Moral Naturalism is more compelling than Moral Relativism

In my previous post, I said there were two things my opponent would have to do to defend his position--(1) tell us why we should think there are any objectively true moral facts, and (2) tell us why we should think there's any teleology/purpose in nature. He did take a stab at the former, but he really made no effort to defend the latter.Purpose in natureI said the only way he could defend teleology in nature is to ground that teleology in a personal being, such as God. But he adamantly refuses to do so, saying that "I do not believe an appeal to Supernaturalism needs to be made to bridge the is-out gap." He later goes on to say, "my inherent teleology doesn't rely on God."I have already explained twice now why a personal being is necessary for there to be any purpose or teleology. In his response, he says that I "seem to claim that there exists no function outside of intention of the maker," but that is false. A knife can function as a screwdriver even if that was never its purpose. The problem here is that my opponent conflates "purpose" with "function." I wouldn't argue that knives (or things in nature) have no function apart from the intention of their maker. They have functions in the sense that they bring about effects. But a thing's function is not necessarily the same thing as its purpose even when there is teleology. The fact that something in nature can function a certain way doesn't tell us anything about what it's purpose is or whether it even has a purpose.My opponent says, "My opponent seems to concede if natural teleology exists than [sic] there is no is-ought fallacy," but I don't concede that. Even if there are purposes for things in nature, that doesn't tell us what ought to be the case. For example, my opponent believes the purpose of humans is to act rationally. I can only assume (since he doesn't say) that the reason he thinks that's our purpose is because that's how we function. A good healthy mind is a mind that reasons correctly. But maybe our real purpose is to feed worms when we die, and the only purpose for our reasoning minds is so our population can flourish, enabling us to feed more worms. Since our purpose is to feed worms, then it is immoral for us to cremate our dead or put them in sealed caskets, because that frustrates our purpose. Instead, we ought to bury our dead in shallow graves so the worms can eat us.I doubt my opponent will be persuaded by that argument. What I meant to show is that teleology in nature (if it even exists) does not bridge the is/ought gap. Something more is needed.When you take nature as a whole apart from any divine purpose, you see that nature has no purpose. There is no ultimate goal in nature, and if you try to find one, you end up in a circular argument. Why do we have eyes? So we can see. Why do we need to see? So we can survive and reproduce. Why do we need to survive and reproduce? So when we die, we can feed the worms. Why do we need to feed the worms? So the birds will have food. Why do the birds need food? So they can survive and reproduce, etc. etc. Under moral naturalism, the life cycle becomes one big circular argument for teleology. There cannot be any objective morality under this scheme because there is no inherent purpose in nature. Even if we say that although there is no ultimate end, there are nevertheless immediate ends, we still haven't answered the question of why the whole circle exists. What is its purpose? Our life cycle is limited to earth earth. What, then, is the purpose of earth as a whole? There isn't one unless you just want to arbitrarily say, "It's to give the moon something to revolve around," or something like that.Objective moral factsIf my opponent succeeds in showing that there are objective moral facts, he will have killed two stones with one bird. He will have shown that moral relativism is false, and he will have supported one premise of his argument for moral naturalism.My opponent claims there is a distinction between moral realism and moral objectivism, and he gives a link to a lengthy paper on the subject, but since the distinction plays no role in his argument, and since the terms are used interchangeably in the article on moral naturalism I linked to earlier, I think we can ignore this distinction. He doesn't tell us what the distinction is anyway.My opponent's argument against moral relativism is that it is counter-intuitive, and he gives a few examples:(1) moral reformersIf there are no objective morals, then Ghandi and MLK Jr. only succeeded in changing society, but not in improving it. The only way there could be moral improvement is if there is some objective moral standard.However, "improvement" can also be assessed subjectively as we reflect on the past. Since most people today value peace, freedom, and equal rights, we are in a position to say that our society is better now than it was in the past. We don't need an objective standard of morality to be able to say that.He is right to say that from an objective point of view (i.e. from the perspective of an outsider), society only changed, but didn't improve. But so what? The argument from moral reformers only works if you assume moral objectivism, and that is to beg the question.(2) common senseMy opponent argues that most people believe that right and wrong exist. I don't deny that, but given naturalism, there is a perfectly good explanation for it that it more consistent with moral relativism than moral realism. We can give an evolutionary account for why people have moral sentiments. Having them has helped our species survive and flourish. Morality doesn't need to be anything more than subjective and common for it to have done its job. Another way is to ground moral sentiments in empathy, which does to require any objective standard of right and wrong.(3) unjust lawsMy opponent argues that if there are no objective morals, then there can be no unjust laws. Of course there are no <i>objectively</i> unjust laws, but we can nevertheless say that laws are unjust in a relativistic culture. If the laws do not reflect the common values most people share, then they can declare them unjust. After all, laws do not always necessarily reflect majority opinion, even in a democracy. That's why they get changed from time to time, and it's why people object to power being placed in too few hands.(4) HitlerMy opponent argues that if moral relativism is true, then Hitler didn't do anything objectively wrong. He's right. But we don't need to say Hitler did anything objectively wrong before we can say he did something wrong. What Hitler did was wrong in the sense that it went against the moral sentiments of the European (and American) community. In fact, most Germans weren't even aware of what was going on until after the war. The Allies forced German citizens to walk through the concentration camps so they would know what happened, and when they did, they were horrified.[1] They didn't approve of what happened.ConclusionContrary to what my opponent says, moral relativism is actually more parsimonious than moral naturalism because it requires less assumptions. What both sides agree with is that we all have a sense of right and wrong. In moral relativism, that's all it is--a sense. But moral naturalism comes with all sorts of unsubstantiated baggage--that there's really an objective standard of right and wrong that our moral sentiments correspond to, that natural function can tell us something about teleology, and that teleology can tell us something about right and wrong. These are all problematic, but on top of that, my opponent thinks teleology can exist in nature without God. I submit that he has not even come close to defending his position and that it is quite evident from what I have argued that moral relativism is the better theory.[1] http://www.criticalpast.com...