The Philochistos 1973 commemorative debate

Thank you, Phantom, for the opening, and for delaying your post so I could have time to respond. Con said a few things that I'm not sure how they fit into his whole case, but this is what I take his main argument to be: 1. Morality is based on desire. 2. Desire is entirely subjective. 3. Therefore, morality is entirely subjective. "Based on" is left ambiguous in my representation of Con's argument because in one place, he says that morality is a byproduct of desire and that desires could exist without morality, but then in the next paragraph, he writes as if morality and desire are the same thing, saying that the statement, "Stalin is evil," is merely an expression of dislike for Stalin. I suspect, based on the clear things Con said, that it was not his intention to equate morality with desire and that it only seemed that way because of the clumsy way he explained himself. But to avoid being accused of making a strawman argument, I represented his first premise with "based on." To support his first premise, Pro attempted to show a correlation between desire and moral sentiment by giving examples. I grant that generally speaking, there is a correlation between many things we desire and many things we judge to be moral or immoral. We frequently do wish that people would behave in a way that we consider moral because we think the world would be better off if they did. But this correlation is not enough to show that our moral sentiments are based purely on desire. It doesn't follow from the fact that we prefer people act morally that therefore our judgment that it is moral is based on the fact that we desire it. Moreover, we can show that often our desires and moral sense do not correspond. This is especially the case when we are the ones engaging in the immoral act. People who lie, cheat, steal, or kill, do so to fulfill their desires, but they know they are doing wrong. And criminals desire to be acquitted, freed from prison, and not be punished even though they think the police, judge, jury, etc., are behaving morally by punishing the criminal, keeping the criminal locked up, and preventing the criminal from committing further crimes. A husband caught cheating doesn't want his wife to divorce him, but doesn't blame her one bit for doing so. Con makes what I think are a couple of sub-arguments, but I'm not sure I understand what he's saying. The first argument goes like this: 1. If morality were mind-independent, then it would be possible to have a moral discussion with non-moral agents and have them understand what was being said. 2. It is not possible for a non-moral agent to grasp the concept of morality. 3. Therefore, morality is not mind-independent. I dispute the first premise. To use an analogy, it may not be possible to discuss colour with a person who was born blind, but that doesn't mean colour isn't mind-independent. If there are some concepts that some people just can't grasp because they lack the mental faculty, it in no way follows that those concepts don't correspond to something real. I see no reason to think the second premise is true either. Even if a person does not have any moral awareness, surely they can still understand words like "imperative," "command," "duty," "incumbency," "obligation," etc. As I showed in the last round, there is a strong analogy between civil law and moral law. If said culture can understand civil law, then they ought to be able to understand moral law. Con also appears to be arguing that because moral knowledge came by way of evolution, that morality is therefore not mind-independent. This argument fails for two reasons. First, because it commits the genetic fallacy, which is the fallacy of reasoning that a belief is false because it was arrived at by unreliable means.[1] Second, the argument is self-refuting. Arguably, all of our belief-producing cognitive faculties were the product of evolution. If evolution was an unreliable means of acquiring accurate knowledge or reliable belief-producing cognitive faculties, then we could not rely upon any of the deliverances of reason, and that would undermine not only Con's argument from evolution, but every other argument Con makes. But if evolution tends to produce reliable beliefs or reliable belief-producing cognitive faculties, and if evolution produced a species that perceives a realm of morality that at least seems real, then that is good reason to think there is a realm of real morals. So if anything, evolution supports moral realism. Finally, Pro argues that any theory of moral realism falls victim to the is/ought problem because no moral conclusion follows from any non-moral premises. But that is false, which can be shown with an analogy. 1. It is the case that Arthur is the king. 2. It is the case that Arthur signed a law requiring young men to practice the longbow every Sunday. 3. Therefore, it is illegal for young men to neglect practicing the longbow every Sunday. Just as the illegality of not practicing the longbow every Sunday follows from two non-legal premises, so also a morally significant conclusion can follow from two non-moral premises. 1. It is the case that God is the sovereign and supreme ruler of the universe. 2. It is the case that God forbids adultery. 3. Therefore, it is wrong to commit adultery. Con appears to be making the same mistake a lot of people make when it comes to the is/ought fallacy. The fallacy isn't simply in deriving an ought from an is; rather, the fallacy is in reasoning that because something IS the case that it therefore OUGHT TO BE the case. It would be a fallacy to reason that because Tom IS out fishing that therefore Tom OUGHT TO BE out fishing. But it is not a fallacy to reason that Tom ought to be out fishing because God requires Tom to feed his family and fishing is the only means Tom knows of to do so. NOTES 1. http://www.nizkor.org...