There is no compelling reason to believe that objective moral facts exist.

I accept Con's further definitions, but would add as an annotation that they don't do much for his case, as the question of whether there is compelling evidence for the existence of objective moral values still rests on the judgment of each voter.Con's Observations1. I accept this observation.2. My three arguments give clear reasons to believe that objective moral facts do not exist. The problem of normative contingency, for example, inherently undermines all claims to moral objectivity by challenging the fundamental assertions of value upon which all further assertions of moral truth depend. The compound problem of presupposition and value subjectivity challenge two notions: first, that objective moral facts, e.g. "murder is wrong", can be taken for granted or as self-evident; second, that values can even be objective, despite the nature of values as products of subjective judgment only. Con can manipulate the defintions to make pragmatic arguments about why it benefits us to subscribe to the notion of "objective morality", but these fail to address the spirit of the resolution, which deals with the philosophical issue of moral truth. We can say that it is practical to hold human life as fundamentally valuable for reasons such as psychological stability and aversion to retribution, and that's fine; however, this is not the same as making the claim that human life is objectively valuable, or that murder is objectively wrong: claims with which this debate is actually concerned.I should note, however, that, even for the individual agent, acting as if life is objectively valuable does not necessarily imply that the agent has a compelling reason to believe life to be valuable, so much as a practical reason to conform to values commonly held by the overwhelming majority of individuals.Con's Opening Argument The first argument made by Con doesn't seem to be entirely relevant to the debate. He gets into a long-winded diatribe about the distinction between ethics and morality, which I wholly accept (though "moral theory" can also be referred to as "normative ethics", which makes the distinction somewhat irrelevant). The offense in his argument comes when he attempts to dismiss normative contingency as something applying only to transient cultural values, rather than to all values. Unfortunately, he does not escape the problem of normative contingency, because it isn't an argument based on transience. Normative contingency, as outlined in my R1, deals specifically with the nature of moral claims, which are inherently based on arbitrary assertions of value. Though this is more apparent in cultural ethics, which aren't constant, the same problem applies to personal morality. In other words, temporariness is fundamentally irrelevant to the problem of contingency. Though the overwhelming majority believe in the objective value of life, and, though it may be practical to act as though life is objectively valuable, and, though belief in the objective value of life has persisted over time, none of the aforementioned considerations help Con to escape the problem of normative contingency as outlined in R1. Con will need to demonstrate that objective moral values do exist, rather than merely offer weak, consequent-affirming evidence that they may exist.Con's Contentions1. Con's argument fails to slip past any of my objections. In the case of normative contingency, his argument about contextuality plays right into my hand. He tries to save his position by vaguely gesturing toward an escape from the realm of ethical discourse, but this argument is neither supported nor particularly well-explained. It seems to be nothing more than a bare assertion. Moreover, the argument about contexuality does not appear to affirm the existence of moral values. It is merely a descriptive statement about how contextualization of actions results in different characterization of those actions. If anything, this can be subsumed under the problem of normative contingency, the fundamental claim of which is that moral judgments are only valid in the value contexts within which they are made, but that, moreover, the value contexts (and their fundamental building blocks) are themselves only arbitrary assertions.Con also fails to dodge the presupposition and subjectivity problem by pointing to the "moral gravity of death", which not only presupposes the existence of objective values by which death may be judged as grave, but also fails to account for the inherent subjectivity of values which renders those judgments matters of taste. Certainly we may be offended by mass genocide, but the mere fact of a tug on our heartstrings is insufficient for simply assuming moral objectivity.One final aside: though Con criticizes skepticism about morality (i.e. a need for empirical verification and the assertion of the impossibility of moral knowledge), my position is not skepticism, but outright nihilism, which makes these criticisms largely irrelevant inasmuch as they're epistemic in nature.2. Con's second contention appears to be a massive appeal to consequences [http://en.wikipedia.org...] which seems to suggest that, should we accept morality as fundamentally subjective, many awful things, e.g. social isolation, the degredation of one's mind, inability to manage one's life, will inevitably follow. Even if we accept that these are necessary consequences of accepting value subjectivity, consequential appeals are insufficient to dismiss the problem on a philosophical level. At best, it proves that it may be highly impractical to rebel against socio-ethical norms--an argument which I've already addressed.3. Con's fatal mistake is twofold: first, his argument again fails to escape normative contingency. Even if we accept the descriptive truth that it is objectively necessary for all humans to eat to survive, this still does not imply objective values. Recall that questions of value raise further questions of "to whom" and "for what purpose"? The problem of normative contingency, then, applies here, since food as an objective value is merely instrumental to, and therefore contingent on, the value of life. While it is perfectly true that nearly every being values life, and will therefore value eating as a result, neither of these facts justifies the assertion that "eating is good", "eating is right", or even "eating is more morally important than X" (much less "life is morally valuable") are objective moral facts. Second, the argument also fails to escape value subjectivity. Goodness, rightness, and importance are not objective properties of entities, because all of them are judgments of value, and are therefore products of evaluations performed by individual age. Con is confusing statements like "Person P values X" with "X is (objectively) valuable", which allows him to achieve the illusion of moral objectivity. His illusion is merely more sophisticated because he is confusing "X is (objectively) valuable" with "many people A, B, C,... value X". As for the latter parts of this contention, they are simply restatements of earlier arguments about contextuality, which I've already addressed. Discard them.ConclusionCon's case has not only failed to address the problems of normative contingency, presupposition, and value subjectivity, but has also failed to offer a single compelling reason to subscribe to the notion of moral objectivity. Reasons which Con's case did present fell into the traps set by my objections in Round 1. Perhaps Con will find a way to overturn my objections and present a strong case for objective morality. In the meantime, however, I remain confident that the case for nihilism remains unscathed.