The Moral Argument is Sound

IntroductionAs responses go, I admit to being rather dismayed with Pro’s last round. Much of my case was completely ignored, and the points Pro did address were often contemptuously dismissed without any real engagement.Far from refuting all my points, as he must, I’ll show that Pro has yet to defeat a single criticism of his argument.Justification for P1As readers will remember, Pro offered 3 justificatory points to justify P1.First, that “Objective moral values are most plausibly based in a maximally great being”I responded:Begging the question - Pro says that I have misunderstood his point, saying that his claim is conditional:“if God . . . exists, then we have a necessary condition for distinguishing moral truths.”Of course, but one cannot then use God to justify P1. But this is exactly what Pro does, saying God is“the standard from which all other moral events, states, etc are judged against;”This is pure assertion, without even a hint at an argument. Pro realises that his earlier justification begged the question, and replaced it with an equally fallacious statement. Pro simply cannot use God to establish P1, as this begs the question, and if he doesn’t beg the question, how else can he say P1 is justified by “a maximally great being”?Second, Pro insists he made an argument regarding a maximally great being , as it is more intuitive for God to “be the standard of moral perfection“. Not only does this fall foul of my 2 criticisms below, but this again is pure assertion. No argument is given. If Pro means that he can prove God via an ontological-type argument, this is irrelevant to the debate, and he certainly hasn’t provided the argument in any case.Subjective moral values - Pro offers 2 new responses:First, he says that morality is based in God’s essence, not His attitude.The problem here is this does nothing to address my point. If God’s essence (rather than His attitudes) is the foundation for moral values, why would these moral values be any less subjective? Emanating from God’s essence, such values would still be dependent on a person, so the objection stands. Also, Pro himself attacked moral Platonism as leaving “morals floating in an unintelligible way, lacking any adequate foundation”, so his appeal to essences is clearly contrived.Pro’s second remark about God existing subjectively attacks a straw-man. Even granting God’s objective existence would not make morality from His essence any less subjective. Subjective morality usually begins with an objectively existing person, so Pro’s point here is folly.Again, P1 seems necessarily false.Irrelevance - Here, Pro attempts to avoid both the problems I set out here, saying:“it's more plausible that God is necessary for morality.”The problem that the only way to say God is necessary for morality is to present some sort of argument for it (which he hasn't done, or to discount AF morality (which is his second justification). Pro’s first justification (above) is thus insufficient to affirm P1 and therefore irrelevant to the debate. It seems then that Pro’s justification is fallacious, necessarily false and even unable to establish P1.Pro’s second justification was that there were problems with AF morality. Readers will remember I offered 2 responses to this:Atheist moral duties:- account of atheist moral duties- convergence of rational and moral oughts- finitude of life- response to Pro’s EAN- reason to doubt cognitive faculties on theismThese 5 points were totally ignored by Pro. Extend argument.As for atheists being dedicated to denying objective morality:What’s the Problem? - I offered 3 points in response to Pro’s claim way back in R2:A) Factually absurd B) Historically inaccurate C) Logically unwarranted Pro still hasn’t responded to C), nor has he responded to my refutation of his claims about A) in R3, and also dropped the point about Nietzsche - his only defence of this justification. Extend argument.All he says about B) is that it deals with “moral epistemology, not ontology.” Is Pro really saying that moral ontology has been neglected by thousands of years by AF morality? This is absurd. Utilitarianism, for example, attempts to ontologically ground morality in things like maximising happiness. There are many such systems, and atheists have defended and developed such accounts for 2 millennia. To say that atheists are dedicated to moral non-realism, one simply has to ignore thousands of years of philosophy.Indeed, Pro even says,“I don't deny Atheists affirm moral truths”This contradicts his claim that atheists must deny moral realism.As such, we can say that Pro’s second justification is unwarranted, false and even denied by Pro himself.Pro’s last justification was that “it's just not obvious that atheism provides as sound a foundation for objective morals”.Arguing from Ignorance - I stress again that it is THIS above justification that argues from ignorance, not P1 as a whole. Pro merely repeats that P1 is amply justified, yet it this justification alone I‘m referring to. Pro is yet to respond to this. Extend argument.Climbing Mt Impossible - Here I argued that as P1 requires that Pro discount all forms of AF morality (i.e. show that it is impossible), his failure to do so means Pro simply can’t affirm P1. Pro gives 2 responses. First he says that I’m appealing to authority. This is utter nonsense.I didn’t say P1 is false because Stephen Law said so (which ironically is Pro’s approach when it comes to Nietzsche), which would be fallacious. I simply cited Law’s criticism. If using a scholar’s insight is fallacious (how could it be), then Pro’s own case would crumble, as he quotes extensively from Taylor for example, without commentary of his own. Therefore, his complaint here is wholly contrived and totally wrong. Lastly, Law’s modest point is basically to state what P1 already explicitly states. I’m just showing how P1 creates a challenge Pro can’t ever overcome.Pro then says he has defeated AF morality. This again is pure fantasy. Pro hasn’t even mentioned most AF systems (e.g. deontology), and hasn’t refuted any, with even AMP (which he promised to refute in this round) not only ignored, but actually semi-adopted by Pro himself. Pro says that his EAN refutes most AF morality. There are 2 problems with this. First, Pro can’t use the EAN as a silver bullet when I have criticised it on 2 counts and he is yet to respond. Second, EAN is irrelevant. Even if naturalistic evolution meant that all beliefs on atheism (including moral ones) were irrational, it does not follow that objective morals don’t exist. Such a statement commits the genetic fallacy (14). As such, P1 is completely without justification and almost certainly false. Justification for P2Moral mirror - The whole point about the this objection was to show that the atheist can mirror Pro’s justification for objective moral values (P2). If Pro wants to smash the mirror, as it were, he inevitably shatters his own case for P2, as my case is simply a reflection of his. Pro initially said:“there's no more reason to deny moral objectivity than there is to deny the physical world” (R2)Obviously, if Pro can substantiate his belief in morality like this, why can’t I? This is why I mirrored his case to account for morality.He now criticises this approach, saying my approach assumes “the realm of objective morals require no further explanation”, and that it “simply asserts they’re objective“. Obviously, Pro doesn’t realise here these are his problems. All I did was to mirror his approach. If he now says that my justification for objective morality is flawed, he has unwittingly destroyed P2 of his own argument! So inept is Pro's argument that he must actually provide an account of AF morality to establish P2 (to avoid question-begging), which actually falsifies P1!Sources14. http://www.logicalfallacies.info...