Resolved: It is probable that objective moral facts exist

Thanks Pro for instigating this debate and for his well laid out Round 1 argument.

In this debate I’ll be defending the moral anti-realism position that there is no such thing as an objective moral fact. I’ll start with a brief layout of what morality actually is and why it is fundamentally at odds with the concept of objective morality, and then finish by addressing Pro’s R1 arguments.

What is morality?

Simply put, morality is a system by which we judge actions as right or wrong. All coherent moral systems, even conflicting ones, are made up of the same ingredients; 

A) a moral standard

B) logic

C) a moral judgement resulting from A and B

As illustrated above, the process of coming to a moral judgement or establishing a moral fact is structurally no different than any other logical process. We begin with premises (moral standards) and from there, apply logic to reach our conclusion (moral judgement).

But as anyone versed in epistemology understands, a valid conclusion does not equal a necessary truth. In order for a conclusion to be considered necessarily true, the premise must be accepted as true.

So the question is, how do we assess whether the premises are true? The answer to this question is what determines whether a claim is objective or subjective.

A premise that is objective in nature is one that can be empirically tested. For example, we know, objectively, that 2+2=4 because we can test this in many different ways. We can for example place two cups on one end of the table and two cups on the other, then place them together and see how many cups we have. Or another claim we can objectively test would be “I can fly”. To test that simply head to the top of your nearest skyscraper and jump off. See what happens (actually, please don’t).

Subjective claims on the other hand, have no identifiable basis in empirical reality. There is no mechanism to test them apart from conferring with other minds. “Ice cream is good” being a great example.

So let’s apply this to morality. Pro says torturing babies for fun is objectively wrong. How do we test this? What do we compare our empirical observations to? Our discomfort with watching it happen? Our empathy for the infant? What grounds these asserted moral conclusions apart from values determined within our own mind?

And herein lies the problem; no matter what example we use, Pro cannot escape the inherent circularity of his position. In order to conclude that something is immoral, he has to assert it within his own moral standard. But that standard is chosen, making it subjective by definition.

This is categorically different than any example where objectivity is involved because objectivity is grounded in empirical reality, whereas moral judgements are not testable within empirical reality, not even theoretically.

What all of this comes down to is the is/ought problem popularized by David Hume. As Hume pointed out, there is no way to get from what is to what ought to be without injecting a value statement into the equation. But value statements are inherently subjective, so any pronouncement grounded in them will also be subjective. This is not escapable.

Epistemic virtue and normativity

Pro argues that the existence of epistemic facts necessitate the existence of moral facts. This does not logically follow.

His 4 “oughts” feel powerful because these are things most people agree upon. But agreement is a statement of our values, not a signifier of some metaphysical truth. They are derived from a shared desire to understand what is true, and are little more than tools we use to get there.

Pro claims it would be absurd for someone to agree with his hypothetical conversation points only to reject them at the end, but it actually isn’t. Absurdity arises from internal contradiction, but in this case my hypothetical self was not contradictory, he was consistent with his own value of preferring comfort over honesty. You might think that’s a ridiculous stance for one to take and I too would agree, but it is up to each individual to decide what they prioritize, because it is entirely subjective.

Moral Progress

Pro’s case here is easily summed up within his first paragraph when he asserts that if there are no mind-independent moral facts and duties, then moral progress becomes meaningless. But this assertion is nothing more than an opinion. What is meaningful to each of us is ultimately up to each of us, it is as subjective as any claim could be.

This reveals the core problem with moral realism; it grounds itself not on the empirical testability of its claims, but on the personally held value that something must be objectively determinable in order to matter. That is not a case for why moral realism is true, it’s a case for why we would feel comforted to learn that it is.

As a moral anti-realist, I don’t need to appeal to some cosmic arbiter telling me someone is wrong in order to stand up for what I believe is right. If I walk into a room where a child is being raped, I will do everything in my power to stop the perpetrator. Not because I read it was wrong in a book, not because I was taught it to be wrong by my elders, but because my emotional experience plus logic makes my stance on it very clear to me. And it is because we as a society can come together and overwhelmingly agree on issues as basic as these that we can function together.

So to address some of Pro’s questions directly, like how do we determine slavery or the Holocaust to be objectively wrong… we don’t. We determine them to be morally wrong, which is categorically different. By asking how we evaluate these claims objectively Pro is presuming the position he’s supposed to be justifying in this debate. My position is that they’re not objectively determinable, and I would also argue that they don’t need to be for us to hold them as legitimate positions. But let’s not confuse things, the latter of that statement, while useful to recognize, is not my burden in this debate. Only the former, which I have shown.

Final thought

Throughout this round I have explained why moral judgments require subjective value premises. If Pro wishes to defend moral realism, he must explain what mind-independent moral facts actually are, where they exist, and how we could possibly detect or verify them.

What is morality?

Pro’s definition of validity does not add anything to this debate, it does not refute nor contradict anything I’ve argued, so there’s nothing to respond to there.

Regarding empirical testability, my opponent misunderstands what I’ve presented. I didn’t argue that objectivity is only determinable by performing empirical experiments, I argued that there must be some possible manifestation within reality for a claim to be reasonably categorized as objective. Or more simply put, if it has no possible manifestation outside of the mind then it cannot be independent of the mind. That’s not a definition, it’s a test.

The cups example illustrates this. Pro argues that my cups exercise fails to explain why 2+2=4, but that is not my burden. My argument is simply that it does, and the cups example demonstrates this. It doesn’t matter what one’s opinion on the outcome is, it will total 4 regardless. The cups weren’t necessary to prove this, but it can be demonstrated using cups. That’s the difference.

The laws of logic are another illustration of this point. These laws themselves do not exist in any meaningful sense, but they apply to everything that actually does exist, that’s why we rely on them. Show me a rock that is not a rock. Pro cannot, because the law of identity will always hold. Show me someone who is both pregnant and not pregnant. Pro cannot, because the law of non-contradiction will always hold. Reality will always align with these laws in demonstrable ways without any opinion or value being necessary. The same cannot be demonstrated with regards to any pronouncement of moral truth.

In the previous round Pro claimed that moral facts are axiomatic, and to support this case he compares morality without moral facts to reason without logic. This comparison does not hold. While morality is not possible without a moral standard (aka premises), those premises will always be subjectively chosen by the moral agent, negating any possibility of its conclusions being mind independent.

Reason on the other hand is not possible without logic because logic is the very tool we use to reason, and because any attempt to justify a different tool would force us to use logic in order to justify said tool. It’s inescapable, that’s why the laws of logic are axiomatic. They aren’t chosen the way moral standards are, they are unavoidable. The only thing axiomatic about morality is that it must begin with a set of standards, not what those standards are.

While making this case Pro also argued that moral facts are necessary for a functioning society, but a functioning society is a value, not a given. There are plenty of people who do not wish to partake in any organized society and in fact we’re the only species on earth who is even capable of it. Moreover, a functioning society doesn’t require the existence of objective moral facts, only the acceptance of them as the foundational standard. As long as society at large agrees on them, function is inevitable.

Epistemic Virtue and Normativity

Pro’s response here is entirely based on a strawman so is of no value to this debate. I never rejected the existence of epistemic facts, what I rejected is the claim that the existence of epistemic facts necessitates the existence of moral facts. Pro asserted this but did no work to show it, until he does we have to reason to accept it.

Moral Progress

My opponent asserts that under moral anti-realism I would have “zero right” to stop a rapist, but Pro has yet to establish where such rights would come from in the first place or how we could determine what those rights are, so this claim does not help us address any of the questions at hand in this debate.

Pro’s claim that “raping children is fine” is just as valid under moral anti-realism as its negation, is deeply misguided. Anti-realism is not the absence of morality, it simply means that the foundational values we use to determine whether a claim such as ‘raping children is fine’ is true, ultimately resides within us rather than outside of us. That’s the dispute, not whether we hold a child rapist at the same level of someone choosing vanilla ice cream over chocolate (which would be morally horrific, cause everyone knows chocolate is objectively better ; )

The child rape argument is an appeal to emotion. The logic presented can be accurately framed as; “I only value moral pronouncements as authoritative if they are objective, so since I value this moral pronouncement, it must be objective”. But we all know this isn’t how objectivity is determined.

Earlier I described morality as simply part of the logical structure where premises are asserted and from there, conclusions follow. Another illustration of how this works is the classic chess example. In chess, we wouldn’t even question that any move which corners your opponent into checkmate is a good move, some might even say objectively good. But that objectivity stems not from some mind independent existence, but from the asserted value of winning the game. It is only from this starting point that an objective evaluation of any move is determinable. Remove that value and the evaluation is purely subjective.

This is why the child rape analogy feels powerful, because it is difficult to imagine any other starting value from which it would be morally permissible. Any society that cares about its well being would certainly care about its youth. But the well being of a society again, isn’t a given. We care about it because it aids our survival, but not even valuing our survival is a given.

99.9% of all species throughout earth’s history are extinct, the ones that survived would of course exclude any species that didn’t value survival. So our overwhelming agreement here isn’t evidence of some truth beyond our minds, but rather as the byproduct of a reality in which survival wasn’t guaranteed to any of us, requiring us to fight for it, which we of course would not have done if we didn’t value it. Pro is using the result of that survival process as if it were evidence of objective truth, when it is better explained as the result of shared human values.

Summary

My opponent has still not shown that moral facts exist independently of the mind. I have made my position clear that an objective claim must either have some possible manifestation within reality, or be unavoidable (like logic), and moral claims meet neither condition because they always begin with value-based premises chosen by the moral agent. Meanwhile none of Pros arguments asserting morality to be mind independent hold.

The resolution is negated.

Well, looks like I scared Pro away with my awesome logic.

Extend all arguments.

Sorry to hear that, but it was fun while it lasted.