The subject of morality is subjective to society

Thanks everyone. For this round of the debate, I will attempt to rebuild my previous arguments, rebut my opponents statement and add one new argument to the debate. I won't be looking at the definitions anymore because this is not a semantics debate and I want to actually debate some real arguments rather than what dictionary.com posted. ==== INTRO ==== Before I begin this debate, I'd like to seriously touch upon my opponents response in regards to his extreme skepticism. I don't think my opponent understands the gravity of what the conclusions of extreme skepticism entail. He says that in the end, he's only proved that any form of knowledge is just a matter of subjective perception. I'd like to say though, that's its pretty ridiculous that he says this. He attempts to communicate the subjectivity of knowledge through the objective communications of language. He's trying to tell you, the readers, that the only kind of certain knowledge you can have is that knowledge itself is uncertain. I hope that common sense, reason and logic, triggers you to realize the inherent contradictions in his statement. ===== Argument : Why we need a standard. ===== Knowledge then, is not a matter of perception but it also means that not everyone has knowledge. We all have beliefs and opinions, but when they are verified to be true - either by the methods of the sciences, logic, reason, etc - then we can say we have knowledge of the thing in question. What my opponent is saying is that since everything is a belief - then nothing is certain. Yet he completely disregards the possibility of any kind of knowledge in this regard - and so commits a gross contradiction. When we recognize this mistake, we have to then proceed to understand how this applies to morality. If knowledge is that by which we recognize and opinion to be true, then what is morality? Morality is properly defined as the study of actions (my opponent doesn't contest this) - the question is how do we make judgments about these actions? Well, if we make judgments on truth claims (opinions are unverified truth claims) we use knowledge to judge them, objective knowledge. It follows then that we use objective knowledge to judge moral claims. Hence, morality is objective rather than subjective. Please note that the only time morality becomes seemingly subjective is during "hot" moral issues as my opponent stated in rounds prior. If we have the capacity to definitively say that something is right or wrong on "cold"(?) moral issues, then that logic should carry over to "hot" moral issues. The only reason why they are "hot" moral issues is because there hasn't been a reasonable, logical and definitively certain case made to judge the "hot" moral issue. Nevertheless, the principles by which we judge the moral issue stands to be objective - otherwise these aren't moral issues at all - but rather subjective perceptions for which we should have no interest to argue. Why should I argue with you about morality if at the end of the day I'm the be all end all in regards to my moral understanding. With this in mind, let's look at what my opponent said. 1) "Fallacy. Is it the right thing to do? In yours and my belief system, no. In china's belief system, yes. " Please stop using words like "fallacy" if you aren't going to use any argument to back them up. If you want to look at a real fallacy have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org.... Hopefully this will motivate you to write some arguments rather than saying "yes, no - morality is subjective." It continues further here, "as far as I know Societies around the world have acted differently from the beginning of time.". "As far as I know" - sorry, but it turns out you know very little on the development of human conduct over man's history. 2) "While your statement is true, you have only proved the obvious, and it holds no weight as far as being an argument in this debate." My quote has been taken out of context. I am saying that if morality is subjective, then it becomes a delusional cowardice. In fact, it only becomes a delusional cowardice when you start giving moral issues descriptions like "hot" or "disputed" - because then you don't really care to know the answer but rather to end it with the fact that it's really disputed, that's why " there would be no point to neither a subjective nor objective morality" this statement is false. There is no point to subjective morality ever. 3) "however, also proved that societal standards of morality are subjective." Precisely right, which means that even if it's a collective group of individuals that base their moral code on some subjective opinion it doesn't necessarily follow 1) that they are objectively right 2) that the differences in the opinion between two societies means that there is no objective moral code. In fact, the very fact that we have to make a distinction between the subjective and objective moral code means that the objective moral code exists. There has to be a standard by which you make the statement, "morality is my opinion" as opposed to who's? Some other subject? That's redundant. 4) "I'm sure he wouldn't give a care to the "do what you want done to yourself" logic if according to his moral he benefited from the proceedings and without moral consequence." This is non-sequitur - you say that he would use this logic - but then all of a sudden you flip the switch and you say that he won't use this logic. Then you follow from this and say that there are no objective moral codes for determining this logic - let's break this down. 1) Humans have a capacity to recognize objective moral logic 2) Humans have the capacity to deny their recognition of objective moral logic 3) Therefore, objective moral logic doesn't exist. There is a difference between the fact that there is no objective moral logic and the fact that there is a denial or tolerance of good/bad morality. 5) ""A killer isn't going to recognize that what he's doing is immoral or wrong" Which again serves the question if what he is doing is really wrong. " - This is again invoking the idea of extreme skepticism and I'm not going to keep arguing this. There can't be order in a society of killers, thieves and liars. My opponent will just continue his skepticism and say "well why not?" and continue to beg the question in order to support his arguments. 6) "This is because they lost the war" - you are making this statement as if even Germans, by the end of the war, agreed to persecute the Germans. This is a grossly uneducated conclusion and it would be wise of you not to make such a generalization. ========= CONCLUSIONS ========= And so, having rebutted my opponents points - I think it's pretty clear that his arguments for subjective morality are riddled with fallacies and assertions. One the one hand, we look at the logic and use it for our advantage (but this doesn't deny the logic) on the other hand, we look at moral differences and we move away from objective moral conduct but when there are moral similarities, we see possible objective moral code. My opponent refuses to acknowledge this basic fact of human civilization. Furthermore, my opponent hasn't made any arguments as to why morality is subjective to society but rather that it is. "How do we know that the Holocaust was really the wrong thing to do? How do we know that murder is really wrong? How do we know anything?" this is how my opponents case has devolved in this debate. I hope readers recognize this and make the appropriate vote. I agree with my opponent on one thing though, we've definitely put a lot of our efforts into the debate and I hope it's turning out to be good so far!