On Balance, Non-Cognitivism is the Proper Moral Model

Responses: >> "I made the statement as an intellectual one, not an emotional one. I know you can be above straw mans, so please refrain from saying the meaning I intend is other than it is when you know better :)." It's not a straw man. Moral propositions like "shooting someone in the head is wrong" are emotive statements. A complete moral proposition like "Bill shot Susie in the head and that was wrong" contain a descriptive and an emotive portion. When you generalize the statement to remove the specific descriptors, the statement can only retain the emotive portion. >> "Consensual pedophilia I would say boo to. I'd rather people not engage in it..." ... which perfectly makes my point above... >> "...it's inaesthetic and generally icky. But I don't think it's wrong." So in your opinion, you don't believe that pedophilia is morally wrong... you have an emotive response of ickyness that you attribute to pedophilia. My opponent also indicates that there is a difference between ickyness and wrongness... I hope he deigns to provide us a definition of some kind because we're still working with subjective concepts... >> ""Wrong" is a descriptor of actions that reduce the odds of having one's life to live." Endangering one's life to save another is therefore morally wrong. Smoking is therefore morally wrong. Drinking is therefore morally wrong. Driving your car, flying, walking down stairs, skydiving.... anything that statistically has a nonzero chance of killing you is therefore morally wrong. I think this definition is inadequate. >> "Good-conducive to having one's life to live." Killing everyone with any infectious disease is therefore good. Preventing as many other drivers from being on the road is therefore good... Etc... Same problem. >> "Obviously, in the context of the goal of life, there are MANY good things. Therefore, "The good," since "the" is a definite article, HAS no meaning without further context" Fair enough... by "the good" I'm asking for a general principle that can be used to determine what is good and what is bad, but you've pretty much answered that question already... >> "A moral proposition about any action consists of stating of the answer to the question: "Does this action, in fact, further the end I am seeking?"" I'll take this as you defending pure subjectivism. ********************************************************************* Readers, my opponent has refined his case for morality to defending pure subjectvism - the notion that what is moral is what furthers the end one is seeking, and by corollary, that which does NOT further one's own ends is immoral. There are several problems with this position. 1) It is impossible to act both morally and altruistically. 2) Many actions that are necessary and/or lack moral import are deemed immoral by this standard (For example, if the set of desired ends includes "stay alive" it is immoral to drive a car because you could be killed). 3) Some actions carry the peculiar status of being moral and immoral (For example, if the set of desired ends includes "stay alive" and "go to work" it would be immoral to do anything that reduces either of these... making it immoral to drive to work because it reduces your chances of staying alive, but moral to drive to work because it increases your chances of getting there). 4) Subjectivism lacks an evaluative method for moral propositions. By this I mean that if "good" is "that which furthers my own ends" then it makes no sense for an actor to ask himself if what he wants is good, because everything the actor wants is by definition good. 5) It removes an actor's ability to make generalized propositions about events that carry (or might carry) moral import. For example, if Bob states "shooting people is wrong" and Jeff states "shooting people is right" - they both cannot logically be correct unless you add the caveat "in my opinion" to each statement. Thus, if two subjectivists disagree about the same situation, one can make the case that subjectivism does not successfully refer to a real event - only to the actors' opinions ABOUT the event... in which case subjectivism fails as a moral model entirely. ******************************************************************* I contend, that, as stated in the first round, because of these problems, we should endorse non-cognitivism as a moral theory, even if not as a moral practice. AFFIRMED.