RESOLVED: Objective Morality Exists.
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 7 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
No information
R1:
PRO defines objective as "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations" then immediately undermines their own definition by saying objective morality is infact determined based on most people's interpretation. This isn't really caught by CON, but as a voter I couldn't help but notice.
R2:
CON's response/case does a good job exploiting PRO's definition mistakes, but I feel that it could have been executed better. I'm not sure why CON included the pre-emptive refutation.. I've never been a fan of those, as they distract from the points that have actually been made. Plus, the point on "the entire universe must agree" falls a bit flat for me. Even before PRO pointed it out, I had a hard time believing morality applied to photons. I do, however, buy that PRO needs to prove some animals in nature should exhibit signs of morality. Next, CON presents an alternate definition. But while I already had my doubts about PRO's definition, without a source like the one he provided in R3 I was left with CON's word against PRO's... That isn't a good place for the voter to be. CON should have sourced immediately. I like CON's "Evolving morality" argument.. But I feel it was wasted potential. At this point, PRO has already admitted that morality is based on consensus. Ergo, PRO has already helped CON make his point since human opinion is fickle and changes over time (as can be evidenced by the place of women in society for example). This fact was not exploited, and later on in the debate PRO outright says early humans would have had radically different senses of morality. All CON would have had to say is "they have consciousness, does their moral sense not count or something?"
PRO's response digs him a bit deeper here, only addressing some surface level issues CON brings up while not digging into the meatier part of the case I covered above. The only response that I bought was one against CON's "everything in the universe" point: "Non-sentient stars can't have morals in the first place."
Again, I'm not sure why CON isn't just pushing his "changing morality" point with PRO's definitions at the helm, or at least pushing a nature point.
R3:
CON puts the nail in the coffin on PRO's definitions, and this point is dropped by PRO from this round forward. CON brings up the point that nature must exhibit signs of morality. I think CON should have led with this instead of the whole "entire universe" thing.
"It is almost certain there are other living things in the universe. " CON asserts this without evidence, so as a voter I'm not taking it very seriously.
PRO forfeit loses him conduct paired with a subsequent display of good conduct from CON.
R4 onwards: pretty much rehashes of previous rounds.
VERDICT: Most points were neck and neck except the critical point of the definition of objective morality. Here CON stomped on PRO, and this weakened PRO's case substantially for me. With CON doubling down on the definition throughout the debate it was what ultimately swayed me in favor of CON.
Advice to PRO: if you want to win this resolution lose the consensus point. Arguing objective morality has to be done from a very specific angle to avoid outcomes like this.
Pro must prove that the majority of people are objectively moral (as he claims) when it comes to a conclusion, but he did not do that. Con solidly interjected with "our morals are always evolving, there are no moral rules that everyone follows and believes that are immoral". The debate trailed on into whether morality only applies to humans, and though pro stood by his points, con argued that our beliefs contradict and change over time, and hence cannot be objectively moral. Pro conceded this point, which results in his loss in the end.
much better
Np. Actually, I was working on the vote before you asked me to vote LOL
Thanks for the good advice, I'll try to improve my case later.
Can someone please vote? (Never mind MisterChris, you can vote.)
**************************************************
>Reported Vote: seldiora // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: 3:0; 3 points to CON.
>Reason for Decision: See Comments
>Reason for Mod Action: Did not justify awarding arguments points to standard.
To award argument points, the voter must:
(1) survey the main argument and counterargument in the debate,
(2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and
(3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision.
The voter's only argument justification was "pro stabs himself in the foot with " except maybe the neolithic era as the brains weren't fully developed..." thus conceding that humans minds change over time and contradict what is objectively moral or not moral." This justification misses the mark of all 3 standards.
Furthermore, the voter has injected their own argumentation into their vote. This is bad voter conduct for obvious reasons.
pro stabs himself in the foot with " except maybe the neolithic era as the brains weren't fully developed..." thus conceding that humans minds change over time and contradict what is objectively moral or not moral. He could've tried being even more resolute that each time has different objective morals (similar to how rock wear and tear can change over time, yet still be objective) and how because morality involved human actions, human should decide what to do in the end.
Vote
Humans are not the only sentient beings in the universe, I have a source saying this. The thing about this debate is that Water can't accept what objective morality is and it is impossible to prove. Objective morality is not only directed to humans, Water can't decide this based on what animals can't interpret morals. The only thing that we were debating about was the definition, and multiple sources prove Water wrong about what he thinks is objective morality, even my source says:
"In the end, humans are one species. While many religions believe that we are the only intelligent species, and that our creator was focused on us and our actions, someone who is more secular may point to the fact that there may be other intelligent life out there. What we believe to be objectively true may not be in some other galaxy, if you believe there is intelligent life out there.
Even without the aliens, animals have different morals as well. Some animals eat their own as a part of their life cycle. Almost all of us are disgusted over the idea of cannibalism. This is a moral inconsistency found on this earth."
You'll have to swing hard if you want to make up the ground final round.
bump
Wasn't planning to. BTW,I know how to be objective when it becomes time to vote thanks to my PFD experience, so don't worry about that.
If you guys feel so strongly about this topic, I plead you not to vote on this debate.
OH SHIT
i was doing a lotta stuff for school, completely forgot this debate existed...
Nooooooo
CS Lewis has defended against most refutations of P2 persuasively. Anyway, the point I am making is that arguments abound for both PRO and CON.
I've seen the game Socrates Jones: Pro philosopher easily dispel this idea. P2 has serious problems, "ask for back up" would completely destroy it.
Intuition.
P1: If morality is objective, then we can expect virtually universal use of a standard set of moral principles.
P2: All humans use and appeal to this standard, if only subconsciously.
C1: Morality is objective.
how the hell can pro win this?
Don't get your comment. The update is relatively new.
you'd be surprised how little i actually debate on debateart. the fact that it shows my 65% winrate is depressing too...
Oh wait I messed up
As if you visited only the forums for the past month -_-
woah, the new debate thing is so slick