Gym Debate Thread: Pitchforkpat and ApologiaPhoenix on Natural Law and objective morality.

**Kelp** · January 12th 2009, 12:04 AM

Gym Debate Notice:

This debate thread is open to debate the following issue:

No practical, objective moral standard exists, and Phoenix's Natural Law is not objective or practical.
ApologiaPhoenix will be defending the negative and Pitchforkpat will be defending the affirmative. This debate will begin as soon as Phoenix makes his first post. The debate will last 4 rounds minimum.

From this point on, the only posts allowed in this thread are to be made by the participants and Moderators. All others will be deleted.

Spectator commentary is welcome here.

If you are up and unable to meet your deadline please contact a moderator ASAP.
Please do not edit your post after this notice is posted.
If you are not a participant please feel free to participate in the commentary thread noted in the first post of this debate.

**ApologiaPhoenix** · January 12th 2009, 08:46 PM

I first wish to offer my thanks to the TWeb community for allowing us to have such a debate and I do appreciate my opponent agreeing to the debate. One reason I choose to debate this point is that I believe that moral relativism is a deadly cancer that will destroy any working body of government in a society it exists in.

One distinction should be noted. I am not arguing in this thread whether some things are moral in a particular sense, such as “Is abortion moral?” That’s for a different debate. I am arguing the position that there are propositions that can be made about morality that are true in the absolute sense. What those propositions are I do not choose to focus on so the question of “Is homosexual practice moral?” will depend on establishing if there is such a thing as moral first. Does the question even have meaning?

Realizing that there are space constraints for the debate, I will be giving my reasons why I believe moral relativism to be faulty and why moral absolutism is a true and far more livable philosophy. I will leave it to my opponent to give the arguments for moral relativism. Note that my opponent has chosen to say that there are no moral absolutes, so in order for his case to succeed, he must not only answer any positions I give, but he must also give his own reasons for why someone should think moral relativism is true.

Throughout history, the view of my opponent has been the minority. The idea of man being the measure of all things is found in Protagoras, whom Plato does not paint in a negative light, although his teachings definitely were shown that way and a writer like Aristophanes in his play “The Clouds,” would show the chaos that broke loose when moral conventions were gone.

When we read Plato, we find his highest form to be the form of the good. We read Aristotle speaking of how one can live a life of virtue to conform oneself to reality. We read that the highest good is that which is desirable for its own sake and that that is ultimately happiness, though not in the sense of “having a good time.” Aristotle was not a hedonist.

As philosophy moves through the ages, we see virtue being emphasized and we get to the medievals like Augustine and Aquinas who say goodness is being. Evil is the privation of that which is supposed to be there by nature. It is no evil that a rock is blind. It is an evil that a man is.

As we keep going into the modern period, we still see morality being accepted. A writer like Kant says that one of the things that holds him in awe is the moral law within. Philosophers have argued different theories of morality, but most have agreed that there is such a thing as morality.

Note that this morality was also seen as binding on persons. Kant called it the moral law. Laws are meant to have an effect on us. Where you live, there are laws on the books and you are expected to abide by those laws. The laws do not make you reply. It is your choice whether you submit or not.

My contention will be that when the philosophers spoke of the moral law, they were speaking of something real that they all knew was binding on them. They might have got their interpretations wrong, but that doesn’t change the objectivity of what they were interpreting any more than different views of the origin of the universe changes the truth of the origin of the universe. If absolute unity is essential to truth, then there is very little that is true and ultimately, we’d end up in relativism as things become true as more people agree.

I will also say that people are making knowledge claims about moral realities. One person can say “I believe God exists” and another can say “I don’t believe God exists” and both of them can be stating the truth because both of them are stating something about something subjective to them.

Let us suppose instead that the first one said “I know God exists,” and the second said “I know God doesn’t exist.” At this point, even if you’re unfamiliar with the arguments, you can be sure of one thing. One of them is wrong. They are making a claim about the world outside of them and claiming that the proposition “God exists” or “God doesn’t exist” corresponds to reality.

Now let’s bring that to morality. One person can say “I believe abortion for any reason is wrong.” Another one can say “I believe abortion for any reason is right.” We would have no problem saying that both of those statements are true. The first does believe abortion is wrong for any reason and the second right.

If they changed the word “believe” to “know” though, we’d be dealing with a claim about reality and at this point, we have three options that we can believe. The first is to say the first person is right. The second is to say the second person is. The third is to say that it’s a meaningless claim so neither of them is right.

Why can’t we say both of them are right? For the same reason both of them can’t be right about the existence of God. He either does exist or he doesn’t. The last option is the one I believe moral relativism will lead to in the end. In fact, it has to. If either of the statements is a moral absolute, then relativism is refuted. After all, if someone holds the first position, then he is not making a truth statement about reality, and yet he is making a moral statement. Moral statements about reality can only be wrong if there is some moral truth to reality.

I contend that one of them is right because there is such a thing as goodness and there is such a thing as evil, though I would contend that evil doesn’t have ontological existence but rather is the lack of goodness, but when I speak about something being evil, I am making a statement about it that I believe corresponds to reality.

One of my first reasons for believing this is that this is the wisdom of the ages. This is what the philosophers have handed down to us for millennia. Now anyone is welcome to challenge a time-honored tradition, but there must be a really good argument to believe it. Let us remember that G.K. Chesterton said that before you take down a fence, the first question to ask is why it was put up in the first place.

The ancients did believe that some things were good and it was man’s task to find what was good. Man was not working so much to control nature but to be in harmony with nature. I don’t mean in some pantheistic sense. I mean that man did not see himself at odds with the world around him. He believed he was here for a reason and part of his task was in seeking the good.

This would mean then that some things are good and if Aristotle’s idea holds, some things are things we ought to desire. This does not mean that we always act accordingly. I have friends at this moment who are trying to quit smoking. They do not see it as a good, but yet, they still do it most likely because they get some good out of it, but they do not get the greater good that can come if they stop. Believing in the moral law does not mean you always follow it sadly. My friends could even light up a cigarette and say “I know smoking’s bad for me.” Someone can say that something is evil and still engage in it. If it wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t have groups like AA set up to help people trying to overcome habits destroying them.

But what if nothing is good? Then we can also say nothing is desirable. Why should you desire anything? It brings you pleasure? So what? Who says pleasure is a good? (And there were some in Aristotle’s day he had to contend with on that.) It helps you survive? Who says your survival is a good? It helps to a greater goal? And what makes that goal good?

This is the problem C.S. Lewis noted with subjective moral theories. Lewis proposes that you place yourself outside all moral theories where you supposedly have no morality and decide you want to choose an ethical system. The question arises. Why should you choose an ethical system?

Now you might think you need a system to survive, but there is no basis for which to argue why you should choose a system. The only one would be something pragmatic. You would be arguing for a system that works to some end, even though you will have to assume that end is something that is good. If it is not good, but simply is instead, who cares?

The view of moral relativism will lead to all actions being just actions. There is no good or bad to them. They only produce different results and upon what basis can those results be good or bad? You jump in a pool and save a drowning child. It’s not a good action or a bad action. It’s just an action. You jump in a pool and hold a drowning child down smothering it to death. It’s not a good action or a bad action. It’s just an action.

However, do we really live like this? Are there not actions that we can say we have moral revulsion at? Do we not look at events like 9/11, the holocaust, or Civil War slavery as evil? It is at this point that moral absolutism shows its strength again. Not only can it say that those are evil, it can point to perpetrators in each case and say “You have done evil and for that, you deserve to be punished.” The moral relativist can fight against it, but certainly not on moral grounds. He only fights because he does not like it. One cannot fight on moral grounds when they claim there is no moral territory to fight on. How can you say your opponent is wrong and you are right when there is no right or wrong?

It was these times in our history that also produced great heroes for us. In 9/11, we had young men going to enlist immediately to go fight in a war to stop those who had taken innocent lives. (And note, the concept of innocent lives only makes sense in moral absolutism. If there is no moral right or wrong, innocent or guilty make no sense.)

In the Holocaust, you have stories of men like Schindler who hid away several Jews to keep them safe. There were people who tried numerous times to stop Hitler. In fact, we have a movie out now called “Valkyrie” about just such an attempt. Moral absolutists can do such on moral grounds. They can look at certain actions in the world and say “evil.”

In Civil War slavery, you had the actions of the abolitionists in working to lead as many slaves to the north where they could be free. If moral relativism, there is no reason to celebrate that. You can if you want, but it is simply because they agree with your tastes. Do we think people risked their lives though in each of these cases for their personal tastes, or because they believed that some things are right and some things are wrong?

This also leads to the moral reformers’ dilemma. If relativism is true, there is no such thing as a true moral reformer. People may think they’re moral reformers, but they’re not. Martin Luther King Jr. in being instrumental in turning civil rights around in our nation did not move us to a better system or a worse system. He just moved us to a different system

In fact, if society is the main force in a relativism that says that what society says is moral is moral, then the reformers are actually the problem. They’re telling the society that they are immoral. One could say that then moral reformers’ should be eliminated, but even then, that’s a nonsensical statement in relativism. Whatever happens, it just happens.

If this is the case, then it also means that you have the problem of moral progress. If moral relativism is true, there can be no such thing as moral progress. Progress assumes that you have a goal that you are reaching. If I am running a race, then my goal is to run to the finish line. What if I was running a race though and the finish line kept moving? What if it just jumped all over the place? I would be hard-pressed to even try. That’s not even the way it is with relativism however. If moral relativism is true, there is no finish line at all. You only say you’ve progressed and you say you’ve progressed when you’ve reached the place you are. It’s not progress. It’s just a change.

This also means that the problem of evil cannot be an argument from a moral relativist. If you say that there is evil in the world, then you have become a moral absolutist. Otherwise, you are just saying you don’t like the way things are. Of course, there’s no reason to like the way things are, but there’s also no reason to not like the way things are. They just go against your personal preferences which you have no reason for anyway.
However, the moral absolutist can look at evil and say that evil is a problem. Now how that problem is resolved is a whole other debate, but there is no inconsistency in someone who is a moral absolutist saying that they have a problem with the problem of evil. There is an inconsistency with the moral relativist saying it.

In our world today, if there is one virtue that is spoken of more than any other, it’s tolerance. As a moral absolutist, I can practice tolerance. A moral relativist has no basis. First off, let me state what I believe true tolerance is. True tolerance does not say that all ideas are right. It says all persons have a right to hold to their ideas.

Note that it must be an idea that is disagreed on. I go bowling with friends every Sunday night. I cannot say that I tolerate their bowling. Why? Because I like it also. If I didn’t like it, I could go along and sit and just talk to them, but because I didn’t care for bowling, I would be tolerating their bowling for the joy of talking to them.

It is also normally something that is substantial. If you go out to get a pizza with a friend and you like pepperoni and he likes sausage, you do not go ballistic because of his different taste in toppings. If you did, people would think that there was something wrong with you, and rightfully so.

Now suppose that there is something substantial. Let us suppose I have a friend who is a homosexual. I believe homosexual practice is wrong. However, this person is still my friend. I tolerate them in the classical sense. It is what the Christian means by “Love the sinner and hate the sin.” I love them as a person and do not approve of what they do. That is what tolerance is meant to be. I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.

I can have tolerance in moral areas because I believe there is real moral disagreement. Note that moral disagreement must exist and the only way moral disagreement can exist is if we both think we are right on a certain position concerning morality. In fact, all moral disagreements and all moral dilemmas presuppose that there is some truth to the matter that is being disagreed on. Moral dilemmas are often brought up as arguments against moral absolutism. They actually show moral absolutism. There can only be a moral problem if there is such a thing as moral truth. Consider the question of “Would you rape someone if it meant that if you didn’t, an alien force would destroy the world?” If moral absolutism is true, this is a dilemma. If relativism is true, it’s simply “Whatever happens happens.” The reason we see it as a dilemma is because we know the destruction of the world by an evil force (And note if it’s evil, then moral absolutism is true) is a bad thing, but we also know rape is as well. We are forced to decide between two evils, and remember, two evils is again a moral absolutist position.

My conclusion at this point, as I leave it to my opponent to bring up the arguments against moral absolutism, is that there is such a thing as good and there is such a thing as evil. If a statement like “Loving your neighbor the sake of your neighbor” is a moral good that is absolutely true, then my position is correct. If the statement “Murdering infants simply for the pleasure it brings you is evil,” is true, then my position is correct. If my opponent wishes to say there are no moral absolutes, then he will have to say that statements that are morally absolute such as those do not really have any truth content to them at all. It is certainly a position I would not want to hold to and I would hope no one in here holds to. (And if you do, if I ever have kids, you’re not babysitting.)

I conclude that I have given sufficient reasons to believe in moral absolutism and demonstrated that the alternative is not a viable option. If moral relativism is not true, then it follows that moral absolutism is.

**Pitchforkpat** · January 15th 2009, 01:23 AM

I apologize for the delay. I was waiting for an email notice that AP had made his post. I guess gym debates work a little differently.

A caveat fist:
This must be said. We were having a perfectly good debate on another thread. AP was having a lot of trouble answering the questions posed to him, so he left and changed the format to one where it would be more difficult to pin him down on these matters. Therefore, while I will address points made in his opening post, I will try to focus on the criticisms I made in the initial thread that have gone unanswered.

Also before I begin, as in any debate, it’s helpful to define terms. AP is fond of criticizing people for not having an “objective moral standard” by which to judge the actions of others. I would like for him to provide a stipulative definition of the word “standard” so we can be clearer about what he means by this.

With that said, I’ll get to my opening post. I’ll do this in two parts so that his task is very clear. In the first part, I will respond to his opening post. A few important points need to be clarified because his post was disappointingly sloppy, simple minded, and chock full of straw men. In the second part, I will return to my criticisms from the initial thread, because, anyone can talk in glowing terms about a philosophy they espouse, but if they assert that is it absolutely true, they must be able to adequately answer criticisms. He did not do this in the apologetics thread, but he must answer these specific criticisms some time.

Part 1: AP’s Opening Post

It should be noted at the start that AP broke perhaps the most important rule of debating. He seemed to be unaware of, or had forgotten the proposition being argued. As a reminder, it was:

No practical, objective moral standard exists, and Phoenix's Natural Law is not objective or practical.

He has not demonstrated that his position is “objective” or “practical”, which I will show in part two. And he spent most of his time criticizing moral relativism which, as he described it in his opening post, is a straw man as we shall see.

AP tried to establish two major points in his opening post and both stood out for their trenchancy, but also for their maddening simple-mindedness. First he implied that I actually espouse the moral relativism that he described. And, second he quite clearly asserted that anyone who disagrees with his ideas must necessarily believe in some kind of moral anarchy. Neither position is accurate.

I must clarify my position so that AP does not make the same mistake of erecting his inaccurate straw-man version in his next post. My position on moral relativism is only a descriptive one, not one of philosophical advocacy. I have been very consistent on this point, so the ‘mistake’ may not be a forthright one. When I speak of relative morals, I’m simply describing anthropological facts. He would deceive you into believing that I think morality SHOULD be determined by time and culture. I certainly do not think that. I only observe that what people think is moral behavior has differed through time and between cultures. He has in fact agreed with me that this is the case in the previous thread. I will present an indisputable example of this in part two.

And second, he naively suggests that those who disagree with his stance must necessarily espouse a kind of moral anarchy. This is clear from the following statements:

“The view of moral relativism will lead to all actions being just actions. There is no good or bad to them.”

“How can you say your opponent is wrong and you are right when there is no right or wrong?”

“If moral relativism, there is no reason to celebrate [the freeing of slaves].”

“If relativism is true, there is no such thing as a true moral reformer.”

“If moral relativism is true, there can be no such thing as moral progress.”

“Aristophanes in his play “The Clouds,” would show the chaos that broke loose when moral conventions were gone.”

This is simply nonsense and the claims are fatuous and simple-minded. Philosophers who correctly observe that what people think is moral has changed over time and between cultures don’t advocate obliterating all “moral conventions”. They don’t say there is “no right or wrong.” They don’t say actions have “no good or bad to them.” They don’t believe that “moral progress” is a meaningless concept.

AP is very black and white, all or nothing, my way or the high way. To listen to him, you might think no other philosophical ideas exist. A rather obvious example that I have presented to him before is utilitarianism. It’s far from perfect but it does demonstrate at least one alternate way of looking at moral behavior. Unfortunately for APs position, utilitarians like Peter Singer are taken very seriously. But apart from that, people understand what the word “pleasure” means. We understand that it’s desirable for people to avoid pain. To listen to AP’s simplistic rhetoric, you’d think anyone who disagrees with him would be a baby torturer. Astoundingly, he actually implies this:

“If the statement “Murdering infants simply for the pleasure it brings you is evil,” is true, then my position is correct. If my opponent wishes to say there are no moral absolutes, then he will have to say that statements that are morally absolute such as those do not really have any truth content to them at all. It is certainly a position I would not want to hold to and I would hope no one in here holds to. (And if you do, if I ever have kids, you’re not babysitting.)”

There are people from all walks of life who don’t believe moral rules are “written on our hearts.” They understand that there is a difference between recognizing moral differences between cultures and saying that culture SHOULD determine what’s moral. They do not throw their hands up in the air and say “We have no way of determining right or wrong behavior, so anything goes.” And they are not baby torturers. To even imply this is simply contrary to the facts.

With that said, let’s examine AP’s values. AP made much noise about how firmly he believes in moral absolutes, but he is actually vulnerable on this point and his “absolutes” are not as firm as he claims they are. Let’s look at a scenario.

Suppose I wake up tomorrow and tell everyone that I have received a message from God that Sweden is a morally corrupt society that has become very secular and is mocking God’s name and his laws. I say God has told me that we must go to Sweden and kill everyone, men, women, children and babies. Now, of course, you would think I’m crazy and should probably be locked up. However, given a different time and culture, AP would argue that such behavior was morally correct. He, in fact, believes that the leader of an itinerant tribe of Hebrews claimed that he was given an order by God to slaughter six entire nations including women, children and babies. Of course, at the very least the children and babies would have been innocent. He does not know that God gave this command. He cannot demonstrate that all of the people in each of these nations deserved to die. He BELIEVES it. That’s all. Where is his moral absolute not to torture children? It has been put aside in order to defend his religious beliefs.

In his post he said the following:

“In 9/11, we had young men going to enlist immediately to go fight in a war to stop those who had taken innocent lives. (And note, the concept of innocent lives only makes sense in moral absolutism. If there is no moral right or wrong, innocent or guilty make no sense.).”

Why were the people killed in 9/11 “innocent?” Well, clearly they, themselves, had done nothing to the terrorists. They hadn’t done anything that they deserved to die for. But let’s look at another tragedy. There is a story in the second book of Samuel in the Bible. Yahweh is angry because the king counted his troops, so Yahweh kills 70,000 people. According to David himself, the people were innocent. He is the guilty one. David knows it: “And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done.” “And David spake unto the LORD when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done?” Indeed, they are innocent of the crime. Yet, AP will argue that it was morally correct to kill the people. When killing is done by his god, it is justified by his religious beliefs. But where are his “absolute” moral rules? Absolute means absolute. They cannot be compromised in order to defend one’s religious beliefs. AP appears to be a closet relativist. For him, the rectitude of mass killings of human beings can depend on the cultural setting and on who is doing the killing.

In other parts of AP’s post he talks about good and evil and virtue as if these are easily defined terms. There is actually something a little vague about his concept of absolute moral rules being “written on our hearts”. What rules are “written” there exactly? Many statements are somewhat nebulous: “Goodness is being.” “Evil is the privation of that which is supposed to be there by nature.” “One can live a life of virtue to conform oneself to reality.” He tends to shy away from specifics and there is good reason for this. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. He doesn’t like specific questions about his moral rules that are “written on our hearts.” That’s why he shied away from them, danced around them, and outright avoided them in the thread. We’ll see if he employs the same tactics here.

To sum up this part, I do not assert that an objective moral “standard” CAN’T exist. I see unconvincing evidence of it and I’m certainly unconvinced that moral laws are “written on our hearts” as AP argues. What are these rules? Since he has admitted that they can be interpreted differently, who determines who has interpreted them correctly? If people believe they have different rules written on their hearts, how do we know who is correct? It is these points I will turn to now.

Part 2: Criticisms that AP must defend

AP is fond of criticizing arguments purely on the basis that those who can’t produce an “objective moral standard” are in no position to judge the morality of anyone else’s actions. The implication, of course, is that he, himself, has an objective standard by which we can judge the actions of others. But his criticism of others fails because his own vaunted “objective moral standard” doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Like a good salesman, AP may be able to wax eloquent about his product, but if the product doesn’t work, it is of no practical value. Therefore he must address the following criticisms. He must answer the questions and answer them well. His task is not to prattle on about how wonderful his product is. It is to demonstrate that it actually works. It may sound plausible espoused by an advocate free from criticism, but if the advocate cannot adequately answer criticisms of this supposed “objective moral standard” then it fails.

In fact, it fails the fist hurdle. A simple question was posed to him. It was, “Is homosexuality immoral?” to which he replied, “Yes”. The follow up question was, “Is it ‘written on the hearts’ of homosexuals that what they are doing is immoral?” to which he answered, “Yes.” This led to the following question, which he floundered so badly on and was unable to answer:

How do you know it’s written on the hearts of homosexuals that what they are doing is immoral?

He refused to answer the question and demanded that I provide a definition of sex first, rather amusingly ascribing some kind of authoritative position in the process by saying that few people in society understand what sex is. By implication, he does. Notwithstanding, I provided an answer to his question but he STILL refused to answer mine. Anyone want to guess why? That’s right; he doesn’t know that it’s written on the hearts of homosexuals that what they’re doing is immoral. He can’t know it. He simply believes it. That is certainly not objectivity. It is a belief, and it’s clearly a religious belief. Religious beliefs are subjective. He cannot even get past the first hurdle. He will have to adequately address this specific question or his argument fails.

He know this and has tried to preempt it:

“What those propositions are I do not choose to focus on so the question of “Is homosexual practice moral?” will depend on establishing if there is such a thing as moral first. Does the question even have meaning?”

Of course he doesn’t want to focus in this. But when he has to defend against criticisms he doesn’t get to choose what gets criticized. Avoiding difficult questions is one of the most underhanded tactics there is, so if he wants to demonstrate that he is debating in good faith, he will have to address such criticism.

Reconciling his religious beliefs with his claim of an objective moral standard continues to be problematic when it comes to the beliefs of other religions. In certain Muslim societies it has been considered moral to stone homosexuals to death. Of course he could not admit that it is written on the hearts of these Muslims that stoning homosexuals to death is moral. So how does he reconcile this? He conceded in our thread that Muslims BELIEVE that it’s written on their hearts that it is morally correct, but he, AP, knows it’s not actually written there. Here he is forced into ridiculous self ascriptions of telepathy and knowledge of the hearts of others. How does he know that what HE thinks is written on the hearts of others is correct and what they think themselves is written there is incorrect? This is not just a subjective view; it’s subjectivity of the most blatant kind. But it gets even worse.

This, of course, begs the question, how could he use Natural Law to demonstrate to Muslims that what they believe is written on their hearts is wrong? His answer? As amazingly naïve as it is, he actually said, he would appeal to the doctrine of the Trinity. He appears to be living in some kind of dream land where Muslims are shown their evil ways by the great and wise AP, who knows what’s written on the hearts of all people. When called on this, he even resorted to trying to convince me that he was right because Christianity is, according to him, making inroads into Islam, “There is a church here in America, and I believe in Atlanta, that consists entirely of ex-Muslims who are now Christians.” This is simply pleading at this point. It’s hardly a convincing argument to say that he knows what’s written on our hearts because some Muslims have converted to Christianity. Many Christians have converted to Islam. So what?

But the problem is even further exacerbated by the precepts of his own religion. During the time the Old Testament laws were being written, and for a long time afterwards, the writers believed that practicing homosexuals should be put to death. The obvious question in our context here is, “Was it written on the hearts of the writers of Yahweh’s laws that it was morally correct to put homosexuals to death?” He needs to answer this question. I believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture, but AP, as a closet moral relativist, is forced to argue that it was at one time a good thing to put homosexuals to death because Yahweh’s laws are always good. Why does he argue it was morally good to put homosexuals to death in that culture but not in ours? He needs to answer this question.

Moving closer to out own time, the Bible has been used as a moral guide for people who believed that they were doing the morally correct thing by burning women to death based on superstitions about them being “witches” and casting “spells”. These committed Christians clearly thought they were doing the morally correct thing by burning the witches, so AP has to explain how he personally knows that it was written on the hearts of the Christian witch burners that what they were doing was morally wrong when they so clearly thought that it was morally right.

In the thread, I also managed to get an admission from AP. The admission was that what people think is moral is sometimes based on time and culture. He appeared hesitant to admit this at first, but, I used an example that is difficult to argue against. In some cultures, it has been seen as morally correct to remove the clitoris of female babies. Even in America, the Christian John Harvey Kellog (yes of breakfast cereal fame), thought it the moral thing to do to pore carbolic acid on the clitoris of female babies. If you read his writings, he was a great moralist and a very devout Christian. He REALLY believed this was the right thing to do, as did people in other cultures in other times. But how did Dr. Kellog believe so profoundly that this was the morally correct thing to do when it was written on his heart that it was morally wrong? It’s very clear from his writing there was nothing of the sort was written on his heart. Yet, AP will tell you it was. How does he know this? Well he doesn’t. It’s simply his belief and the personal beliefs of AP do NOT constitute an objective moral standard.

He knows this is a problem and when pressed in the case of stoning homosexuals to death, AP was forced to admit that, although he believes that moral laws are written on our hearts, they can be “interpreted” differently. So we have two major problems for AP. First he would have to demonstrate that he knows what’s written on people’s hearts. He can’t because he doesn’t. And second, if people say that what’s written on their hearts is different from what he thinks, he would have to demonstrate how he knows he’s right and they’re wrong about what’s written on THEIR OWN hearts. This is a belief system and it’s at its core a theological belief system. If AP claims, as he did in the thread, that Muslims’ beliefs in what’s written on their hearts is wrong and that his method of proving this is to appeal to “the doctrine of the Trinity” then his is a religious belief, and religious beliefs are subjective.

What’s also very interesting is what AP said when pressed on his notion that what’s written on our hearts can be “interpreted differently”. I, of course, wanted to know how someone would know if what’s written on their heart is the correct interpretation. Here’s what he said:

“It is instead to do more research and study and this would involve philosophy and theology both. Those who differ, for instance, could read the great philosophers of the past like Plato and Aristotle, or the writings of other lesser philosophers but still great in their own way like Cicero, Seneca, Epicurius, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. One could also check the statements of world religions like the teachings of Christ, the decalogue of Moses, the hadith of Muhammad, or the teachings of the Buddha. We examine them through experience, the outworkings of beliefs if consistently followed, a great concern of the ancient Greeks, and our own internal response to said moral ideas.”

Here he’s actually agreeing with me. I also believe that that’s the way you determine if something is moral or not. But if this is the way, then really what use is what’s claimed to be “written on our hearts”? If it can be interpreted differently and the method of establishing the correctness of the interpretation is done by claims to religious superiority, it’s of no practical value to us. We may as well cut out the middle man and go straight to the “research” “study” and “philosophy” including utilitarianism.

So, although AP would be loath to admit it we agree on certain things. We agree that what is considered moral can be different from culture to culture. The case of removing the clitoris of female babies and stoning homosexuals to death are ample examples of this. We also agree that research, study, philosophy, and debate can assist us in determining what’s the right thing to do, what is proper conduct, what is moral. This is what I’ve said from the beginning. The only difference is that he insists on adding his subjective belief that he knows what’s written on the hearts of all people and he knows how to interpret it, even if people disagree with him about what’s written on their own hearts and how it should be interpreted. The two things we agree on are quite reasonable. The one thing we don’t agree on is his self-inflated, ego-centric, subjective pleading that he did on the thread concerning what he claims to know is “written on our hearts.”

Now let's see if he will finally answer these questions. He will have to.

**ApologiaPhoenix** · January 15th 2009, 07:34 PM

I find what I hear from Pat interesting in that it seems he has forgotten the side that he is arguing for, the side that there is no practical, objective moral standard. However, most of what I see actually agrees with me that there is a practical, objective moral standard.

First, I have been asked to say what I mean. What I mean is that there is the idea of morality outside of us, wherever it comes from (Though I have a position on that, it is not germane to the debate.), and that this moral law is that by which we determine what is good and what is evil.

Pat claims that I tried to show two points. The first that he holds to the moral relativism I argued against and that anyone who doesn't hold to moral objectivity is a moral anarchist. The second is simply untrue as I believe that even the moral relativist knows that some things are good and some things are evil, though they try to deny it. Moral relativists tend to become moral absolutists when necessary for them.

If he means that I pointed out the philosophers saw the danger in the doctrine, he is correct. Moral relativism will over time break down a society. We will get into this as we get further into dealing with what he said.

As to the first point, to say there is no objective standard is to say that there are no moral absolutes. There is nothing outside of us that is binding on us and that is in fact a position of moral relativism.

Pat instead complains not about meta-ethics, which is where the argument lies, but on ethical ones. Consider what he says here:

He refused to answer the question and demanded that I provide a definition of sex first, rather amusingly ascribing some kind of authoritative position in the process by saying that few people in society understand what sex is. By implication, he does. Notwithstanding, I provided an answer to his question but he STILL refused to answer mine. Anyone want to guess why? That’s right; he doesn’t know that it’s written on the hearts of homosexuals that what they’re doing is immoral. He can’t know it. He simply believes it. That is certainly not objectivity. It is a belief, and it’s clearly a religious belief. Religious beliefs are subjective. He cannot even get past the first hurdle. He will have to adequately address this specific question or his argument fails.

Actually, no. My argument does not stand or fall. It could be that I'm wrong about homosexuality being wrong being written on the hearts, which I don't think I am. The debate is not on my stance on homosexuality but on the meta-ethical question of if there is an objective moral law. It's not about the content of said moral law. Pat also doesn't realize that it is important in debate to define one's terms and sees any such attempt to do such as stalling.

If he wants to say that there is no moral objectivity, then the reply would be, "If there is no moral objectivity, what are you asking exactly? What does it mean to say 'Is X immoral?' if morality is relative?" Let us consider the statement phrased in two ways.

Homosexual practice is moral.

Homosexual practice is immoral.

If any of those statements are true, then my point in the debate is proven. There is such a thing as an objective moral standard. Pat must say that the statements are meaningless. He could take a weaker position however that would say "There may be moral truths, but we can't know them," which makes one wonder why he's making statements about moral truths if they can't be known.

Pat also makes this statement:

Philosophers who correctly observe that what people think is moral has changed over time and between cultures don’t advocate obliterating all “moral conventions”. They don’t say there is “no right or wrong.” They don’t say actions have “no good or bad to them.” They don’t believe that “moral progress” is a meaningless concept.

But Pat is confusing subjective beliefs with objective truths here. This is a point I made in my first post that Pat hasn't addressed. Let's go to the situation I used earlier. Consider two persons, A and B, making these statements.

"I think homosexuality is moral."

"I think homosexuality is immoral."

We could look at both of those statements and say "They're both true." Person A does think it's moral and Person B does think it's immoral. Now let's change a word.

"I know homosexuality is moral."

"I know homosexuality is immoral."

Now, we can't say both of them are telling the truth. Two people can't know something that is contradictory. That's because knowledge pertains to truth regardless of who holds the belief or why they hold it. I can't have knowledge of something that is false. Note that philosophers note that some beliefs on morality have changed. People have thought different things. No moral absolutist denies that. The question is, can they know different things? The answer is no. Either one of the two people mentioned above is wrong, in which case moral absolutism is proven, or else the claim is meaningless.

Pat brings up my belief that Muslims are being converted. One wonders though what that has to do with the debate. Pat thinks that if he somehow shows my idea of morality is wrong, then moral absolutism is disproven. Pat instead must demonstrate not only are philosophers throughout history, and I noted several, are wrong about moral law, but he must give reasons why they are. Instead, Pat prefers to say I believe I think I possess some sort of telepathy. In fact, we'll find it's just the opposite.

Now we move to how Pat says this:

To sum up this part, I do not assert that an objective moral “standard” CAN’T exist. I see unconvincing evidence of it and I’m certainly unconvinced that moral laws are “written on our hearts” as AP argues. What are these rules? Since he has admitted that they can be interpreted differently, who determines who has interpreted them correctly? If people believe they have different rules written on their hearts, how do we know who is correct? It is these points I will turn to now.

First off, if he does not assert that an objective moral standard can't exist, then why is he even debating? I would think he should be more sure of his position. However, Pat seems to think that to believe in objective morality must mean that all views of objective morality must be the same, and this isn't so.

If Pat goes into any field out there in the area of learning, he will find there is disagreement on any topic. Are we to assume that there is no truth in that field? Not at all. We're to assume that we are often not as rational as we think or in some cases our emotions can trip us up or especially in the case of morality, our will. We have a great way of justifying ourselves when we do something that is immoral.

Now Pat goes into his usual tirade about church history with an example such as this:

Moving closer to out own time, the Bible has been used as a moral guide for people who believed that they were doing the morally correct thing by burning women to death based on superstitions about them being “witches” and casting “spells”. These committed Christians clearly thought they were doing the morally correct thing by burning the witches, so AP has to explain how he personally knows that it was written on the hearts of the Christian witch burners that what they were doing was morally wrong when they so clearly thought that it was morally right.

Pat. This is an ethical question though. It's not a meta-ethical question and the debate is not about ethics but about meta-ethics. Let's start at the foundation again with these two statements.

Burning people who are believed to be witches is moral.

Burning people who are believed to be witches is immoral.

If anyone of these statements is true, my case is correct. There is an objective moral law because you can make truth statements about the action of burning witches in relation to its moral status. If you can do that, then moral absolutism is shown. To be consistent in moral relativism, you must say that it's meaningless because there are no moral truths.

Pat goes with a similar statement here:

The admission was that what people think is moral is sometimes based on time and culture. He appeared hesitant to admit this at first, but, I used an example that is difficult to argue against. In some cultures, it has been seen as morally correct to remove the clitoris of female babies. Even in America, the Christian John Harvey Kellog (yes of breakfast cereal fame), thought it the moral thing to do to pore carbolic acid on the clitoris of female babies. If you read his writings, he was a great moralist and a very devout Christian. He REALLY believed this was the right thing to do, as did people in other cultures in other times. But how did Dr. Kellog believe so profoundly that this was the morally correct thing to do when it was written on his heart that it was morally wrong? It’s very clear from his writing there was nothing of the sort was written on his heart. Yet, AP will tell you it was. How does he know this? Well he doesn’t. It’s simply his belief and the personal beliefs of AP do NOT constitute an objective moral standard.

Pat should realize that I watched my terminology not because I think I'm incorrect, but because of knowing how words can be misunderstood so I seek to define my terms. I have no problem with people thinking different things are moral and the time and culture being an influence. I can say that consistently as a moral absolutist. The question is, can they have knowledge of moral truths that is contradictory. Let's use a different kind of example to demonstrate my point with two persons again with these statements.

"I believe the Earth is flat."

"I believe the Earth is round."

If we saw two people saying these statements, we could say both of them were telling truth statements. It is truth that A believes the Earth is flat and B believes it is round. However, let's change the word again.

"I know the Earth is flat."

"I know the Earth is round."

Can we look at both of those statements and say that both of them are true? At this point, we can't. It's a knowledge claim which means its truth is not dependent on us. So now, let's make two claims held by two people and these will be seen as knowledge claims.

"Removing the clitoris of a female is immoral."

"Removing the clitoris of a female is moral."

If one of these statements has truth content to it, my position is proven true. If none of them has truth content to it, then we live in a world of moral relativism. We would live in such a world even if every person on Earth believed it was immoral because it would be true regardless of what people believe. If the Earth is round, it doesn't matter if every person on the planet is certain that it's flat.

Now Pat objects to my suggesting we study the great philosophers and religions to increase our understanding of morality and that this goes against the idea of an objective moral law. Not at all. The two go hand in hand. However, I believe it because I believe there is objective moral truth out there that can be known. If there is no truth to morality, then why is Pat wasting his time studying? It makes as much sense to study geometry when you don't believe in mathematical truth.

Pat also wants to know why I believe in putting homosexuals to death under OT law but not in the time since Christ. Again though, this is an ethical question. It's not a meta-ethical question. The first question to ask is to look at the claims.

Putting homosexuals to death is moral.

Putting homosexuals to death is immoral.

If any of these are true, then my case is shown. I have stated though that this thread is not for the purpose of debating my stance on homosexuality but to first see if there are any moral truths relating to the matter. If there are, my case is proven and the thing to do then is to try to determine what those moral truths are.

In fact, notice what Pat says here:

believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture,

If Pat really believes this, then he is a moral absolutist and there is an objective moral law that transcends time and culture. If so, then Pat needs to go on and concede the point. If he wants to say there is no objective moral standard, then he needs to drop this statement. Why? Let's be sure by looking at the claim.

"I believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture,"

If that is the case, then Pat is claiming there is truth content to a statement in regards to morality. Pat can say it's his belief, but upon what basis should anyone else believe it? If there are no moral facts, what is he going to point to? Why should I believe the way he believes if there's no truth to the matter?

I'd also like to point out Pat's statements here:

“Goodness is being.” “Evil is the privation of that which is supposed to be there by nature.” “One can live a life of virtue to conform oneself to reality.” He tends to shy away from specifics and there is good reason for this. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. He doesn’t like specific questions about his moral rules that are “written on our hearts.” That’s why he shied away from them, danced around them, and outright avoided them in the thread. We’ll see if he employs the same tactics here.

Here, Pat is instead using the telepathy he accused me of. Instead, Pat is simply demanding on everything being answered on his terms without having the presuppositions to the questions being addressed first, which is where I start.

Pat, if you have trouble with the statements espoused there, then I would say study more. They are written in the great philosophers. All I'm doing is taking the wisdom of the ages which you refer to as nebulous. Sorry Pat. That doesn't address them at all. Instead, you should have asked specific questions about them instead of brushing them away.

You've also brought up utilitarianism. A question arises here. "Is utilitarianism ethical?" If yes, then it would seem that there are moral truths. In fact, the same would apply if the answer was no since that would imply a moral standard utilitarianism doesn't reach.

There is a problem with focusing the idea of what is moral on what brings pain and what brings pleasure. Most of us would say that we prefer pleasure and we want to avoid pain. However, are those the main goals of our lives? Do we not sometimes go through pain for the sake of pleasure and do we not sometimes overlook pleasure for proper reasons?

If the standard is "Whatever brings the greatest number of people pleasure" then let's consider this. Imagine an island that is inhabited by 50 men and 1 female. The female is a dedicated Christian who believes in sexual intercourse only within marriage. The men are not though and believe that the greatest pleasure is found in repeatedly raping this woman. Now they all have pleasure, and she has pain. (And by the way, if you decry that as immoral, you show you are a moral absolutist.)

Note also the concept that we should do that which brings about the greatest amount of pleasure to the greatest amount of people. I can say "We should? Says who?" If morality is relative, why should I do anything? There is no should. I can simply say "I do what I want! You got a problem?"

I'd also like to point out the biblical examples show an inconsistency with Pat. If he thinks, for instance, the death of 70,000 at the census of David is immoral, then he is showing himself to be a moral absolutist. He is saying that that is something that was immoral regardless of time and culture. If he wants to be a consistent moral relativist, then he should simply say that it was an action and there can be no truth content to a moral claim about it. He doesn't though. Hence, I say while Pat thinks he's argued against moral relativism, he's actually argued for moral absolutism.

Pat needs to spend his next post addressing my arguments instead of trying to wave them away. He can say "religious beliefs are subjective." Let's consider that. It's a religious belief of several people based on the Ten Commandments today that murder is immoral. Is that subjective? (And if it isn't, Pat proves my case that moral absolutism is true.)

Also, is the idea that religious beliefs are subjective even accurate? I would think the strongest atheist on here would disagree. He would say "The claim that God exists, a religious belief, is objectively false." To say that a belief is rooted in a religion and is therefore subjective is not only false, but it also commits the genetic fallacy. Pat needs to argue against the belief and not against the source.

I recommend Pat return to the meta-ethical level this time and realize that that is where the debate is. Pat would prefer I debate what is and isn't moral while instead my stance is, "Unless you believe there's some truth to be discovered, why bother?" For me, it would make as much sense to argue whether a paper is written well or not to someone who doesn't believe in the existence of grammar.

If Pat wants to say there is some truth to the claims that certain events are immoral, then he needs to concede the argument that there is an objective moral standard. If he doesn't want to concede that the position he holds is one that says there is no truth content to the claims while wanting to argue that some things are truly evil. Remember his words from earlier.

I believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture

If he wishes to make that a knowledge claim, then his case is wrong. If it's merely a belief claim, then why should I care? What will he point to if there's no truth to the matter to say why I should believe the way he does?

**Pitchforkpat** · January 16th 2009, 09:35 PM

I want to take readers back a little and remind them of how this debate came about in the first place. On a couple of occasions, Apologia Phoenix entered a thread that I was involved in with the rather pompous, self-righteous charge “By what objective moral standard do you judge these actions?” Of course, the clear implication from that is that he DOES possess an “objective moral standard” by which HE can judge the actions of others. After all, and this is a crucial point, if he doesn’t have one, he would be a run-of-the-mill-hypocrite to criticize me for this.

That’s why the proposition is:

No PRACTICAL, objective moral standard exists, and Phoenix's Natural Law is not objective or PRACTICAL.

According to the actual proposition above, AP would need to not only provide an “objective moral standard” but also demonstrate how it can be used to judge the actions of others as either moral or immoral. However, it is clear from his last post that he has not done this. In fact, he has tried to distance himself from judging actions as moral or immoral in spite of the fact that that is the task required of the debate proposition. What’s practical about an “objective moral standard” if it can’t be used to judge actions as moral or immoral?

We need to get something cleared up first, though. Attempting to move the goal posts is a favorite debate tactic, well actually trick, of AP’s. Here’s a quote from the start of his last post:

First, I have been asked to say what I mean.

No, he was specifically asked to define the word “standard”. This was my question:

I would like for him to provide a stipulative definition of the word “standard”

Could I have made it any clearer? Here’s what he wrote:

What I mean is that there is the idea of morality outside of us, wherever it comes from (Though I have a position on that, it is not germane to the debate.) and that this moral law is that by which we determine what is good and what is evil.

Yes, we’ve already heard this. What I’m looking for is what AP means by “standard”, a stipulative definition of the word. I just want to be clearer about what an “objective moral standard” looks like. The reason I ask is that it seems that AP prefers vagaries and more nebulous ideas because not only is he still shying away from questions but he now seems to be shying away from the morality of actions, period.

Now, there was something he stated in parentheses in the above sentence which I want to bring attention to:

…wherever it comes from (Though I have a position on that, it is not germane to the debate.)

He doesn’t want to talk about where it comes from because he knows this makes him vulnerable but it certainly IS germane to the debate. He believes it comes from God, specifically the Hebrew god, Yahweh. He wants you to think it’s not germane because Yahweh’s personal rules and decrees are of questionable morally and force him into a relativist positon. For example, he believes it’s immoral to put homosexuals to death, but Yahweh ordered this. If he keeps Yahweh out of the picture it avoids some very embarrassing problems like, as stated before, why it was morally correct order the genocide of six entire nations, including innocent children and babies. Better to try to pretend it’s simply not “germane” than explain how such things fit his moral “absolutism”. It’s just not that “absolute” at all.

If AP wants to claim to be a moral absolutist but would argue, as we all know he would have to, that Yahweh was morally correct to order the slaughter of six entire nations including innocent children and babies, then he cannot shy away from questions that seem to belie the claim to moral absolutism. It is precisely these questions he must answer adequately. As I said in my OP, anyone can sell their product eloquently but if a flaw has been brought to light, it cannot be ignored.

And furthermore, if he refuses to say where his “objective moral standard” comes from or opts for saying we don’t know, then it begins to have a kind of mythical, legendary status. As we shall see, this is where his much vaunted and ballyhooed “objective moral standard” is beginning to lose its luster and fails the “practical” test. Remember, according to the proposition, its practicality is what he has to successfully defend. If he can’t, he fails.

Of his “objective moral standard” he also says the following:

The debate is not on my stance on homosexuality but on the meta-ethical question of if there is an objective moral law.It's not about the content of said moral law

Actually for any practical purposes it is, but let’s look at what he’s now said. He doesn’t want to talk about where his “objective moral standard” comes from and he doesn’t want to talk about what the content is. He makes the rather convenient claim that these things aren’t “germane”, but if we don’t know where they come from and we don’t know what they consist of, then of what practical use is this “objective moral standard”?

In fact, he’s how clearly backing away from using his moral standard to tell us what’s moral or immoral. Now let’s remember his self-righteous criticism of me: By what objective moral standard do you judge these actions to be immoral?

I will return to this problem later, but there are some other points I have to address.

If he wants to say that there is no moral objectivity

Here we see yet another example of setting up the straw man. I don’t say there is “no moral objectivity”. That’s simply a mischaracterization of my position and he knows it. I don’t think anyone would disagree that it’s wrong for a healthy young man to push an old lady off a bus seat so he could have it for himself. But does this necessarily mean I believe there is a set of moral laws supposedly “written on our hearts” by which we can judge the action of others. I don’t. The fairness of such an action can be judged on grounds other than an appeal to some ill-defined moral laws written on our hearts. For example, we understand what compassion means. Some would argue that compassion comes from social evolution and the need to survive. Whether compassion comes from evolution or from Yahweh is an arguable point, but it’s not necessary to believe in some murky supernatural rules to be able to determine the morality of such an action.

There is a logical analogy that AP is very fond of using. An example is this:

Let us consider the statement phrased in two ways.

Homosexual practice is moral.

Homosexual practice is immoral.

If any of those statements are true, then my point in the debate is proven

This is just poor logic. Let’s suppose homosexuality IS moral. This by itself wouldn’t mean there is no objective moral standard. It could simply mean that the rectitude of homosexuality is not part of the supreme moral edicts.

Now, consider the following statements:

Chocolate tastes great

Chocolate does not taste great

One statement does not need to be true to the exclusion of the other. There can be differences of opinion on such matters and it may be only opinion, such as is the case with homosexuality. However, he has stated point blank that it’s immoral. Does he know this? No. It’s just an opinion. In fact, AP has gone further. He as stated that it’s actually written on the hearts of homosexuals that what they are doing is immoral. But how can he know this? He can’t. He’s expressing his opinion. Yet he would have us believe, as he has stated, that this prohibition is written on all our hearts. Here, again, we see the unclearness of his claim of supernatural moral rules written on our hearts. He has now conceded that he could be wrong about the morality of homosexuality.

It could be that I'm wrong about homosexuality being wrong being written on the hearts, which I don't think I am.

Clearly we don’t know the contents of the standard, otherwise he wouldn’t be wavering on such an important issue as homosexuality. If he “thinks” he knows, but he’s not sure, and doesn’t know the “contents” of his moral standard, which he clearly doesn’t, then of what practical use is it?

Pat must say that the statements are meaningless. He could take a weaker position however that would say "There may be moral truths, but we can't know them," which makes one wonder why he's making statements about moral truths if they can't be known

But what are his moral truths? He won’t tell us. He states something is a moral truth and then says he only thinks he’s right, and that he could be wrong. What are we to make of other “moral truths”, especially since he won’t tell us what they are, and now we know they can change on his whim?

So now we have the following: He won’t tell us where his “objective moral standard” comes from, or isn’t sure. He won’t tell us what it consists of or isn’t sure. And he has shown that he can consider certain actions to be against the standard but that this can change to maybe being against it. Not very compelling, is it?

Although he’s not doing a very good job of showing us that an “objective moral standard” exists with which we can judge the actions of others, he thinks he can win by default by continuing to attack his straw man version of a moral relativist.

as I believe that even the moral relativist knows that some things are good and some things are evil, though they try to deny it.

Well I’m not sure what “evil” is and he still hasn’t explained it, but this is nonsense and again a simpleminded characterization of his opponents. I don’t “try to deny” some things are good. I’ve already explained that we know humans both seek to increase pleasure and seek to minimize pain. Of course it’s good to minimize someone’s suffering and it’s not good to cause someone to suffer for no reason. Is this part of our need to survive and a product of social evolution, or is it a part of a set of laws written on our hearts by Yahweh that are part of his over all laws including putting homosexuals to death?

There is nothing outside of us that is binding on us and that is in fact a position of moral relativism.

Yes there is. We have laws. We created the laws and we created them for a variety of reasons including our need to not continually fight one another which decreases chances of survival. Do we create laws by reading off the laws that are written on all our hearts? No we debated and discussed. We used reason and our sense of compassion. That is why we created BETTER laws than Yahweh. Yahweh’s laws included putting homosexuals to death and being allowed to keep slaves and beat male and female slaves with a rod.

Now, AP cannot argue anything other than Old Testament laws such as these were part of his “objective moral standard” and that they were written on the hearts of the OT authors who heard Yahweh’s commands. Otherwise, they lied about what Yahweh commanded in the Bible. Either way is devastating for AP’s argument. Why was it correct for that culture and time but not today? He hasn’t answered that question. Why? I’ll let you judge for yourself. I think you know the answer.

In his last post he makes this observation:

Note that philosophers note that some beliefs on morality have changed. People have thought different things. No moral absolutist denies that. The question is, can they know different things? The answer is no.

But if they can’t know different things are moral or immoral then we don’t have an objective moral standard by which we can judge the actions of others.

Pat brings up my belief that Muslims are being converted. One wonders though what that has to do with the debate

I explained exactly what that has to do with the debate. It’s because he was forced to admit that, although Muslims believe that the law to stone homosexuals to death was written on their hearts, they have interpret it wrongly. He admitted on this point that the laws can be interpreted differently. So let’s look again at what we have now:

He doesn’t want to say or isn’t sure where his “objective moral standard” comes from. He doesn’t want to say or isn’t sure what it consist of. He claimed homosexuality was part of the standard but now says he could be wrong about it. And he says the laws can be interpreted differently and won’t say how we can know which interpretation is correct. It’s just not a convincing argument at all.

First off, if he does not assert that an objective moral standard can't exist, then why is he even debating? I would think he should be more sure of his position.

This is backwards, I’m afraid. Since I say I see no convincing evidence of a supposed “objective moral standard” that is “written on our hearts” but AP says there IS such a thing, and that we can judge the actions of others by it, it is AP who needs to be more sure of his position. Since he hasn’t told us where it comes from, what it consists of, or how we can know how to interpret it properly.

Pat. This is an ethical question though. It's not a meta-ethical question and the debate is not about ethics but about meta-ethics.

He now wants to remove ethics from the debate completely. But how does this square with his telling me that I can’t judge the ethical actions of others because I have no “objective moral standard” by which to do so. But where is his? Where is it? Where does it come from. What does it consist of? How do we know how to “interpret” it? He has the audacity to claim these questions are somehow now irrelevant? They’re not. He just doesn’t want to deal with them because it weakens his case even further.

AP is very fond of a certain argument and he uses it consistently to supposedly demonstrate that he is right about his objective moral standard.

Let's start at the foundation again with these two statements.

Burning people who are believed to be witches is moral.

Burning people who are believed to be witches is immoral.

If anyone of these statements is true, my case is correct.

Again, he seems to have conveniently forgotten both the reason for the disagreement and debate along with the actual proposition being debated. If he claims I’m in no position to judge the actions of others because I don’t have an “objective moral standard” by which to judge then he needs to demonstrate how his vaunted standard judges the above action. How do we know that burning witches is immoral using his objective moral standard? The proposition is that it is not practical. How does it determine if homosexuality is immoral? Removing the clitoris of female babies? Killing Jews for being Christ-killers, etc.?

On the other hand, I can argue that burning witches is wrong based on compassionate grounds and using science. A witch burner would be made to demonstrate that the accused lady had used black magic powers to the great adversity of the community. He would not be able to do this.

Now Pat objects to my suggesting we study the great philosophers and religions to increase our understanding of morality and that this goes against the idea of an objective moral law.

Another outrageous straw man. This is really unconscionable. I never said anything of the kind. On the contrary I said we should definitely use philosophers, theologians, logicians, and any other thinkers to determine what moral behavior or proper conduct between humans should be. And since he won’t say where his objective moral standard comes from, what it consists of, or how we can know how to correctly interpret it, then discussion by philosophers, theologians, logicians, etc. is apparently the best we have.

However, I believe it because I believe there is objective moral truth out there that can be known.

Then he needs to tell us where it is, where it comes from, what it consists of, and how we can know it’s been interpreted correctly.

Pat also wants to know why I believe in putting homosexuals to death under OT law but not in the time since Christ. Again though, this is an ethical question. It's not a meta-ethical question.

Sorry, AP but this is a woefully inadequate answer. I said in my OP that we shall see if you’re finally going to answer the questions, and it appears you’re simply going to refuse. And this IS about ethics. The whole debate started by you telling me I was unfit to judge the ethical actions of others because I had no standard by which to do it. We’re talking precisely about how we judge the ethical actions of others. And unless you can address this question adequately the point stands uncontested and you are a moral relativist. You believe it was morally correct to put homosexuals to death for that time and that culture, but you believe it would be immoral to day. At some point you will need to explain how you claim to be a moral absolutist but are willing to change on important moral issues involving the death penalty when it suits you. Well? You’ll need an answer.

In fact, notice what Pat says here:
believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture,
If Pat really believes this, then he is a moral absolutist and there is an objective moral law that transcends time and culture. If so, then Pat needs to go on and concede the point.

Again we see the over simplification of AP’s arguments. While I believe that certain actions are immoral independent of culture, it does not necessarily follow that I believe there is some ill-defined set of morals “written on our hearts” by a supernatural being . Our understanding of what is moral has developed over time with education and advancements in reason. For him to be correct, a supreme being must have written it on our hearts during creation. But he has not demonstrated this.

You've also brought up utilitarianism. A question arises here. "Is utilitarianism ethical?" If yes, then it would seem that there are moral truths. In fact, the same would apply if the answer was no since that would imply a moral standard utilitarianism doesn't reach.

Utilitarianism is a way to discuss ethical questions. I believe moral truths can be arrived at through reasoning of this kind. But this does not mean the rules are written on our hearts by a supreme being.

If the standard is "Whatever brings the greatest number of people pleasure" then let's consider this. Imagine an island that is inhabited by 50 men and 1 female. The female is a dedicated Christian who believes in sexual intercourse only within marriage. The men are not though and believe that the greatest pleasure is found in repeatedly raping this woman. Now they all have pleasure, and she has pain. (And by the way, if you decry that as immoral, you show you are a moral absolutist.)

First you don’t understand utilitarianism. Any utilitarian recognized it’s shortcomings and knows that individual rights must be protected and that pleasure that comes at the expense of someone else’s pain is not a good.

Second, utilitarianism is not on trial here. It is you who must demonstrate that an “objective moral standard” exists and how we can use it to determine whether or not actions are ethical.

I'd also like to point out the biblical examples show an inconsistency with Pat. If he thinks, for instance, the death of 70,000 at the census of David is immoral, then he is showing himself to be a moral absolutist.

No, I’m showing that killing people for a something someone else did is wrong. You don’t need to believe in supreme beings writing on people’s hearts to understand that. You, on the other hand, have avoided this question once again. I asked you to explain how killing 70,000 people would have been morally correct for that culture. And while you’re at it, you also need to answer why it was morally correct for Yahweh to order the slaughter of six entire nations including innocent children and babies, and why that wouldn’t be morally correct now. And while you’re at it you need to answer why it was morally correct to order homosexuals put to death but it’s not moral now.

These are serious questions that you MUST answer or you demonstrate that you are dishonestly avoiding them just at you did in the thread.

He can say "religious beliefs are subjective." Let's consider that. It's a religious belief of several people based on the Ten Commandments today that murder is immoral. Is that subjective? (And if it isn't, Pat proves my case that moral absolutism is true.)

Religious beliefs can coincide with universally accepted ideas of moral behavior. Surely you wouldn’t argue that the immorality of murder began with Moses. Are you saying that the commandment to put homosexuals to death is a moral absolute? Well? Was Yahweh immoral for giving that command? Was it correct for that time and culture? When are you going to be honest enough to face these questions? I’ve been waiting a very long time now and you’re still refusing. I wonder why.

Also, is the idea that religious beliefs are subjective even accurate?

Sure, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish beliefs are absolute truths. Really it’s a moot point.

I recommend Pat return to the meta-ethical level this time and realize that that is where the debate is.

I recommend that AP reread the proposition and remember that he claimed I need to provide an “objective moral standard” before I am qualified to judge ethical actions. The obvious answer is, where is his? He claims it exists but won’t say where it came from, what it consists of, how we know we’re interpreting it correctly, or how we can use it to judge the morality of actions. Of what practical use is it, exactly?

If Pat wants to say there is some truth to the claims that certain events are immoral, then he needs to concede the argument that there is an objective moral standard.

No I don’t. I can say that there are certain codes of behavior that we need to agree on that help us survive as a species and function in harmony as a society.

I believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture
If he wishes to make that a knowledge claim, then his case is wrong.

In other words, if I don’t believe there is a set of moral rules “written on my heart” by a supreme being, then I must think that people should be allowed to kill homosexuals at will. This is just simpleminded nonsense. I am a sentient being. I understand what pain and suffering means. I have suffered and I have experienced pleasure. I understand what fairness means. Did this concept come from God or from evolutionary social development? We can’t know that.

So what can we know? Is homosexuality immoral? Is removing the clitoris of female babies immoral? Is burning women for suspected superstitious notions of “witchcraft” immoral? Is stoning homosexuals to death immoral? Can we judge these things on compassionate grounds using science and reason, or must we look to our hearts for undisclosed laws written there by undisclosed being? If the latter is to be practical, wouldn’t we need to know who wrote the laws, what they consist of, how to interpret them, and how they are to be applied? Can the laws change to suit one’s argument as in the case of homosexuality? Claiming they exist is one thing. Demonstrating these murky “laws” have practical value is quite another. There is much work that would have to be done.

**ApologiaPhoenix** · January 20th 2009, 07:16 PM

I wish for people to again remember what Pat has said. No practical objective moral standard exists. I take that to mean he does not believe morality is objective, something that he's asserted a number of times before. However, as I read his posts, it seems he does not understand his position and instead tries to use ad hominems and attempts to poison the well.

For instance, Pat gets angry because I won't answer specific ethical questions. Pat doesn't realize that the point of this debate is not to see what my ethical stances are, but if ethical stances are even sensical. After all, if morality is relative, I'm just stating a personal opinion but there can be no truth content to that thought. This debate is not about specific ethical stances but the nature of ethics itself.

Now I have given Pat a definition of what is meant by a standard. Pat doesn't rebut this. He just waves it off. He asks what it looks like. He might as well ask "What do the laws of logic look like?" Pat claims I prefer vagaries and nebulous ideas. Quite the opposite. My OP consisted of referring to the great philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas and going to ones from the modern period such as Kant. I'll gladly grant the ideas as difficult as these are the great philosophers, but that does not mean they are nebulous. Perchance if Pat thinks they are, he should try reading the philosophers. It is no answer to Aristotlean thought to just say "nebulous."

Pat also is inaccurate about my position on the source of the objective moral law. Here is what he says:

He doesn’t want to talk about where it comes from because he knows this makes him vulnerable but it certainly IS germane to the debate.

But this is not at all accurate. The debate is about the existence of the moral law and not where it came from. Now once we established that one exists, I'd be glad to discuss where it came from, but I don't need to show where something came from in order to show that that something is there. One wonders if because the origin of life question isn't answered from a scientific perspective yet if that means Pat is going to say life doesn't exist.

Yahweh’s personal rules and decrees are of questionable morally and force him into a relativist positon. For example, he believes it’s immoral to put homosexuals to death, but Yahweh ordered this. If he keeps Yahweh out of the picture it avoids some very embarrassing problems like, as stated before, why it was morally correct order the genocide of six entire nations, including innocent children and babies. Better to try to pretend it’s simply not “germane” than explain how such things fit his moral “absolutism”. It’s just not that “absolute” at all.

Notice though that Pat goes against the moral relativist position here which is my point. He says YHWH's actions are questionable morally. If moral relativism is true though, there are no positions of questionable morality. What would that mean to be questionable morally? It would mean that we question the morality of an action, but if moral relativism is true, there is no basis for questioning the morality because that assumes a truth content to morality.

These kinds of things aren't a question for absolutism. Absolutism says that it's right, it's wrong, or we don't know for sure. It's never "meaningless." I have no problem with the actions of YHWH in the Old Testament, but that is not the point of the debate. If Pat wishes to impinge upon my character in some way for that though, then he will have to show that my ideas aren't true morally and for that, he will have to say that there is moral truth and I am wrong on that and if that's the case, moral relativism is not true and moral absolutism is.

And furthermore, if he refuses to say where his “objective moral standard” comes from or opts for saying we don’t know, then it begins to have a kind of mythical, legendary status. As we shall see, this is where his much vaunted and ballyhooed “objective moral standard” is beginning to lose its luster and fails the “practical” test. Remember, according to the proposition, its practicality is what he has to successfully defend. If he can’t, he fails.

For one who says there is no practical standard, it seems strange that Pat practices raising moral objections to my viewpoint, forgetting that if he's raising such objections, he is saying that there is truth content to a position. If there is truth content to a position in morality, then that means morality rests outside of us and if that is the case, then there is objective morality.

Here we see yet another example of setting up the straw man. I don’t say there is “no moral objectivity”. That’s simply a mischaracterization of my position and he knows it.

Pat is again using his telepathy. That is exactly what his stance is in this debate. What is the affirmative he's supposed to be arguing? Let's look and see.

No practical, objective moral standard exists

Pat can't have it both ways. Now if he wants to become a moral absolutist and say that some things are right and some are wrong, then that debate is done and then we can get into the other question of "Where does that come from?" Of course, that will mean he'd have to admit he was wrong in this debate and concede that I am correct in moral objectivity.

I don’t think anyone would disagree that it’s wrong for a healthy young man to push an old lady off a bus seat so he could have it for himself. But does this necessarily mean I believe there is a set of moral laws supposedly “written on our hearts” by which we can judge the action of others. I don’t. The fairness of such an action can be judged on grounds other than an appeal to some ill-defined moral laws written on our hearts. For example, we understand what compassion means. Some would argue that compassion comes from social evolution and the need to survive. Whether compassion comes from evolution or from Yahweh is an arguable point, but it’s not necessary to believe in some murky supernatural rules to be able to determine the morality of such an action.

And here Pat has given another objective moral action while he's supposed to be arguing that no objective moral standard exists. I don't care for the debate where Pat thinks a moral law came from. I just care that one exists. Interestingly, Pat says that whether it came from evolution or YHWH is an arguable point, all the while telling me that where I believe morality came from must be shown. Apparently, Pat can go against his position, claim morality exists and doesn't have to tell where it comes from and that's okay. I, who am simply asserting morality exists, don't though.

I will also say evolution cannot tell us what is moral because morality consists in what you ought to do. Evolution can provide an is to show what we do to survive, but that does not mean we ought to do. Is there a moral obligation to survive? Is survival good? A moral absolutist can answer these. A relativist can't.

Pat again doesn't see what position he's arguing for here.

This is just poor logic. Let’s suppose homosexuality IS moral. This by itself wouldn’t mean there is no objective moral standard.

Actually, it would. An objective moral standard means that some things are moral and some are immoral regardless of what we think. If there is truth content to a moral statement in saying that an action is either moral or immoral, then moral absolutism is true.

Chocolate tastes great

Chocolate does not taste great

One statement does not need to be true to the exclusion of the other.

If Pat takes this position, he is not only a moral relativist but an epistemological relativist. Let's suppose he's saying that he takes the first to mean "chocolate tastes good to me." Well I'm glad it tastes good to you, but that doesn't tell me anything about the chocolate itself. It just tells me your opinion about it. However, if chocolate truly is a great-tasting food, then it can't be a not great-tasting food.

In fact, we have culinary classes today to tell people how to prepare food better. Aristotle and others would argue that the reason we don't have proper taste sometime is because we have not been properly trained. Now let's go to the homosexuality question with person A and person B.

A: Homosexuality is immoral.

B: Homosexuality is moral.

Now if all they're saying is subjective beliefs, they're not telling me anything about homosexuality itself, which is what I'd want to know about. If all there is is subjective beliefs though, then upon what basis will A and B argue with each other? It'd be like A saying "I feel terrible" and B saying "No! I feel fine!" The only way you can argue these statements is if you have some idea outside of you of morality and you have to show your belief matches up to that idea.

Pat makes a lot about my saying I could be wrong on a moral stance. I doubt I am, but as any good philosopher and student, I am open to being wrong. However, the only way I can be wrong is if homosexuality is moral, in which case objective morality wins again, or if the question is meaningless because the idea of "wrong" has no meaning, which is the position Pat should argue for to be a consistent denier of objective moral standards.

Clearly we don’t know the contents of the standard, otherwise he wouldn’t be wavering on such an important issue as homosexuality.

Pat tries to make objections like this realizing that I am simply staying on the focus of the debate with only wanting to prove one thing. That one thing is that moral statements about reality have actual truth content to them. It does not need to be known the truth content of the beliefs, but that they have truth content. This was the foundation I started with in defining goodness. Pat never answered this and simply waved it aside.

QUOTE]He won’t tell us. He states something is a moral truth and then says he only thinks he’s right, and that he could be wrong. [/QUOTE]

Which is irrelevant to the debate. If some moral truths are right and some moral truths are wrong, then morality is objective.

And he has shown that he can consider certain actions to be against the standard but that this can change to maybe being against it. Not very compelling, is it?

Which again misses the point. Note that my position is not to defend my ethical views in this thread but to defend the claim that I can possess ethical views and that those ethical views can have truth content.

Although he’s not doing a very good job of showing us that an “objective moral standard” exists with which we can judge the actions of others, he thinks he can win by default by continuing to attack his straw man version of a moral relativist.

Not a straw man. It's the natural position if my position is shown false. If there is no practical objective moral standard, then moral relativism is true. However, if moral relativism is not true, then moral absolutism is. Again, Pat doesn't realize what he's arguing for.

Well I’m not sure what “evil” is and he still hasn’t explained it, but this is nonsense and again a simpleminded characterization of his opponents.

Actually, I have. Evil is the privatization of a good that ought to be present. This has been the classical Augustinian definition and I see no reason to go against it. However, if Pat doesn't know what evil is, one wonders if he knows what good is. If Pat believes goodness and evil are realities, though evil is really the lack of a reality, then moral absolutism is true.

. I don’t “try to deny” some things are good. I’ve already explained that we know humans both seek to increase pleasure and seek to minimize pain. Of course it’s good to minimize someone’s suffering and it’s not good to cause someone to suffer for no reason.

If Pat wants to hold to the first sentence, then he needs to deny moral relativism and admit an objective moral standard. He states that these things are good, but that implies that there is truth content to that idea of them being good. Again, if there is truth content, moral absolutism proves true.

Now I say that if moral relativism is true, there is nothing outside of us binding on us. Note Pat's response:

Yes there is. We have laws. We created the laws and we created them for a variety of reasons including our need to not continually fight one another which decreases chances of survival.

But if we create them, we can change them. We created the rules of baseball. We can change them. Did we create the rule against murder or did we discover it? Also, note that technically in America, we do not have lawmakers but legislators. The term was given because our founders saw us as discovering the moral law. This idea of a law outside of us rooted in something greater is found in the play Antigone also with her stand against King Creon. If we create the law though, it is the law that is subservient to us and we are not subservient to it. We are not the masters of morality. Morality is the master of us. Also, I would ask do these laws have a moral basis to them? If they do not, they are not valid laws. Consider if I made this law. "It is illegal to draw stick people on Friday and if you do, you will be put to death." That would be bizarre because there is no moral basis for it. There is a moral basis though for a law such as "Do not murder." The only way we could recognize an invalid law is by seeing something outside of us that that law does not correspond to and is independent of us.

Pat also argues about OT laws and says I can't make a stance. I can. It's not the debate though. Pat forgets that actions happen in a context and factors included behind an action are the person doing the action in regards to his position to the object or person being acted on and the desired outcome. For instance, it is moral for my neighbor to make love to his wife. It would be immoral for me to come over and do the same. (Both statements can have truth content since I'm a moral absolutist. For a moral relativist, they can't.) The reason is the difference in position in regards to the woman. If Pat wishes to debate this point though, then he needs to concede that my position is true that there are objective moral standards and then we can discuss the source of the standard and which actions match up to it and which don't.

Note also what Pat says here:

That is why we created BETTER laws than Yahweh.

Better though implies that there is some objective moral standard by which we can compare moral ideas. This is what Pat denies.

Notice how he says this:

But if they can’t know different things are moral or immoral then we don’t have an objective moral standard by which we can judge the actions of others.

And I think this is correct. If it can't be known that something is moral or immoral, then that is because we have no objective moral standard. The truth about whether something is moral or not can't be known because there is no truth to the matter to be known. If moral truth can be known, then there is an objective moral standard.

He now wants to remove ethics from the debate completely. But how does this square with his telling me that I can’t judge the ethical actions of others because I have no “objective moral standard” by which to do so.

It squares just fine. If you have no objective moral standard, you can't state objective moral truths. Note again I have stated from the beginning that this is about meta-ethics and not ethics.

If he claims I’m in no position to judge the actions of others because I don’t have an “objective moral standard” by which to judge then he needs to demonstrate how his vaunted standard judges the above action

No I don't. I simply need to show that the objective moral standard exists first and then argue about what it consists of. My only position is that there is truth content to the propositions.

On the other hand, I can argue that burning witches is wrong based on compassionate grounds and using science.

Science cannot answer questions of ethics. It can tell us what something is but not what we ought to do in response to what it is. Also, what is this compassion he speaks of? From the position of moral relativism, it is nonsensical and even more nonsensical is the position that we ought to be compassionate. Again, Pat says this when I say I believe in an objective moral standard.

Then he needs to tell us where it is, where it comes from, what it consists of, and how we can know it’s been interpreted correctly.

No. I just need to show that it exists. That's the entire point and one Pat consistently misses.

Now Pat says that he also thinks this debate is about ethics. It's not. Meta-ethics is not ethics just as metaphysics is not physics. Metaphysics will determine how you do your physics. Meta-ethics will determine how you do your ethics. Meta-Ethics is not seeking ethical truth but seeking truth about the nature of ethics. If there is no ethical truth, then there's no point discussing ethics.

While I believe that certain actions are immoral independent of culture, it does not necessarily follow that I believe there is some ill-defined set of morals “written on our hearts” by a supernatural being . Our understanding of what is moral has developed over time with education and advancements in reason. For him to be correct, a supreme being must have written it on our hearts during creation. But he has not demonstrated this.

If the first sentence is true, moral relativism is defeated. Now Pat says I have to demonstrate that the objective moral standard came from a supreme being. I don't. I have to show that it exists. That is the only proposition. Where I believe it came from is irrelevant until we get that question settled. Suppose I say "It exists, but it didn't come from a supreme being." My position in the debate is still true regardless.

First you don’t understand utilitarianism. Any utilitarian recognized it’s shortcomings and knows that individual rights must be protected and that pleasure that comes at the expense of someone else’s pain is not a good.

But if you are judging where utilitarianism has flaws, then it is not the final standard as there's something outside of it that judges it. Secondly, I do understand it because that is a valid argument against utilitarianism and one opponents of it have used consistently.

Now I claim that if Pat thinks the death of 70,000 in the census is wrong, then is a moral absolutist.

No, I’m showing that killing people for a something someone else did is wrong.

To say no is to say that he is a moral relativist, but then if he is a moral relativist, then he cannot say that what happened was wrong. He can say it's wrong to him, but not wrong in itself. Of course, a statement like this makes me question his epistemology.

Sure, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish beliefs are absolute truths. Really it’s a moot point.

Muslims say God is a monad. Christians say he's triune. Now it could be both are wrong, but they cannot both be right. All these beliefs make absolute claims, but not all are absolute truths. If Pat holds this position, he's also an epistemological relativist.

I recommend that AP reread the proposition and remember that he claimed I need to provide an “objective moral standard” before I am qualified to judge ethical actions.

Yes I do, and he still does. Now in an earlier post, Pat said this:

I believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture

His reply when I call him on it is:

In other words, if I don’t believe there is a set of moral rules “written on my heart” by a supreme being, then I must think that people should be allowed to kill homosexuals at will. This is just simpleminded nonsense.

No. That's not the position. The position is unless there's objective moral truth, you can't make a statement regardless of where that truth comes from.

Again, Pat really doesn't get the position he's arguing for. This is a debate on meta-ethics and whether moral statements have truth content or not. I suggest Pat deal with that or else say that they do have truth content and he's wrong in this debate and move on.

**Pitchforkpat** · January 23rd 2009, 05:43 PM

We need to re-clarify things here. We need to refocus because ApologiaPhoenix is in hiding. He wants to get out of this debate without answering any difficult questions. That’s what he did on the initial thread, and he’s continuing it here. Avoidance of difficult questions is the oldest trick in the book. But the only good reason he has for avoiding answering my questions is that he knows very well, that his position is made even more vulnerable if he does.

His technique here is to claim that this debate is EXCLUSIVELY about meta-ethics. But is this really true? Let’s remember that this debate began from his claim that I cannot judge the actions of others because I have no “objective moral standard” by which to judge those actions. By implication, he does. But where is it? How do we actually use it to judge the actions of others? This point was made VERY clear by the proposition:

No PRACTICAL, objective moral standard exists, and Phoenix's Natural Law is not objective or PRACTICAL.

It was worded that way so he couldn’t squirm out of answering difficult questions, as he did previously by simply exiting the thread.

He wants to simply ignore any practical application and the use of his “standard”. He wants to make it EXCLUSIVELY about the presuppositions behind moral systems, and about what we mean when we use terms like good, evil, right and wrong. He says that we can’t even discuss ethical actions until we know what those terms mean. But no one knows for sure. That’s why we actually HAVE a meta-ethics branch. Are we to stop all discussion about ethical questions until meta-ethicists have concluded that branch of inquiry? Of course not. Take for example his definition of “evil”:

Evil is the privatization of a good that ought to be present

But is that universally accepted as THE correct definition of “evil”? Is there any disagreement about this? Is the book close on this? Like the definitions of right, wrong, moral, immoral, this is a point of debate. But AP knows if he simply claims the debate is EXCLUSIVELY about meta-ethics, he avoids any practical application of his “standard”.

I can make this avoidance technique clear. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says the following:

By and large, the metaethical issues that emerge as a result of this process of stepping back can be addressed without taking a particular stand on substantive moral issues

So he can try to use this to avoid judging the actions of others or telling us anything substantive about his “objective moral standard”. But judging the actions of others is exactly what started this debate. If he refuses to explain how his “standard” can be used for assessing ethical issues, then he has no business saying that I cannot do it because I don’t have a workable standard like he does.

The Encyclopedia Britannica says the following:

Metaethics (or analytic, or critical, ethics) is thus to be contrasted with practical, normative, or speculative ethics, which explores such first-order questions as: “What actions are right and what are wrong?”

It’s “contrasted” with practical ethics. So even though the debate proposition was purposefully made to be about PRACTICAL uses of his “standard” he thinks he can circumvent this by personally claiming it’s NOT about practical applications but about presuppositions and the meaning of moral language instead. Rather than face the actual proposition, he wants to simply say that he will only discuss meta-ethical questions and thereby avoid any difficult questions.

Even within this bit of legerdemain, though, he STILL has a problem. He also avoids answering the question about what the source is for his “objective moral standard”. He claims he doesn’t have to answer questions about this because it’s not part of the debate. However, even in its opening paragraph on meta-ethics the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that is actually one of the questions to be dealt with:

If there are moral facts, what is their origin?

So how can he, with a straight face, claim that the source of his “objective moral standard” is NOT part of the debate? It boggles the mind.

But why does he avoid this question? It’s because we both know his source is a supreme being. After all, if the source cannot be humans, then what is it, the great Rabbit of the Andromeda galaxy? It’s a god, and he believes it’s Yahweh. But he doesn’t want to acknowledge this because Yahweh’s moral edicts make him very uncomfortable and he knows he’s in trouble. Again, he is avoiding.

But of course the source is important. That’s why the Stanford Encyclopedia acknowledges this. If we don’t know the source, how are we to judge it? In fact how can we judge his “objective moral standard” at all? And that’s where he wants this discussion to be.

He even refuses to define the word “standard”. This is now the third time I have asked for a stipulative definition of the word and he simply refuses. He just claims he defined it but this is what he said:

What I mean is that there is the idea of morality outside of us and that this moral law is that by which we determine what is good and what is evil.

As any honest person can see, this is NOT a stipulative definition of the word “standard”. First of all if it’s only an “idea” then what practical use does it have. And second, in mid sentence he changes “idea” to law. Is it an idea, a single law, a set of laws? What?

So he refuses to tell us what he even means precisely by the word “standard”. He won’t tell us the source of his “objective moral standard”, he won’t tell us its content, and he won’t tell us how it applies to substantive moral issues. He won’t even tell us how his moral standard can be interpreted correctly. But how on earth, then, are we supposed to judge it? The whole point is, he doesn’t want us to. He can’t give us any specifics about his “objective moral standard” because he knows how vulnerable this makes him. Again, the devil is in the details.

He makes the claim that he HAS in fact given us details by giving us the names of ancient philosophers who profess an “objective moral standard”. But are these philosophers really professing an “objective moral standard”? Since he, himself, looks to Aquinas, let’s look at Aquinas’ “objective” moral standards.

Aquinas thought masturbation was so immoral that it was close to murder:

"Hence, after the sin of homicide whereby a human life already in existence is destroyed, this type of sin appears to take next place, for by it the generation of human nature is impeded" (Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, 3, 122).

He also claimed it was worse than rape. Is this objectively true? Of course not.

Martin Luther believed that masturbation was worse than incest or adultery: "Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery" (Luther, Lectures on Genesis)
But is it? Is this part of an “objective moral standard” or is it Luther and Aquinas’ opinion?

Aquinas also said sex outside marriage is immoral. Is it? Is this law written on our hearts? AP simply has not demonstrated this. He hasn’t demonstrated that ANY laws are written on our hearts.

Instead he continually goes to the well to produce the following “proof” that some kind of set of independent laws exist:

Homosexuality is moral

Homosexuality is immoral

Since only one can be true, an objective moral standard is proven.

But is it? If homosexuality is amoral, then this is no proof at all. AP doesn’t seem to recognize gray. Everything is conveniently black and white. He continually makes the claim that if you don’t accept his moral standard then you have none and there is no right or wrong.

But this is simplistic. We’re supposed to accept this without it ever being proven. If I say that the good is to reduce suffering and increase happiness in the self and others, then he has to demonstrate why his alternative is clearly better. He has not done this. From his position, differences in suffering and happiness by themselves are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that you are abiding by the rules of the standard, whatever those rules are (remember, he won’t tell us). The suffering of others is irrelevant next to the rules of his supreme being. That’s how he can justify the ordering of the murder of innocent children, babies, and pregnant mothers by Yahweh. It fits the standard, so it’s moral regardless of the suffering involved.

People like AP who believe that without independent rules to follow, there would be nothing unethical about rape and nothing ethical about helping the poor are welcome to believe this, but they imply that without the rules they may well be sociopaths. They believe in acting “morally” because there is a reward if they do and punishment if they don’t. But why is it less “moral” to act simply out of compassion for fellow human beings? He hasn’t explained this.

He thinks that there cannot be moral rules without a supreme being. But it is logically possible that no god exists. Therefore it is logically possible to talk about ethical issues without a god. Therefore it is logically possible to come up with ethical statements without a god.

For AP to be right, he would have to explain why atheists perform moral acts, which they obviously do. Is there no purpose to their acts of kindness and generosity without god? There is no reason to say that we can only care about people’s well being if we believe they have a soul. Many ideas about correct conduct have evolved over time. Would he really try to assert today, like Aquinas in his day, that masturbation is a worse sin than rape?

Humans wouldn’t survive without rules that facilitate group cohesion, so these rules should be expected to expand and become more defined over time. Even Chimpanzees exhibit shame when they do something that violates the rules of the group. Does this mean Chimpanzees believe in a god? Caring and empathy, like any human emotion is routed in physical features in the brain.

Now, at this point, AP will say that this means there is no objective morality. Let’s be clear about what we both mean here. Since moral ideas can evolve, we can find shared moral values which reach across cultures. Clearly one of the first moral ideas to evolve, because of the need for survival as a group, would be not to murder. So we should find this common in different cultures. We do. Other ideas like burning women at the stake for ignorant superstitious beliefs are not likely going to be universal. We find this idea in cultures that believe in the Yahweh moral source. Is this part of an objective moral standard across cultures, though? Of course not. Certain moral ideas can take on a universal “objective” place in humanity as part of universally shared values.

On the other hand, what AP means by “objective” moral rules is that something non-human has constructed them. This non-human entity is obviously a god. Again, since it wasn’t the great Rabbit of the Andromeda galaxy, we know he means a supreme being. And we know he means Yahweh. But if he is honest enough to admit this, then he has some very difficult questions to face. For example:

1. Is it always wrong to order homosexuals to be put to death?

2. Is it always wrong to kill someone for something someone else did?

3. Is it always wrong to order innocent children and babies to be killed?

These questions cannot be answered without implicating the source of his “objective moral standard”. That, once again, is why he’s avoiding answering these questions and refuses to state what his source is. And he can’t hide by simply claiming that he doesn’t have to answer them because he’s personally tried to make the debate EXCLUSIVELY about “meta-ethics”. As we’ve seen, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia, the question of the source is actually part of meta-ethics anyway. Another of the questions it includes under meta-ethics concerns the laws directly:

What is their origin and from where do they derive their authority?

Time to stop hiding and anti up AP. You can’t pretend that the source of your “objective moral standard” is somehow off limits. It’s not.

One of the general criticisms of Natural Law is its impracticality, its uselessness. That is why I stressed in the actual debate proposition that it needs to pass the practical test. Yet AP will not apply his “objective moral standard” to judge the actions of others. Does it tell us, as Aquinas thought, that masturbation is immoral? Does it tell us, as AP has claimed, that homosexuality is immoral? Does it tell Christians that it’s immoral to burn women to death based on superstitious accusations? Does it tell us that homosexuals should be put to death? Does it tell us that, under certain circumstances, it’s ok to kill innocent children and babies?

You see, as I’ve pointed out AP only claims to be a moral absolutist. He would say it’s immoral to put homosexuals to death but it’s was ok for the Israelites to do it in their culture. He would say it’s immoral to slaughter innocent children but it was ok for the Israelites to do it at that time.

Under the deontological system behavior is only good if it adheres to the rules, and is not good if it doesn’t.

Let’s say his moral absolutism tells him that one must always tell the truth and not lie. Now let’s say he’s harboring Jews in his basement and the Nazi soldiers knock on the door. Does he tell the truth or does he lie and say he hasn’t seen any Jews? A consequentialist could easily argue that saving the lives of the Jews and preventing their horrible suffering is a good enough reason to lie compared to any good that would come from giving them over to the Nazis.

Let’s take an example. Let’s say there is a handicapped person who, because of his condition and appearance, is unable to find anyone to marry or have sex with. However he is fully aware and desires sexual fulfillment. A consequentialist would say that if he masturbates it will give him pleasure, relieve his frustrations, and will not hurt anyone. However, a moral absolutist, like Aquinas, might say that masturbation is immoral and would condemn the handicapped gentleman. Why is this a superior system? AP may want to say that he never said masturbation was morally wrong, but then we just get back to the impracticality and avoidance. He won’t tell us what his “objective moral standard” consists of, where it comes from, how you interpret it, or how it is to be applied to substantive moral issues. Really, then, of what practical use is it?

Can it be demonstrated that someone who acts on the understanding of what suffering means and the desire to relieve someone’s suffering is of inferior moral character to someone who acts in response to reward and punishment? Of course not.

So AP claims that an “objective moral standard” exists by which we can judge the actions of others. He claims he knows what it is. He claims to actually know that homosexuality is immoral. He actually claims that this is one of his laws written directly on the hearts of homosexuals. But then, he’s retracted that now to say he’s not sure. It’s hardly convincing.

He will not tell us the source of his standard, even though this question, as I’ve shown above, is part of the questions posed by meta-ethics.

He will not tell us what his “objective moral standard” consists of.

He will not tell us how to interpret it.

He won’t tell us how it can be applied to substantive moral issues, even though the debate proposition requires practical application

He has a lot of work to do before he’s convincing at all.

**ApologiaPhoenix** · January 27th 2009, 08:21 PM

I began this debate by pointing out my requirements. My requirement is to show that there is an objective moral standard and I did this by showing that there are propositions that can be made that are moral and possess truth content to them and if they do, then there is an objective moral standard. I started by stating the ideas of philosophers on goodness and any further clarification of these would have been given had more been sought. Note instead what was said in the first reply:

Originally posted by Pat

Many statements are somewhat nebulous: “Goodness is being.” “Evil is the privation of that which is supposed to be there by nature.” “One can live a life of virtue to conform oneself to reality.”

These are not nebulous statements but statements that would be discussed in an introduction to philosophy class. If my opponent was not prepared to debate on a philosophical level, he should have said so. It is not my fault that he came unarmed to the challenge.

Keep in mind also the standard I set in my first post for the debate:

Note that my opponent has chosen to say that there are no moral absolutes, so in order for his case to succeed, he must not only answer any positions I give, but he must also give his own reasons for why someone should think moral relativism is true.

If there are no moral absolutes, which is a statement about meta-ethics, then my opponent must be able to give reasons for thinking that. Even if he could find fault with all my arguments, which he never did, he would still need to assert the reasons for believing in moral relativism. My opponent never did and in fact, seems to think there are moral absolutes such as this statement:

I believe it is NEVER ok to put people to death for a homosexual act regardless of culture

Now whether you agree or disagree with that statement, that statement is a claim that I'm sure Pat wants us to think is true. He believes that it is never okay to do that and he would think we should also. But if we should, then the only reason we should is that it's a truth statement, not just a statement about what he believes is true but what he thinks is objectively true.

Let's look again at something he's said in his last post:

He wants to simply ignore any practical application and the use of his “standard”. He wants to make it EXCLUSIVELY about the presuppositions behind moral systems, and about what we mean when we use terms like good, evil, right and wrong. He says that we can’t even discuss ethical actions until we know what those terms mean. But no one knows for sure. That’s why we actually HAVE a meta-ethics branch. Are we to stop all discussion about ethical questions until meta-ethicists have concluded that branch of inquiry? Of course not. Take for example his definition of “evil”:

Pat. If words like good and evil have no known meaning, then why use them? Do you regularly use words you don't know the meaning of? Note also that I provided definitions that can be found in the philosophers. Those definitions were never disputed. Let's see what he says next:

But is that universally accepted as THE correct definition of “evil”? Is there any disagreement about this? Is the book close on this? Like the definitions of right, wrong, moral, immoral, this is a point of debate. But AP knows if he simply claims the debate is EXCLUSIVELY about meta-ethics, he avoids any practical application of his “standard”.

Pat could say there is disagreement. If so, then bring forward the disagreement. Tell why it's wrong. It is as if saying "Because all don't agree on moral absolutism, moral absolutism isn't true." If that's the case, then all don't agree on moral relativism, therefore moral relativism isn't true. The Law of Excluded Middle though rules out such an absurd conclusion. I also do know the debate is exclusively about meta-ethics because that's what an objective moral standard is. My stance on certain issues is irrelevant. All of my stances could be wrong on that standard and that standard still exist.

Note what he says from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

By and large, the metaethical issues that emerge as a result of this process of stepping back can be addressed without taking a particular stand on substantive moral issues

And that's correct which is why this is a meta-ethical debate. One can easily say Pat doesn't go here because he knows he doesn't have anything to base his moral judgments on other than his own opinion. Is that why he's hesitant to approach truth content?

So he can try to use this to avoid judging the actions of others or telling us anything substantive about his “objective moral standard”. But judging the actions of others is exactly what started this debate. If he refuses to explain how his “standard” can be used for assessing ethical issues, then he has no business saying that I cannot do it because I don’t have a workable standard like he does.

Pat seems to have some problem with judging others. Is he going to say this is wrong? Surely not, for he if he is, then that means that if the action is wrong in itself, that objective moral values exist. Also, I can say Pat has no business making judgments. What is he judging exactly? Let's suppose he judges that rape is immoral.

Why?

Because he doesn't like it? So what? Why should anyone care? Because it's wrong? Says who? Why should someone care what anyone else says if they are simply going to use their own standard of judging. Judging only makes sense if there is truth content to be judged. If there is no truth, then there is no point in judging.

It’s “contrasted” with practical ethics. So even though the debate proposition was purposefully made to be about PRACTICAL uses of his “standard” he thinks he can circumvent this by personally claiming it’s NOT about practical applications but about presuppositions and the meaning of moral language instead. Rather than face the actual proposition, he wants to simply say that he will only discuss meta-ethical questions and thereby avoid any difficult questions.

Pat's simply mistaken. In fact, if the objective moral standard exists, then it would be practical since morality is a matter of practice. The problem with Pat's ethical questions though is that they assume objective moral values. However, if objective moral values exist, then Pat's proposition that he claims to defend is shown to be wrong.

Even within this bit of legerdemain, though, he STILL has a problem. He also avoids answering the question about what the source is for his “objective moral standard”. He claims he doesn’t have to answer questions about this because it’s not part of the debate. However, even in its opening paragraph on meta-ethics the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that is actually one of the questions to be dealt with:

Yes. The Encyclopedia does ask what the origin of these facts are if they exist and that is a valid question to raise if they exist, but notice in this debate I am simply arguing that they exist. That is the only burden of proof I carry. Now most people here I think would know where I think they come from, but that is not germane to showing that they exist. Objective moral values would exist even if I didn't know where they came from.

So how can he, with a straight face, claim that the source of his “objective moral standard” is NOT part of the debate? It boggles the mind.

Only Pat's because he thinks I have to show origin to defend ontology.

But why does he avoid this question? It’s because we both know his source is a supreme being. After all, if the source cannot be humans, then what is it, the great Rabbit of the Andromeda galaxy? It’s a god, and he believes it’s Yahweh. But he doesn’t want to acknowledge this because Yahweh’s moral edicts make him very uncomfortable and he knows he’s in trouble. Again, he is avoiding.

It's amazing Pat accuses me of mind-reading in an earlier post, but all you see in his posts is this kind of talk. I can easily say "Pat wants to avoid meta-ethics because he knows he's just venting his own subjective opinion with no foundation at all." If Pat's moral relativism is true, why should anyone be uncomfortable with anything morally? The only reason to not like something morally is you think it's wrong.

Pat claims thought with my definition of standard saying this:

As any honest person can see, this is NOT a stipulative definition of the word “standard”. First of all if it’s only an “idea” then what practical use does it have. And second, in mid sentence he changes “idea” to law. Is it an idea, a single law, a set of laws? What?

Sorry Pat. Several honest people do accept what I say so your poisoning of the well won't work. I say that the standard is not an idea but belief in the standard is an idea. When I say that I believe in a standard, I say I believe in a law outside of myself to which I am accountable.

Let's look at Pat's quote of Aquinas on masturbation next.

"Hence, after the sin of homicide whereby a human life already in existence is destroyed, this type of sin appears to take next place, for by it the generation of human nature is impeded" (Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, 3, 122).

And Pat's reply?

He also claimed it was worse than rape. Is this objectively true? Of course not.

If you're a moral relativist, of course not! If you're a moral absolutist, the statement has truth content and is either true or false. I think this one is false. Because I agree with Aquinas on goodness, it does not place me under some obligation to agree with him on everything. Pat must show Aquinas was wrong on the definition of goodness.

Martin Luther believed that masturbation was worse than incest or adultery: "Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery" (Luther, Lectures on Genesis)
But is it? Is this part of an “objective moral standard” or is it Luther and Aquinas’ opinion?

But this is saying for something to be true, all beliefs must match up to it, which no absolutist claims. There is a true way life began, but there is no agreement on whether it was fiat creation, evolution, or a combination of both. There is still some truth. Pat seems to think that if someone has a wrong idea on objective morality, then there is no objective morality. The only way one can have a wrong idea though is if there IS objective morality.

Aquinas also said sex outside marriage is immoral. Is it? Is this law written on our hearts? AP simply has not demonstrated this. He hasn’t demonstrated that ANY laws are written on our hearts.

Which is not the point of the debate again. If Pat was consistent, I think he'd say it's meaningless or at least "Maybe it's immoral for you but not for me." That would get one into a sort of epistemological relativism though.

Pat speaks of how I use an argument like this:

Homosexuality is moral

Homosexuality is immoral

Since only one can be true, an objective moral standard is proven.

If that's the case, yes. If there is truth content and the Law of Excluded Middle applies, then objective morality is proven. Pat's reply?

But is it? If homosexuality is amoral, then this is no proof at all. AP doesn’t seem to recognize gray. Everything is conveniently black and white. He continually makes the claim that if you don’t accept his moral standard then you have none and there is no right or wrong.

If homosexuality is amoral. He hasn't shown this. If moral relativism is true, all actions are amoral. Note also that there are several gray areas and I would never deny that. Nor would any natural law thinker. Gray only exists though if there are black and white realities. The reason we have what are called moral dilemmas is because moral truths exist.

Note Pat misrepresents my position. I have never stated that if you do not accept my standard, to which I've never said it's my standard even but my interpretation of the standard, that you have none and there is no right and wrong. I say the standard is universal and all participate in it. If Pat's claim though of there being no moral absolutes is true, then the conclusion is true that there is no right or wrong. If right or wrong are ontological realities though, then there are moral absolutes and relativism is refuted.

But this is simplistic. We’re supposed to accept this without it ever being proven. If I say that the good is to reduce suffering and increase happiness in the self and others, then he has to demonstrate why his alternative is clearly better. He has not done this. From his position, differences in suffering and happiness by themselves are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that you are abiding by the rules of the standard, whatever those rules are (remember, he won’t tell us). The suffering of others is irrelevant next to the rules of his supreme being. That’s how he can justify the ordering of the murder of innocent children, babies, and pregnant mothers by Yahweh. It fits the standard, so it’s moral regardless of the suffering involved.

Actually, it was demonstrated at the beginning and Pat never attempted to deal with it. Pat has said X is good. There are many problems with this though and Mill knew about them. Are there ever cases to allow suffering? Yes. If that is the case, then you have some standard outside of the suffering that tells you the suffering is good. This also gives us no idea of what is meant by a good consequence. Why should I see reduced suffering as good and increased happiness as good? Why should I also care about others? As soon as Pat introduces a should, something outside of himself is being cared for.

Note also Pat wants to say I think the suffering of others is irrelevant. I must say this is just a cheap ad hominem and in reply, I will simply ask the readers to see if they really think that true for a moment.

Note also Pat speaks about murdering innocent children. I'd like to know if Pat considers this an absolute moral law. If he does, then there are absolute standards. What is innocence also? What is a child innocent of if there is no good and evil?

People like AP who believe that without independent rules to follow, there would be nothing unethical about rape and nothing ethical about helping the poor are welcome to believe this, but they imply that without the rules they may well be sociopaths. They believe in acting “morally” because there is a reward if they do and punishment if they don’t. But why is it less “moral” to act simply out of compassion for fellow human beings? He hasn’t explained this.

Why yes. If there are no moral absolutes, there is nothing unethical about rape and nothing ethical about helping the poor. One cannot say "Rape is absolutely wrong and there are no moral absolutes." Now does that mean all will become sociopaths? No. But why shouldn't they? Pat asks why is it less moral to act simply out of compassion for human beings? Why should I view human beings with compassion though? As soon as he gives a reason, he's appealing to some moral truth I should believe.

He thinks that there cannot be moral rules without a supreme being. But it is logically possible that no god exists. Therefore it is logically possible to talk about ethical issues without a god. Therefore it is logically possible to come up with ethical statements without a god.

And I agree. There could be somehow moral laws without a supreme being. That's not the point. In fact, let the reader be reminded that I did not bring up God to explain the objective moral standard at all. Pat's the one who did this. I argued from a position that anyone could argue just by musing about the nature of reality.

For AP to be right, he would have to explain why atheists perform moral acts, which they obviously do. Is there no purpose to their acts of kindness and generosity without god? There is no reason to say that we can only care about people’s well being if we believe they have a soul. Many ideas about correct conduct have evolved over time. Would he really try to assert today, like Aquinas in his day, that masturbation is a worse sin than rape?

I have to explain no such thing. Natural Law theorists recognize that even those who deny Natural Law do moral acts because of the Natural Law. You can walk around saying "There is no gravity" but you will not float. Note also that Pat says atheists perform moral acts. If that is a true statement, then it means there are moral acts and moral absolutism is proven.

Humans wouldn’t survive without rules that facilitate group cohesion, so these rules should be expected to expand and become more defined over time. Even Chimpanzees exhibit shame when they do something that violates the rules of the group. Does this mean Chimpanzees believe in a god? Caring and empathy, like any human emotion is routed in physical features in the brain.

But why do humans do what they do? Notice that if chimpanzees follow a moral standard, that means there is one. Is all that matters group cohesion? Then why does he criticize the group of Israel unless there is some standard beyond Israel?

Now, at this point, AP will say that this means there is no objective morality. Let’s be clear about what we both mean here. Since moral ideas can evolve, we can find shared moral values which reach across cultures. Clearly one of the first moral ideas to evolve, because of the need for survival as a group, would be not to murder. So we should find this common in different cultures. We do. Other ideas like burning women at the stake for ignorant superstitious beliefs are not likely going to be universal. We find this idea in cultures that believe in the Yahweh moral source. Is this part of an objective moral standard across cultures, though? Of course not. Certain moral ideas can take on a universal “objective” place in humanity as part of universally shared values.

Actually, Pat's quite clueless if he thinks I'll say such a thing. Everything he's said to me shows there is objective morality. Now Pat says that moral ideas evolve. If they are changing though, are they changing to something better or worse? The only way you can know is if there is some absolute that is not changing. Now Pat says that one of the first ideas to evolve was that murder was wrong.

This was the argument of Hobbes and it was criticized in his day as well. The state of nature Hobbes started out on was a fiction assuming that man was an immoral creature that needed society as a natural evil to survive. Hobbes assumed moral relativism at the start. One wonders if Pat shares that view that the whole idea is based on.

On the other hand, what AP means by “objective” moral rules is that something non-human has constructed them. This non-human entity is obviously a god. Again, since it wasn’t the great Rabbit of the Andromeda galaxy, we know he means a supreme being. And we know he means Yahweh. But if he is honest enough to admit this, then he has some very difficult questions to face. For example:

1. Is it always wrong to order homosexuals to be put to death?

2. Is it always wrong to kill someone for something someone else did?

3. Is it always wrong to order innocent children and babies to be killed?

If the answer is either yes or no, then objective moral values exist. What Pat doesn't realize is that if any action is condemnable truly, then there are objective moral values. He cannot be a relativist and at the same time complain that some things are immoral.

As we go through, we see more of the same. Pat argues that there are no moral absolutes and then gives these ideas of moral dilemmas. I am sure moral relativists are even recognizing how inconsistent Pat is.

My stance is still the same and one can see me addressing Pat with it in another thread. Pat claims that there are no moral absolutes and then complains about things that are morally wrong. Are there tough questions? Of course! They're only tough though because there is some truth to the matter. The easiest test would be one where there were no true answers. You just got to say what you wanted and that would count as true.

And now, I'd like to end this as I do all my debates. Some of you might now be convinced there are moral absolutes and if you're convinced of that, you're probably also convinced you don't measure up. If the Christian claim is true, you have fallen, and you are in need of redemption from the wrong you have done. I invite you to go to the homepage and click "Salvation invitation" for more information or talk to myself or another member of staff.

As for the debate, I leave it to the readers to decide who made the convincing case. I trust the readers will see that the case for moral absolutism was defended and more convincing and that Pat is an inconsistent relativist.

**Pitchforkpat** · February 2nd 2009, 06:41 PM

I said in my OP that the reason AP abandoned the perfectly good discussion we were having in our initial thread was because he didn’t like the way the questioning was going. I said he wanted to change the format so he could avoid that line of questioning and try to dictate limits on criticism of his “objective moral standard.” Well after four rounds, and more than 10,000 words he’s succeeded in avoiding addressing these criticism. The main reason for this is that his “objective moral standard” may sound plausible in theory but, under real scrutiny, it just doesn’t stand up. So what I want to demonstrate in the last post is 5 crucial failings:

1) That his refusal to deal with these questions is arbitrary and demonstrates an avoidance tactic.

2) That the reason he avoided these criticisms is because they demonstrate that his “objective moral standard” is not objective.

3) That his “objective moral standard” is in fact a nebulous concept despite protests to the contrary.

4) That he has no solid foundation on which to say that my own ethical judgments are invalid simply on the basis that I reject his own notion of an “objective moral standard” that is supposedly “written on our hearts”.

5) That overall his “objective moral standard” has no practical application or value.

1) His refusal to deal with these questions is arbitrary and demonstrates an avoidance tactic.

Let’s start out by restating the actual proposition:
No practical, objective moral standard exists, and Phoenix’s Natural Law is not objective or practical.
ApologiaPhoenix, seems to think he can just ignore the word “practical” in the proposition and get away with it. In his wrap up he said the following: