The Moral Argument is Sound

IntroductionI initially offered 8 criticisms of Pro’s argument. Remember, one of these alone is enough to negate the resolution. As Pro has only really responded to 6 of them, the resolution is negated already thus far. In fact, I will show in this round that actually none of Pro’s responses to any of my criticisms are remotely effective, and that all my criticisms easily survive scrutiny.Justification for P1Pro offered 3 justificatory remarks for P1. First, he appealed to God’s nature to ground these values, to which I gave 3 responses:Begging the Question - Pro responded to this:“The argument itself doesn't even explicitly ground morals in God, rather that's implicit in it's defense.”But this is false. Just look at what Pro said in R2:“Objective moral values are most plausibly based in a maximally great being…”If this isn’t explicit, I don’t know what is. But even if it were merely implicit, it is still fallacious. To argue that “God's nature is the highest moral value”, one has to first assume that God’s nature (and thus God) exists, which again is what the argument is supposed to prove, for if His nature didn’t exist, how could it account for anything? It is this huge assumption that clearly begs the question.Indeed, Pro’s source makes my exact point:“Now, what would you call such a thing if it existed? You would call it Him." (8) If God existed, it may well be His nature that grounded some sort of morality, but unfortunately for Pro, assuming His existence begs the question.Subjective moral values - Pro responds that he is defending God as an “objective feature of reality”, rather than a subject. Pro is just patently wrong here in what basing morality on God’s nature entails:“there are also universalist forms of subjectivism such as ideal observer theory (which claims that moral propositions are about what attitudes a hypothetical ideal observer would hold) and divine command theory (which claims that moral propositions are about what attitudes God holds).” (9)In contrast, objectivism holds moral facts to be independent of persons, including God. P1 therefore is false by definition.Irrelevance - Even if God were a more plausible grounding for objective morality than AF morality (which I don’t believe), this is not the same thing as saying (as P1 does) that without God such values don’t exist. As such, it is totally irrelevant as it pertains to justifying P1. Also, arguing AF morality is less plausible is irrelevant, given that P1 claims without God, there are NO objective moral values at all. To say that objective morality is now merely less plausible without God betrays what P1 explicitly states, and I suggest Pro read it. As such, Pro commits the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi on both counts (10).As such, Pro’s first attempt to justify P1 still fails miserably.The second justification given for P1 by Pro was problems with AF morality.Atheist moral duties - Pro responds to my point here first by distinguishing between rational and moral oughts. However, if objective moral values exist, then my duties (what I ought to do) are to act in accordance with these values. Doing otherwise would be to partially ignore reality (the existence of these values), which would be irrational. So the rational and the moral ought converge. Such duties become even more imperative given the lack of redemption in a future life. As for Taylor and Craig, I offered reasons why atheists have moral duties in my last round, as evidenced in Pro’s above criticisms of my approach! Pro then introduces an evolutionary naturalism eroding rationality critique. First, I’m not a naturalist, so this is a red-herring. Second, the idea that survivability and a true picture of the world aren’t strongly correlated is absurd. Surviving depends on my ability to comprehend the means of achieving basic needs. Natural selection would favour rationality as it enhances survivability. Also, if theism is true, we actually would have reason to doubt our cognitive faculties. False religious experiences, the appearance of gratuitous evil and inculpable non-belief would be just such 3 cases.Then we come to the supposed dedication of atheists to affirm P1:What’s the problem - Here I made 3 points to deny Pro’s claim:A) Factually absurd - justified by Swinburne and Sinnott-Armstrong, among many others.B) Historically inaccurate - disregards thousands of years of secular morality.C) Logically unwarranted - no contradiction or even tension between moral realism and atheism.Unfortunately, Pro totally ignores B) and C) above. Extend arguments.A) Pro says that Swinburne and WSA are referring to belief in God, not His existence. This is false. Swinburne says:“ Some moral truths are clearly moral truths, whether there is a God or not . . .” (11)Clearly, he is referring to God’s existence here, not belief in God.As for Sinnott-Armstrong, this again is abundantly clear:“ atheists can coherently believe in an objective morality . . . I do.” (12)Again, this (and the quote beforehand) evidences atheists totally rejecting P1, rather than being dedicated to it, as Pro asserts. To say that atheists must deny moral realism seems factually absurd and is a claim denied by a plethora of theists and atheists alike. All Pro offers to combat this is a quote from Nietzsche, but Pro and I agree his view on denying moral facts is tantamount to denying the external world (P2), so I’m at a loss at why Pro thinks anything Nietzsche says in this area has any value at all. In any case, it certainly isn’t enough to disregard facts, history and logic.As such Pro’s second justification likewise crumbles.Pro’s last justification was that there were no obvious accounts of AF morality.Argument from Ignorance - This last justification is what I claimed was arguing from ignorance, and Pro does it repeatedly:“it's just not obvious that atheism provides as sound a foundation for objective morals”It is simply not up to the atheist to provide an account of objective moral values. Pro’s repeated insistence that I do so is arguing from ignorance by shifting the BoP, which is fallacious, as I warned in R1. But ironically I have actually done so, which Pro has yet to respond to (Moral mirror).Climbing Mount Impossible - Here, I pointed out that unless Pro could show all AF morality to be somehow impossible, he simply can’t affirm P1. Pro basically ignores my point here, instead promising to refute AMP. The problem is refuting this will do Pro little good. As Law said, the onus is on the theist,“ . . . to show that ALL such atheist-friendly accounts are wrong, even the ones we haven’t thought of yet, and don’t forget, as theists so regularly do, that they needn’t even be naturalistic. “ (13)Pro can’t respond by pointing to faults in one such account. As such, detailing criticisms of AMP, unless combined with criticisms of all other AF moral systems is simply irrelevant. Unless and until Pro can refute all such accounts, P1 is unjustified, regardless of the veracity of AMP. This is why I suspect P1 is almost certainly unjustifiable, and the argument in this form is completely useless.This completely eviscerates Pro’s last attempt to justify P1.As such, we can conclude that P1 is completely unwarranted, and given the sustained criticisms of it, almost certainly false.Justification for P2Pro drops the moral mirror response. Extend argument.ConclusionIn order to carry the resolution, Pro must defeat each and every criticism I have outlined. However, as we have seen, Pro has failed to effectively respond to any of these criticisms, in some cases completely ignoring them. In short, Pro has a huge task ahead of him. Sources8. http://www.scribd.com... (P1230)9. http://en.wikipedia.org...10. http://en.wikipedia.org...11. Is there a God?, P1412. God? A debate between a Christian and an atheist, P3613. Stephen Law vs. Bill Craig, (1:08:30)