Moral Naturalism is more compelling than Moral Relativism

Until today, I was unfamiliar with the term "moral naturalism," so I had too google it. I am neither a moral naturalist nor a moral relativist. However, I do think moral relativism has more going for it than moral naturalism, so I think I can participate in this debate without having to play devil's advocate.DefinitionsNaturalism: The view that the physical universe is all that exists (except perhaps abstract objects like numbers, propositions, properties, relations, etc.). There are no supernatural beings, such as angels, demons, or gods.Moral facts: Moral facts are statements that describe (a) prescriptive obligations (e.g. You ought to feed your cats.), (b) virtue and vice (e.g. Courage is a virtue and cowardice is a vice.), (c) right and wrong (e.g. Helping people is right and harming them is wrong.), (d) good and evil (e.g. Happiness and well-being are good, but suffering and dispair are evil), etc.Objective: A statement is objective if it refers to the object. For example, "Blue Bell is a company that makes ice cream," is about the company, Blue Bell. Objective statements can be true or false independently of whether anybody believes them or not.Subjective: A statement is subjective if it refers to the subject making the claim. For example, "Blue Bell is the best ice cream in the country," is an expression of the tastes and preferences of the person making the claim. Whether it is true or false depends on the subject making the claim. It's true for a person who likes Blue Bell, but it's false for a person who does not like Blue Bell.Relative: If the truth of a statement is relative, that means it depends on the subjective preferences of individuals or the collective preferences of groups. "Relative" in this context should not be confused with "relative" in the Theory of Relativity, in which time is relative to frames of reference.Moral Naturalism: The view that naturalism is true and that moral facts are objectively true descriptions of the natural world[1]Moral Relativism: The view that there are no objective moral facts, but that moral statements are subjective and/or relative as defined above.[2]ArgumentsThere are two reasons I think moral relativism has more going for it than moral naturalism--(1) Moral naturalism is the mother of all is/ought fallacies, and (2) Moral relativism solves the gounding problem better than Moral naturalism does.(1) The is/ought fallacyOne can give an exhaustive description of how the physical world is in the language of chemistry and physics. But chemistry and physics only describe what is the case. They never describe what ought to be the case. The is/ought fallacy is a mistake in reasoning in which somebody jumps from the fact that some state of affairs is the case that it therefore ought to be the case. Such a leap of logic is fallacious because it simply does not follow by any known rules of inference. Under naturalism, the universe simply is. It simply exists. But there's no particular way it ought to be. It follows that under naturalism, no state of affairs in the universe can be objectively right or wrong, good or evil.Moral relativism does not suffer from the is/ought fallacy since moral relativists do not claim that statements of morality are objectively true. Moral statements are merely statemetns of individual or cultural sentiment and preference. For you to say, "Killing is wrong," is just to say that you value life or that you abhore killing.(2) The grounding problemThe grounding problem in morality is the problem of establishing what makes a moral statement true (whether true in the objective sense or true in the subjective sense). Moral relativism does a better job of grounding morality than moral naturalism does. In moral relativism, moral facts are grounded in persons. In moral naturalism, moral facts either have no ground or are grounded in physical states of affairs.Only persons ascribe value and worth to things. If there were no persons, then nothing would have value or worth. It follows that there could be no state of affairs that are good or evil unless there are persons who value them or ascribe worth to them.Only persons have purposes. Nothing matters unless there is somebody it matters to.[3] If the physical world is all that exists, then nobody meant for us to be here. And when we are gone, it will not matter that we were here at all. It follows that nothing matters now except what matters to us. Since nothing matters apart from our own sentiments, it follows that there is no objective right and wrong.Only persons issue commands. It follows that morals cannot be grounded in the natural world. They can only be grounded in persons. Prescriptions are a form of command since they impose obligations which people are required to obey. The universe imposes no obligations on us. The universe simply is. We are not obligated to obey a blind and indifferent universe which issues no commands. It follows that we have no moral obligations.ConclusionThere you have it. Moral naturalism commits the is/ought fallacy, but moral relativism doesn't. Morality can be grounded in moral relativism, but morality cannot be grounded in moral naturalism. It follows that moral relativism has more going for it than moral naturalism.Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. I look forward to my opponent's case for moral naturalism over and against moral relativism.[1] "Moral Naturalism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu...[2] "Moral Relativism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu...[3[ "Does Anything Really Matter?," Philochristos http://philochristos.blogspot.com...