Objective Moral Values and Duties must be grounded in God

In this, my first response, I will address the argument first, and then respond to criticisms. The Oxford English dictionary defines morality as "principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior: a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society: the extent to which an action is right or wrong. My opponent has redefined morality to signify ""something one should do if one wishes to maintain a certain quality. .. [and] something one should not do if one wishes to maintain that very same quality. "" He has not offered any rational justification for this redefinition. Moreover, the distinction he drew between "Human" and "Man" was similarly developed without rational justification. His stated precondition for qualifying as a member of the group of Man is having the ability to reason. He then arbitrarily redefines morality as "something one should do if one wishes to have access to the club of man (reason). In this way, morality is, for him, descriptive of the preconditions necessary to have access to the club of Man. The problems with this conception of morality are many. Who is to say that this having access to this club of Man is constitutive of morality? A sociopath certainly doesn't. My opponent says that "The hypothetical sociopath would have to spit in the face of all logic, which dictates otherwise". But sociopaths, by definition, don't show remorse, and don't obey the morality common to most human beings. They enjoy acts of cruelty. This surely excludes them from the club of man. But sociopaths don't see anything wrong with their actions; they are acting in accord with their own logic. The Nazis, during WWII, thought that their attempts at genocide were fulfilling some good. German society had a different moral code - call it the "verein des Menschen" - to which they aspired. And if they had won WWII, and managed to kill everybody who disagreed with them, we would all be operating under the morals of the verein des Menschen, rather than the club of man. Societal structures would still operate under a logical structure, just a different structure than that advanced by the club of man. If morality could be A or not-A under different scenarios, morality is, ipso facto, not objective. My opponent has thus failed to give a truly objective ontological basis for morality. Notice too that my opponent has used a conditional ought here instead of the unconditional ought. If you"re unfamiliar with those philosophy terms, let me explain. A conditional ought takes the form of something sufficiently like "If you want to do X, you ought to do Y" and says what conditions help accomplish a particular goal without saying whether one should aim for the goal in the first place, e. g. "If you want to poison your teacher to death, you should use a sufficiently strong toxin. " An unconditional ought says what ought to be _period_ and is the sort of ought found in "You should not poison teachers to death" and "the worst possible misery and suffering for everyone for all eternity is a state of affairs that ought not to be," and is thus goal-independent in a way that a conditional ought is not. When applied to a person"s actions, an unconditional ought refers to a genuine obligation for that person (e. g. "you should not torture infants just for fun") rather than merely stating what actions help bring about some descriptive state of affairs (like a dead teacher or having more money). An unconditional ought is not to be confused with an "ought" that doesn"t rely on any circumstances whatsoever; e. g. one could believe the unconditional ought with respect to not killing applies in some circumstances but that this obligation doesn't exist in certain other situations (some self-defense cases perhaps). Morality is an unconditional ought. Moral properties of objectively existing unconditional oughtness don"t fit in very well in an atheistic worldview. For a morality to be objective, it must regard unconditional oughtness. Moreover, the very notion of morality is undermined and meaningless without an omniscient being to judge actions objectively. A sociopath would simply say "Who cares? We"re all dead anyway! We"re just meaningless assemblies of organic matter, all of which will die relatively soon in the heat-death of the universe! What does it matter if I torture a child for my own amusement? " Again, he"d be right. You need an omnipotent God to make moral judgement objective. Without that God, morality is either meaningless. .. or pointless. I will now turn to address my opponent"s objections to my original argument. Most importantly, my opponent has misrepresented my position by saying that "He claims that, since the actions seem to be right or wrong to him, the actions are objectively right or wrong. This is not enough to substantiate his claim, as he gives no reasons as to why they are right or wrong. " This is a straw man. The argument is premised upon the existence of objective moral values and duties. I assume that objective moral values and duties exist, as per the frame of the entire debate. Since by accepting this debate, my opponent has bought into the premise that objective moral values and duties do exist, his only recourse is to find a source of ontological objectivity that is not God, a task he has heretofore failed to execute He misunderstands my argument regarding evolution. It is true that we evolved characteristics {a,b,c} rather than {x. y,z}. But other societies (Nazi Germany) evolved {x,y,z} rather than {a,b,c}. Who is to say which society is correct? Forget about rewinding the evolutionary clock; contradicting morals among different people, cultures, and societies, exist right here and now. Is it wrong to bind young girls" feet? Is it wrong to enslave others? Many think it is not; if we are to condemn them, we must have some criteria by which to do so, other than our subjective opinion. "The fatal flaw in this argument is that morality simply describes what is. .. " This is a misunderstanding of morality. Morality is what moves us from "is" to "ought". Were it the case that morality only describes what is, then no one could ever condone or condemn any action. If I see a child being tortured, I don't merely say, under objective morality, "Hmm! ! That child looks to be in excruciating pain! And it is being inflicted upon him with no good reason! How about that! !" I say that this action is morally reprehensible. He asks "Would this not apply to the morality set in place by God, if the majority of people subscribed to a different moral theory? How does this make objective morality without God impossible? If the moral rules were in fact objective, the opinion of the majority wouldn't matter at all. " The key question here is this: how could moral values and duties be objective in the first place, absent God? My opponent is thus begging the question in his favor. The burden of proof is on him: how exactly could morality be grounded objectively, in something other than God? He says "I would like to turn the question back to you. How do you know that you perceive the world correctly enough to make the claim that objective morality requires God? If you would like to hold this line of reasoning, you would have to admit that it's possible for there to be objective morality without God, which would refute all your arguments already put forth. " One"s perception of this world is what philosophers would call a properly basic belief. If we don't take our most basic beliefs - say, in the law of noncontradiction - to be an accurate reflection of reality, then we are left in a position where we cannot know anything. I would thus be able to turn this objection around: How does my opponent know that he perceives the world well enough to make the claim that objective morality doesn't require God?