for-persons ethic is true. [3] That is, people are intrinsically valuable and have personal dignity. Unsurprisingly, I think theism accounts better for personal dignity than atheism. It'd be a massive understatement to say that atheistic naturalists have had a difficult time accommodating personhood (particularly the elements autonomy and consciousness). If they can't accommodate personhood then obviously they cannot accommodate personal dignity.There are generally three strategies given at this point of accommodating personhood and consciousness within that specific framework. Elimitivist, reductionist, and non-reductionist.Elimitivism simply states that there are no persons. Obviously that cannot account for personal dignity.Reductionists will say that consciousness is reducible to the physical which is implausible."It seems to me evident that no description of brain activity of the relevant kind, couched inthe currently available languages of physics, physiology, or functional or computational roles,is remotely capable of capturing what is distinctive about consciousness. So glaring, indeed,are the shortcomings of all the reductive programmes currently on offer, that I cannot believethat anyone with a philosophical training, looking dispassionately at these programmes, wouldtake any of them seriously for a moment, were it not for a deep-seated conviction that currentphysical science has essentially got reality taped, and accordingly, something along the lines ofwhat the reductionists are offering must be correct. To that extent, the very existence of consciousnessseems to me to be a standing demonstration of the explanatory limitations ofcontemporary physical science. " [4] 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. [5] Obviously, if there is no mental causation then one cannot act in accordance to the respect for persons ethic. The basic thought is that given the principle of the causal closure of the physical, where physical events only have physical causes, that leaves no room for mental causes.Theism has none of these attendant problems. On the contrary, on the supposition of theism we would expect that humans have personal dignity if they were created as persons, modeled to a limited extent off of God's own personage. The Imagio Dei if you will. If they were created by an intrinsically valuable person it makes a good deal of sense to suppose that these persons will also be intrinsically valuable. God is personal and the source of all value, so the value and dignity of personhood is in virtue of that fact. If finite persons are created in the "image" of God - who is the most ultimate and sacred of all things in reality - it makes sense and it is likely to suppose that these finite persons have personal dignity. There's no need to suppose that personal dignity could arise out of an essentially impersonal background like on atheism. Cosmic CoincidencesGiven the fact of human biological evolution, this gives rise to a vexing problem for the atheistic moral realist - the problem of knowledge of moral facts and it's related cosmic coincidences. Supposing that evolution is a "radically contingent" process (in the words of Stephen Jay Gould) in that, if the evolutionary processes were somehow rewinded back and then let go to do it's work again it'd be highly unlikely that we'd get creatures such as human beings again, it's extremely hard to see how we evolved to be able to know these moral truths. It seems like an awfully lucky coincidence that despite the presumably countless ways we could have evolved in an essentially unguided and non-teleological fashion we just happened to evolve into the sort of creatures that can know these independent moral truths. It seems like an awfully lucky coincidence that we evolved into the sort of creatures that matched up with these moral truths when there was nothing guiding us toward that end after billions and billions of years. The unlikeliness of the scenario builds once you see that these moral facts, on atheism, existed far before humans arrived on the scene, and who may not have even evolved into the sort of creatures who these moral facts correspond to in the the first place. Or not have evolved at all, for that matter. What it seems like is that the universe was almost anticipating the arrival of such creatures on the scene. But, of course, that isn't remotely likely to be true on atheism. As many have noted it seems very easy to imagine that our morality might have turned out very, very different if evolution had taken a different turn.Thus Darwin:"If . . . men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. Nevertheless the bee, or any other social animal, would in our supposed case gain, as it appears to me, some feeling of right and wrong, or a conscience. . . . "Given that evolutionary mechanisms are merely concerned with adaptivenss and not truth, it's entirely conceivable that we ended up with false moral beliefs that are nonetheless adaptive. In fact, it'd be far more likely given the unguided scenario of the atheist.Theism doesn't have this problem. We could suppose that a good God who has aims intended for his creatures - such as that they come to be able to know at least some moral truths in a reliable fashion. And that he fashioned the universe in such a way as to "anticipate" the arrival of such creatures on the seen. Sources[1] Any moral realist should accept that there are some necessary moral truths such as "torturing babies for fun is wrong." [2] By that I mean "Person S is the appropriate object of direct moral duties". "The Moral Argument", p.419., The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology [3] "This formulation states that we should never act in such a way that we treat Humanity, whether in ourselves or in others, as a means only but always as an end in itself. This is often seen as introducing the idea of “respect” for persons, for whatever it is that is essential to our Humanity."http://plato.stanford.edu...[4] "The Moral Argument", p. 37, The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology[5] http://www.iep.utm.edu...