Debate: CONSCIENCE: IS THERE A UNIVERSAL MORAL LAW?
Side: yes

The ethical subjectivism position that you seem to be trying to present is according to Nietzsche's understanding. I think it is important to point out a particular statement that you made which is, "...naive moral objectivists, many of whom also happen to populate this debate." Okay, since you acknowledged that is it is generally accepted, than the burden of proof falls upon you and not me, right? If you simply ignore that the burden of proof falls on your shoulder and insist that something is true even though no one else agrees, than what you will be commiting is the informal fallacy known as "appeal to ignorance". Secondly, I submit that before we can engage in this dialogue (absolute morality/ethicalsubjectivism), it is necessary to clarify several points that you brought up. Namely: 1. Weak Member of the Herds, 2. The Principle of Charity, and 3. Natural Bias of the Philosophers. It is necessary to do so, otherwise, we might as well not continue. There are two logical fallacies that I have detected in your argument: Ad Hominem and Hasty Generalization. I. Hasty Generalization and Ad Hominema. "Philosophers tend to attack the weakest forms of Relativism, ignoring the courteous principle of Charity""One major problem with your interpretation of relativism and of my own view is a lack of adherence to the principle of charity""Let's be frank: in philosophical circles, ethical relativism is little more than a punching bag used to teach philosophy students what a poorly-considered position looks like, and how to exploit its weaknesses. It is not hard to attack relativism, and I am very familiar with the criticisms you have been leveling against it."1. Granted, that there are those who may not have a grasp of either position in order to defend it. However, I think that you overlooked the difference between two groups of people. Group a: taking advantage of those who do not have a grasp of either position and Group b: those who genuinely desire to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of both position. Need I remind you CreateDebate's goal? “Our goal is to build CreateDebate into an incredibly useful learning tool that will help groups of people to sort through issues, viewpoints and opinions so that consensus and understanding can be reached and better decisions can be made” (CreateDebate). Everybody has a worldview. Here or anywhere, it will be tested by criticisms. The question is, are we willing enough to allow it to be? There may be certain beliefs or thinking that does not line up with reality. b. "More interestingly, philosophers also have unconscious psychological biases in favor of the theory that morality is universal""many philosophers have a vested interest, both professionally and in their own psychology, to uphold objectivism and deny relativism whenever it crops up. Professionally, many (analytic) philosophers today see it as their job to uncover objective truth through rational means. This is how their role in society is conceptualized. So what would we expect them to do when when confronted with relativism? Philosophers have strong professional reasons to discredit relativism through whatever means necessary."2. When you attack the authors' characteristics or authority that I have quoted who are experts in their respective fields, than you should say what it is and provide the evidences against it. In CreateDebate's Blog, there was posted an explanation on "How to Write Strong Arguments" based on the essay by Paul Graham's "How to Disagree" which states, "Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem--and a particular useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The question is wheter the author is correct or not. If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. And if it didn't, it's not a problem." You have not summarized the psychological and professional reasons and the evidences.II. "The Prescriptive Imperative Explained""I would argue that my example fails to fulfill criterion (1) on this list because the motivations driving me to fight back against a home invasion would not be based on a prescriptive imperative. I would argue instead that my decision would be based on instinct, which is not prescriptive but an unalterable feature of my psychology. My instincts do not "tell me what to do" in the way that a universal moral imperative would. They simply impel me to action based on crude "survival of the fittest" thinking"Granted, we have instincts, but one of them is not the Moral Law. Rather, it directs the instincts. Lewis argued that, "...The most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs." (Lewis, C.S. "Mere Christianity", p. 11). The Natural Law is not referring to instintcs, but the Moral Law. Instincts by itself can not tell you what you "ought to do". The Moral Law judges between the two instincts, and decides which should be encouraged, can not be either of them. It can be said, in the example provided, you probably would have two instincts to choose from. The herd instinct, which would be to fight the burgler and protect your family and the other would probably be wanting to be safe rather than to fight the burgler and protect your family. It can not be explained away simply as acting on instincts without making a choice. Moments like that requires a choice to be made. That is when the Moral Law comes in and gives the "prescribe imperative" in regards to such circumstances. What the Moral Law would do in this case would be to tell you to choose the weakest instinct over the stronger one. When a person makes a choice between the two, it can not be said that it is an act of instincts.III. "The Principle of Charity""The principle of charity is a suggestion that in our interpretations we try to see an argument in the most favorable way possible before attacking it, rather than jumping straight into exploiting its weaknesses"The principle of charity holds that to have a successful translation and interpretation, there is a need of a great measure of agreement. The problem with this principle is that it refuses to acknowledge the disagreements and to totally ignore them. That is, preventing the individual to make a rational decision of which position is the strongest. In other words, just accept it as "gospel truth" before anything. A good example would be trying to find an agreement between creationism and evolution. It does not work. You can not do that and hope that truth will emerge when there is an obvious conflict that can not be reconciled. Both positions can not be right/true.