An Objective Basis for Morality
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Perhaps inspired by Undefeatable's Utilitarianism vs Bible debate, I recently had a dream where I proclaimed the way to decide right and wrong was running it through his logically consistent system. For example, restaurants are supposed to serve customers, but if the food arrives late with little excuse, this is clearly immoral because it is logically inconsistent with the restaurant's purpose. So I propose that if an action is logically consistent under most circumstances, it must be moral, and if it is mostly inconsistent, then it is immoral. Given the questioning and phrasing of Socrates method which defeats the majority of moral systems, is this alternative to Universalism more reasonable, and able to establish an objective moral basis?
I will argue for Objective Morality (not based on human feelings/thoughts)
Con will argue for subjective morality (based on human feelings/thoughts)
- Morals - "standards for good or bad character and behavior:" [A]
- Objective - "Not dependent on the mind for existence; actual." [B]
- Basis - "the most important facts, ideas, etc. from which something is developed:" [C]
- In order to establish my BoP, I can either demonstrate morality not objective in general, or the specific basis argued here as not objective
- In order for my opponent to fulfill their BoP, they must do more than merely suppose a standard, they must demonstrate that the standard is objective
"Why can you not derive an is from ought or vice versa? For a simple reason, every moral description is saying that you ought to do or not to do something, because that thing is either morally valuable or morally harmful.From that fact, we know that "things", "actions", or "behaviors" are closer or further from the ideal moral behavior. Deductively then, we know that every single "ought" is associated with an ideal behavior. The differences between moral oughts are which behavior or goal is prioritized, but these goals are then, by definition, subjective. They are what people prioritize over another. Therefore attempting to come to conclusion regarding how reality should be from what it is left out this essential component, there is no "ideal behavior", if you were to insert an ideal behavior or a goal, then you would get an ought from an is and (an) ought (from an is)." [Con - Round 1]
- Hume's Guillotine makes any measure of morality inherently Subjective
- The use of Ought does not apply to Pro's argument soundly
I don't vote very often but I like ethics, so here we go. Logicalism presents an epistemology for moral judgements. The resolution states that this epistemology is objective, because the laws of logic are applied to one's conception of desirable consequences, in order to determine a moral ought. However under logicalism moral good is still consequentialist, and therefore subjective. This appeal to a fundamentally consequentialist assumption of the moral good is heavily attacked by con (by means of syllogism) as being subjective to the individual deciding what consequences are desirable. This was not adequately addressed. Arguments to con.
Conduct to con for pro forfeiting a round.
Hmu for more elaboration if desired.
Sounds like an odd thing to complain about, as a majority of points in his favor is a majority of points in his favor. Anyways, done.
Removed by request:
Nevets
Added: 15 hours ago
Reason:
Argument - Pro opens by questioning the ambiguity of lying but does make a good argument strong argument that is easily comprehended. " Therefore, I would have to consider the exact situation. If I am lying to save an innocent man's life, and succeed, then no logical contradiction is formed, and lying becomes moral. However, if I lie to oppress someone and steal their fortunes, despite claiming to be good to them, this is a clear logical contradiction and lying is immoral in this situation. As you can see, Logicalism is much more clear than universalism.".. Con responds with some borderline criticisms regarding his opponents round 1, and offers an argument of his own which appears to translate to not everything is as black and white as Pro appears to be making it.. Pro comes back in round 2 and makes some very strong and convincing and easy to understand arguments and offers a critique regarding his opponents use of "ought". Con responds with some good examples of how not everything is black and white - "Premise 1: Humans need oxygen to live Premise 2: The earth is the only place where there is enough oxygen for humans to breathe, Conclusion: Humans have to live on the Earth to live"... At this point of the debate there is no winner or loser and it is a matter of opinion who one agrees with more. I may be inclined to buy Pros argument, but then what does he go and do? Forfeits. This means no argument of his own and no rebuttal of Cons argument.. Pro does not make amends either in the next round when he runs out of time. "Bleh ran out of time. Procrastination.".. The voting policy states that if a debater forfeits 40% of the debate then the argument can be handed to the opposition. Does that fact that Pro made it in time to write "Bleh ran out of time" enough to escape being viewed as a second forfeiture? Barely, but still offered absolutely nothing in terms of a rebuttal regards his opponents last argument, and Con is correct "My opponent has not rebuked my argument for two rounds consecutively, and my argument remains strong.", But as I actually thought that until Pro forfeited and succumbed to poor time keeping the argument was borderline and I may well have favoured Pro. Therefore I do not wish to punish the same crime of forfeiture and time keeping twice, and so will leave argument at a tie, as it is in fact a conduct violation and not an argument violation. - Tie
Sources - Pro only really ever took the time to produce one source. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/014017509190016J) ... Whilst neither participant objected to each others use of sources, Con did use sources far more extensively, and no objections were raised. - Con
S & G - Neither stood out as making mass typos - Tie
Conduct - As I explained before, the forfeiture and bad time keeping is being punished by Conduct rather than argument loss. - Con
Hi, the weakeredge has made a complaint to me on another comment section regarding my failure to award him with the argument as well as sources and conduct. The easy solution to this is to simply remove my vote. Can this be done please?
Alright
Yee, and I was confusing it with the standard rhetoric of a syllogism
"A description of reality is referred to as an "if", and a prescription of reality is known as an "ought". "
Did you mean to say "is" instead of "if"
i think it suffers from the same thing all appeals to universalism do
what do you think? Is a watered down version of Universalism better? I tried poking at potential weaknesses, but couldn't find any obvious ones.