DA Tournament: The Most Accurate Meta-Ethical Theory. Moral Realism (Pro) vs Moral Relativism (Con)

Pro spends 50% of his round 4 argument on Nihilism again. In the process he gave up precious space to:(1) Put forth any new positive arguments affirming moral realism(2) Respond to my round 3 rebuttals on:Descriptive relativismEthnocentrismGrounding moral truthsMorality existing as a cogent conceptFunctional realismPer round 1 rules, R4 was his last chance to put forth new arguments affirming moral realism.Existential NihilismPro gives a lengthy explanation of 'Biological Telos' in order to rebut 'existential nihilism'. I feel the need to reciprocate a lengthy rebuttal to this although I don't want to because it's almost irrelevant. His argument for 'Biological Telos' is Thomas Aquinas' fifth way "Argument from design" for an intelligent designer. The only reason I mentioned existential nihilism in the first place is because a universe devoid of any ultimate meaning, purpose, or reason for existence lays a *logical foundation* for a moral relativistic worldview. I didn't say that existential nihilism must be *necessarily true* in order for relativistic morality to be true.DeismDesim: "belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it."http://dictionary.reference.com...Deism is an explanation for relativistic morality AND fits Pro's argument for biological telos. IF a Desitic God created the universe, he is merely the designer and not the basis for any ultimate human purpose, values, or truth since God has remained indifferent since creating the world. Since moral realism only concerns itself with ultimate human purpose, values, and truth, a God of complete indifference is totally incompatible with moral realism. Morality only concerns itself with how we "ought" to act via "good" and "bad" but it's impossible for morality to be objective and grounded in a moral authority that doesn't give a crap.The "argument from design" is unsupportive of his affirmation that "ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world " it just lays down some logical framework.. But even this fails, as the world could've been designed by God without objective human moral values! Thus, this just becomes a possibility for Pro's case and becomes a very weak argument. In addition, in an existential nihilist worldview, natural selection acts on small variations over long periods of time to give the appearance of design without any God being necessary for seemingly apparent design. I'll expand on this point more if my opponent wants but its been beaten to death. http://www.actionbioscience.org...Moral Sense TheoryMy opponent still has not defined what 'Moral Sense Theory' is. Unless he's just formulated his own theory on what it means to have 'moral sense'? Possibly he's not defending it as a "Theory" anymore as he presented it in round 1? My opponent's case for moral sense suffers a huge problem. He never argued that 'moral sense' is homogenous. A serial killer can have the 'moral sense' to see it as his moral duty to kill people. If two people have conflicting 'moral sense' how does this in any way support his claim that "ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world"? A serial killer senses that the proposition "killing is good" is true while another person senses the proposition "killing is bad" is true but according to moral realism only one person can be right! If ethical propositions refer to objective features of the world they can't both be simulatenously true due to the law of non-contradiction. If pro is just arguing that human beings have a "moral sense" this supports moral realism just as equally as it supports moral relativism. Perception of morality evolving vs. morality itself evolving. Pro points out the distinction between 'morality' evolving and our 'ability to perceive' morality evolving. Pro likens our ability to 'perceive' morality with our ability to perceive light. It's not the light itself that becomes more evolved, just our ability to perceive it improves with more advanced visual acuity. This analogy fails because there are animals with higher visual acuity that can perceive light better than the human eye can. Following this logic, there should be some animals with higher moral acuity that have a more accurate description of ethical propositions than human beings do.Argument from math vs. evolutionAgain, my opponent's logic is the same as my argument was but the scenarios aren't analogous. Mathematics doesn't have an 'ontological' existence in reality meaning that 'numbers' don't actually exist (you won't find the number 5 under a rock) but mathematics isn't 'emergent' per se. Mathematics is the abstraction of real objects by higher functioning intelligent beings. This means that mathematics has an objective basis because real objects can be abstracted, but this absraction is only possible with the presence of intelligent beings. This is why mathematics is contingent on the existence of human beings. Evolution was ongoing before any human beings actually existed and have an objective, empirical presence in reality. Further, morality doesn't have any *real object presence to be abtracted from like mathematics does*. Pro never rebuts my point that morality has a pre-cursory emergence from animals, nor does he ever dispute that if evolution is true then moral relativism is true, so my point stands.Evolution being a basis for moralityPro says "I never made the claim that evolution is the source of objective morals though, thus evolution is rather irrelevant to my moral realism case". Per his round 3 argument he said "[evolution] can only hope to support moral realism since evolution is objective, and it deals with what 'is', thus evolution is insufficient to get to an 'ought' (c.f. is/ought problem)". So it appears that pro is contradicting himself somewhat here. His problem was comparing the objective basis of moral realism to the objective basis of evolution so it was not a tu quoque fallacy.We can see morality in animals and 'morality' appears to act as a form of 'social cohesion' resulting in greater survival of a species so morality certainly has a basis in evolution. EgoismPro ignores my repeated explanation of 'egoism' being a central tenet of modern economic theory. My opponent says that 'egoism' poses a self-contradictory moral framework because conflicts can't be resolved if everyone acts in their self-interests. But the opposite is actually true: everyone acting in their own self-interests results in a harmonious and highly efficient society. This is the "invisible hand" free market efficiency via Egoism that Adam Smith talked about. If everyone seeks their own self-interests, this reliance on others to achieve those interests results in a net benefit for everyone and only affirms egoism. Altruism is the exception rather than the rule. Furthermore, most forms of altruism have some reciprocal effect resulting in the propagation of life. Descriptive relativismSince my opponent didn't respond to this I'll add more arguments.The ancient Greeks thought infanticide was permissible, we don't. 18thcentury Hindu villagers in India supported the practice of suttee, while we condemn it.http://web.nmsu.edu... It's morally acceptable to kill newborn females in China, in the US it isn't. Genital mutilation is acceptable in African nations, in others it isn't. EthnocentrismNever responded to this either. More examples:The US getting involved in setting up democracy in the Middle East. European Imperialism overtaking colonies in Africa and the America's and imposing their culture. In Academia, courses focusing on their own country's history to the exclusion of all others. Nazi Germany believing that their race was the "master race."http://examples.yourdictionary.com...