The Most Reliable Basis For Determining Morality Is Via Secular Means

So then, Round 4... Re: There is no good or bad in secular ethics. The very first Con does is to jump all over the word "guess" and "extrapolation", while claiming the following: A: I have absolutely no idea what the moral outcomes can be of speeding, and B: I cannot prove that the murder of someone will do more harm than good. A is blatantly false. We've observed what can and does happen when a person goes at a certain speed. We know that there's a considerably greater chance that someone will get run over, or that the one speeding will hit something else like another vehicle or a wall or a ditch or a bus stop or a tree or whatever. Sure, these risks still exist when a person is driving at normal speed, but provided that other circumstances aren't playing a part, the risk that I emphasised is still lower. Con bases his argument for B based on the fact that the person could end up becoming the next fascist leader or that some other fantasy outcome like a second American Civil War may take place. Look, this is not the Terminator movies, although unlike the Terminator movies Con doesn't even have actual evidence that choosing to murder someone will fulfil a greater benefit than harm, since at least the machines actually KNEW that the Connors would contribute to them losing the war on mankind, you know? Furthermore, Con makes a really faulty criticism of extrapolation, deriding it as just "another word for guess". If that's the case, then Con should advocate that we throw out the entire scientific and maths processes, since extrapolation plays a big part in eventually coming up with theories that become universally accepted as the most reliable explanations we have for areas within those subjects. Con's definition of "extrapolation" is overly-simplistic, since an extrapolation is actually defined as "To infer or estimate by extending or projecting known information" or alternatively "an inference about the future (or about some hypothetical situation) based on known facts and observations" (1). In other words, there's actually solid grounds to make predictions, and there's a very good chance those predictions will be RIGHT. Con tries to rebut my speed limit example by claiming that most of the time, people are not hurt, and that most accidents on the road aren't caused by speeding at all. But this plainly isn't the case (2) (3), as within the male teen drivers alone you have the fact that 39% of the fatalities were caused by them speeding. In 2010, the NHTSA found similar numbers for the teens and found that at least a third of fatal crashes happened because the driver was speeding. I will concede that there are a declining number of accidents, but this does nothing more for Con's argument. Yes, you can have accidents for reasons other than speed limits, but provided those reasons (EG: drunken driving, driving while using a phone) aren't in play, then again the speed limits are there to minimise the risk. If someone therefore decides to go above those imposed speed limits, they are making a conscious decision to increase the risks both to themselves and to other drivers. The fact that when speed limits were raised in certain states back in 1996, there was a direct correlation between the increases of speed and the motor vehicle accidents and fatalities just goes to prove my point (4), surely? The speed limits we have chosen so far have ultimately been demonstrated for now to be the most reliable means of both reducing accidents AND ensuring that people can get around the country easily enough and as quick as is reasonable without causing too much danger to others. Contrary to what Con says, we can in fact use the past and the present to make some pretty accurate judgments about what to do in the future, as morality is a social science, and is just as obligated to follow the scientific process. Furthermore, Con does not fully understand the axioms. In my third source from Round 3, there's a very clear explanation given in greater detail about the axioms of secular morality, in particular the part about "all else about equal". In other words, if someone hasn't become depressed enough that they want to commit suicide/self-harm/drug-taking on themselves, then ultimately those people will prefer happiness to non-happiness. As IC points out, the consequences of the axioms are as follows: "1. All else being equal, it is wrong to needlessly inflict suffering on people. 2. Except for the case of self-preservation, with all else being equal, it is best to avoid killing other people (on the assumption that they don't want to be killed). 3. Actions such as slavery and rape are wrong because they excessively limit people's happiness and freedom of action." So Con's objections simply don't hold up in light of the above as well as also again pointing out empathy and compassion, as unless we get affected by attachment to a belief/ideology or get subject to mental illness or becoming a sociopath, we generally do not to like others getting hurt, because a lot of us either don't like to be hurt or ideally wouldn't want to be in a situation where they hate themselves so much they'd want to hurt themselves, and there are actual tests that show empathy is an inborn rudimentary trait that can be developed through the years that very small children grow up (5). This would again suggest that means beyond either a religion or a coin flip are sufficiently more reliable. But again, Con's appeal to the "We can't know what would have happened if 9/11 didn't happen so you can't call it immoral" argument is irrelevant, due to the above paragraph. If Con had the equipment to orchestrate another "9/11" style-event, we cannot expect that he'd subject it to a coin flip and operate on the same "something good might happen!" basis. As for the "unprecedented" part, Con sorely underestimates the ability of secular morality to adapt to new situations. The Iron Chariots link has a whole section on bizarre hypothetical scenarios and how we could react to them using secular morality, as SM takes stock of present conditions too and is able to make pretty accurate judgments. Again, not perfect, but still the most reliable basis. And again, just because we have no evidence from the future just because we can't use evidence from the past and present to determine the future, otherwise Con might as well throw the entire theory of evolution based on its similar predictive abilities. The Ten Coin Flips Con again fails to prove that the ends can justify the means. There is no evidence given, for example, that a country would not have been able to save millions of lives via another method. I am baffled also that he claims secular morality gives "absolute" answers, a strange thing to say when a lot of secularists would actually agree with Con's point about the different kinds of killing he brought up in Round 2, suggesting that quite clearly that's not how secularists think. Torture has been found to be consistently unreliable (6), so the BOP is on Con to demonstrate that torture would have been the country's most reliable method. SM works on evidence - if a new solution comes along that is shown to be more reliable than the other, that solution will be adapted. Again, there's no "certainty" involved, but simply by making predictions to the best of our ability to do so. Hence why SM DOES match the group of the chimp link as they fit the techniques used of that group. The Harvey Dent method ISN'T reliable as reliable as SM. Sources: (1) http://www.thefreedictionary.com... (2) http://www.cdc.gov... (3) http://www.rmiia.org... (4) http://www.smartmotorist.com... (5) http://www.sciencedaily.com... (6) http://rationalwiki.org...