The Moral Argument is Sound

RemarksAs per normative debating rules, any dropped relevant arguments result in a failure to carry the burden of proof. Con admits, "I am just going to refute the Moral Argument and ignore the Apologetics you presented."By "apologetics" it seems Con meant my support of both of the premises (since apologia means a defense anyways). In so doing though, he fails to notice my anticipation of his so called refutation he presented in his opening round. Both of which I need only point the voter to below. Lastly, a blatant refusal to engage and even ignore my sound arguments, counts as a conduct violation and points ought to be awarded as such if the voter sees fit. Theoretical Moral ArgumentNecessity Claim (NC): If objective moral values and duties don’t exist, then God doesn’t existAgainst the first premise here, Con merely says that any other person, place or thing necessitates moral truths. But surely this seems insane! If anything, it's less plausible than my support for 1. First, I anticipated this ridiculously intellectually lazy response in my opening round with this, "If morals are subjective or unreal [necessitated by mere contingent nouns], then they're merely by-products of evolution." And such subjective grounding of morals isn't what I mean by "objective," "valid and binding regardless of human opinion"Hence in ignoring my support of 1, Con overlooks the fact that subjective morals (rooted in mere contingent nouns) aren't objective morals. Thus he straw-mans the whole of premise one. But leave that aside, Con's treatment of God as a mere contingent being forgets my argument, "God is not merely a subject, but a maximally great necessarily existing being. If God exists, he would exist in all possible worlds, which makes him not merely a subject of certain possible worlds, but rather an objective feature of all reality by virtue of his maximal greatness. So I affirm God exists necessarily and thus objectively."We can further develop this point with use of the Ontological Argument. Most philosophers agree that if God’s existence is possible, then he must exist. That is, God's existence is necessary, and necessary existence is a property. A well known and well defended argument is below where steps 2-5 are uncontroversial. The key premise is 1.Ontological Argument1. It is possible that a maximally great being exists.2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world.3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world5. If a maximally great being exists in the actual world, then a maximally great being exists.6. Therefore a maximally great being exists.Possible world conjuncts must be capable of being true individually and together. For example, The prime minister is a prime number isn’t even possibly true! So saying God exists in some possible world means the proposition: God existsis true in some maximal description of reality. Thus God is ‘maximally excellent’ in every possible world: God has ‘maximal greatness.’To have Maximal Excellence is to possess great making properties. Great making properties are things like omniscience, omnipotence, moral perfection, etc. But we can gradually discover what a great making property is, without undermining the objective notion that God would, by definition, possess all such properties. Maximal Greatness is thus possibly exemplified. But then it must exist in a maximally excellent way in every possible world, including the actual world, therefore God exists.a priori Warrant for P1A maximally great being is intuitively coherent and so therefore possibly instantiated. Thus in order for the argument to fail the concept of God must be logically incoherent. But a maximally great being doesn’t seem even remotely incoherent, so we have at least prima facie warrant for thinking it’s possible that a maximally great being exists.a posteriori Warrant for P1Plantinga says that if we “carefully ponder” 1, and objections to it and if we consider its connections with other propositions we accept / reject and we still find it compelling, then we’re within our rational right to accept 1. This recommendation is a far cry from the a priori speculations decried by modal skeptics. For even if we cannot come to a priori warrant, we’re rational in accepting 1 by a posteriori warrant from successful arguments such as the cosmological and moral arguments for the existence of God. Consider the Conceptualist Argument,1. Abstract objects, such as numbers & propositions, are either independently existing realities or else concepts in some mind2. Abstract objects are not independently existing realities.3. If abstract objects are concepts in some mind, then an omniscient, metaphysically necessary being exists.4. Therefore, an omniscient metaphysically necessary being exists.Premise 1 would simply require a refutation of Nominalism (view of non-existing abstract objects), which has already been accomplished and can be found,http://philmat.oxfordjournals.org...Premise 2 simply requires a Platonism Refutation, which has already been accomplished in the literature by showing not only how abstract objects are causally isolated, but are also irrelevant to what transpires in the world.Premise 3 excludes abstract objects as grounded in a human mind, for there are just too many abstract objects to be grounded in anything less than an infinite mind; and since many of these objects exist necessarily, they can’t be grounded in any contingent mind.Thus this leads us to a conclusion which supports premise 1 of the ontological argument. Surely, though, it just seems obvious that a metaphysically necessary being is the ground for abstract objects which are themselves metaphysically necessary; at least more obvious than any negation offered thus far. Hence we’re within our rational right to affirm the possibility of God, from which it follows God must exist.Factual Claim (FC): Objective moral values and duties existAgainst Premise two, Con simply asks a trivial question, "Who says? Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, who?"The answer is, it doesn't matter which religion affirms moral truths, for they would be true regardless over whether cuch groups affirmed them or not! I also anticipated Con's last response in my opening round, he makes the age old flawed objection that belief in God isn't required to live moral lives, "To claim that you must believe in a god to have objective, subjective or arbitrary morality is akin to saying, "You must believe there is a Santa Clause or else there are no presents" Show me where an atheist is any more amoral than theists and I will sell you ocean front property in Idaho for $5!"... but that's NOT what I'm claiming! I even said, "The issue before us isn’t whether we must believe in God to have moral lives, or if we can we formulate an ethics system without reference to God, and nor is the question can we recognize the existence of moral reality without reference to God? Moral ontology shouldn't be confused with our moral epistemology. I’m concerned with the former of these." Then I even gave a diagram, http://www.debate.org...Practical Moral Argument*Argument ExtendedConclusionWe've seen in this debate no good reasons for thinking premise one and two are less plausible given my support and refutation of Con's weak case against the moral argument. Furthermore, all of my arguments were either ignored or dropped or both. I therefore declare victory over Con. God is therefore the source and very paradigm of moral goodness, and since we apprehend this source through moral experience, everyone of us can know God exists.