Morality is objective.

First I will explain my own case, which thankfully is much simpler than my opponent's. Then I will deal with his contentions. My CaseAs a starting point, let us ask ourselves how we would determine whether it is true that x is good. The first and most important part of this question is how we know something is true. The answer to that question is by a process called the exclusion of the alternative. Rene Descartes used an excellent analogy here. Presume you come across a body of water, and you ask yourself, is this a bay? Well, first you must identify that it is not a lake. Lake is the alternative explaination, so if you know it's not a lake, then you can claim it's true that it's a bay. So to be able to claim that not killing is good, which would be a moral truth under my opponent's model, one must first prove that not killing is not bad, or put another way (to avoid the double negative), that killing is bad. Unlike the lake/bay example, however, the alternative of a moral truth cannot be tested. You can't refrain from killing somebody and say "well, that was better than killing him" because you do not know what would have happened if you had killed him. You can't both kill and not kill somebody and compare the two outcomes (at least not until the time machine or crystal ball is invented). So when determining a moral truth, the alternative cannot be excluded. The implication of this is that we cannot determine whether it is true that x is good if x is a moral truth. That's because we cannot determine the truth of things that have not happened yet, which is what morality establishes rules for. And that requires that morals are not simply true or false. That makes our differences in morality a logical necessity, because we all have different ideas for what tomorrow may hold if we take certain actions today. Lottery is a great example of this. Many who buy lotto tickets expect to win but don't. Many who buy lotto tickets don't expect to win but do. And many others don't buy lotto tickets because they don't expect to win. So - is it moral to buy lotto tickets? Gambles like this are moral questions, because they deal with behavior that can be judged good or bad. There are good arguments that gambling should be banned outright. There are also good arguments that we should have more gambling. But who's right? Well, if I knew whether I would win lotto on a particular week, I'd know whether it would be moral for me to buy a ticket in that week. That, of course, would undermine the whole point of lotto. Lotto works because morality is not objective - most people who play lotto - both winners and losers - don't know whether buying a ticket will be good for them. The future may be objectively true. What we believe about it is, however, clearly subjective. Pro's CaseThe first thing to note about pro's case is that even if I agree it's all true, that doesn't lead to the conclusion that all morality is objective. It only leads to the conclusion that, in pro's own words, "some states of well-being" are objectively more moral than others. To illustrate this, imagine that I believed it was morally bad for me to eat meat of any kind, and you didn't. Who's right? That's a debate that's still ongoing. Niether of us can say that "this is an objective moral fact" even if all of pro's case was granted. Therefore pro fails to prove that "morality is objective" (implying that every moral is objective), rather he simply attempts to show that "this selective subset of morality I just chose to win a debate is objective" (implying that there are exceptions). Pro summarises his case in four seemingly logical steps. I disagree on three of these. First he claims some states of well-being are objectively better or worse. For instance, it is objectively better to be alive than dead. Anybody who believes the contrary, pro explains, doesn't value their "well-being" or misunderstands morality in the same way one might misunderstand logic. I disagree that people who commit suicide necessary don't value their own well-being. Take, for instance, people who join weird cults and commit mass suicide so their lives would be improved - they commit suicide to improve their well-being. I may resent the notion of a Persian making me bleed out of every orfice of my body, but King Leonidas probably thought it was glorious. I also disagree that morality is misunderstandable as logic is. Logic can be objectively tested. Take the law of identity for instance, x=x. The alternative is that something is not itself, which is a contradiction of terms because something and not something are dichotomous. Therefore the idea that the law of identity is untrue can be dismissed. The same cannot be done for morality. Take the golden rule for instance, treat others as you'd like to be treated. The alternative is to treat others however we feel they deserve. You can't look at that rule or alternative and say nobody who believes that is being rational. Let me explain that word rational, because it's often confused for logical - logic is in fact the outcome of rationality. Rational means consistant with all your other premises. Logical rules are rationalised, moral rules cannot be. That's why people can reach opposite yet equally valid logical conclusions. Second he claims that our actions can affect others and our own well being (agreed with that part), and that all morals are concerned with this. So take the example of killing conscious creatures, a clear reduction in their well-being. Well, what if we want to eat them? Is it immoral to eat beef? Or what if there's a war going on? Can we kill soldiers who want to kill us? What about abortion? Does the level of conciousness matter? What about euthenasia? You probably don't consider all of these things moral, but millions of people do, despite the fact they all reduce well-being (and yet are percieved as "good"). The Qu'ran is another good example. Millions think it's the most moral thing ever, others think it's among the least moral. No matter what you believe about the Qu'ran, it's full of things either not really connected to well-being, or that are questionable at best with regards to well being, as well as things that probably are very sensible ideas. You can't just dismiss this as a misguided discrepancy - having a different morality to others in some way is normal. But the point is that not all morals people have are necessarily connected with improving objective well-being. Finally he claims that because morality is all about well-being, and well-being is objective, morality must logically be objective. That may sound logical on the surface, but it's really not. Say I proved that watches are awesome. Does it follow that since watchmakers only deal with watches, that they must be awesome too? Not at all! Just because one thing is concerned with something doesn't mean they gain all the attributes of that thing. I'm concerned with debating my opponent right now, so my opponent's logic would be that since the debate is text-based, I must logically be text-based, yet clearly I'm not. This is just an absurd logical link to make that my opponent needs to properly justify.