"For general purpose, the term "Morality" should refer to "The code which dictates how a goal (a val

As usual, given our contrast in formats I'll simply split it up into three sections: general reply to my opponent's claim, replies to specific quotes, and the conclusion. ==================== Why my opponent's normative definition of morality fails ==================== Ah, so I see. His reason for defining morality as he did was from the statements in his first round: "When people are talking about morality, they are attempting to convince someone to take or not to take an action (and when they are thinking about it, deciding whether to take an action). " To be honest, the reason I didn't realize this was his argument was because, well. .. it really isn't much of an argument. It's true that when people talk about what one ought to do, they are telling them what actions they should take. .. but this is not unique to morality at all. In so many areas of discourse the same thing happens - when architects are talking about a new project, they are telling others what actions they should take to create the most efficient/elegant/etc. structure. Again, the usage of the word should does NOT only include moral discussions. He chooses an incredibly irrelevant fact and decides to define morality as such. My point about bringing up Meno as an analogy is not to say that your definition applies to everyone in all situations, but rather it's simply vacuous due to it including nonsensical situations such as solving a math problem. He then states that a moral dimension is necessary in deciding to take action towards a goal, contrary to my proposal that this is often rationality. He entirely misunderstands the point -- you do not need to have moral concerns to motivate one to follow rules in order to achieve a goal. If I am concerned with the truth, then using the laws of logic and rational thinking will get me to the goal. If I am hungry, I rationally know that buying food will quench this qualm. It is perfectly possible to follow the rule to achieve a goal and NOT have morality to do with it. Not all goals are of moral concern; it can be simply desires that one has. Furthermore, he advocates the interesting claim that there can multiple moral standards. They are, as he states, absolute within a context. At first glance, this seems to be contradictory prima facie - how can we have multiple absolute moral standards? A standard implies it's objective, and absolute means it doesn't change. The idea, then, of having multiple objective, absolute standards is infeasible unless specified conditionals are put into place (which can be suspect as why would several moral standards have limits on their moral territory). RR states that they are within a context, but fails to elucidate. I see no point in quoting Ayn Rand. Objectivist ethics holds there to be objective morals - which is why inevitably Objectivists are usually if not always libertarians due to the particular rational egoistic theory you subscribe to. ==================== Why my opponent's normative definition of morality fails -- Responding to several quotes ==================== "Intuition is non-objective. " ----> Don't be so quick to throw intuition away; it's a powerful tool in philosophy. "This doesn't seem to be an argument in response. Whether law is a "public system" (whatever you mean by that) or not, it still derives from a code of action taken for some purpose. " ----> The point is that law is distinct from morality in the sense that you can be held legally liable for certain actions even though you may not have been aware of it (travelling to a foreign country and accidentally breaking some traffic law). On the other hand, you can't be held morally responsible if you weren't aware of the moral theory's validity -- an utilitarian can't blame you for not increasing the aggregate good if you either do not advocate utilitarianism or even know of it. "Normally the term [public] refers to a supposed entity made up of the combined will of all humans in a given geographic area, an entity which does not exist as those wills are incompatible and thus cannot be combine. " ----> What? Public simply denotes the general body of a group of people, such as public opinion being the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs in a certain group of people. Sure, there will be some conflicting attitudes and beliefs but a public opinion is a rough estimate. Just because some wills are incompatible does not mean the entire existence of a public opinion (and other such instances of public) is gone. "Incorrect. Some deem such a category evil. Others deem ANOTHER category evil. And they often disagree about just whh and why. But evil, and related terms, still cannot be defined without first naming the system, so this fails to respond to the statement. " ----> You misunderstand. I'm not saying different normative ethical theories have the same category of evil, but that they simply have A set of actions they label as evil. The latter is how I used evil; a broad term to refer to whatever set of actions a particular ethical theory deems to be prohibited. "Which is-- a moral field. Ethics and morality are effectively synonyms, the attempt to distinguish the terms tends to be practiced by the irrational in order to protect either religious morality or some secular derivative of the charity concepts within it from the subject of philosophy-- i. e. , in order to prevent reason from being exercised upon them. I have yet to observe any other reason for such a distinction. " ----> There is an important difference between the fields of ethics that has nothing to do with religious morality or charity concepts. Applied ethics deals with how moral outcomes can be obtained in certain situations (abortion, gay marriage, etc. ), descriptive ethics deals with what people believe is right or wrong, moral psychology deals with how moral capacity develops and what it is, normative ethics is how moral values should be determined (aka what one ought to do), and of course meta-ethics is about the nature of morality itself. It's plainly obvious that these are different fields that deal with similar but still distinct ideas. "I seem to recall your only alternative use of "Should" relying on "Rationality--" but unless you can find a means of making reason say you should or should not do x without reference to a goal you would have to concede the game. " ----> Refer to my previous explanation. You can have a goal that has nothing to do with morality but rather things such as desires. ==================== Conclusion ==================== My opponent's normative definition fails on the grounds that he has chosen to define it via an arbitrary fact of moral discussion that is inherent in many other areas of discussion.