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Originally Posted by DoOrDoNot
I really dont know how else to say it. I've said it as many different ways as I can manage in an attempt to get it through to You, and you continue to make the same mistake. The above is an 'is' statement. What you are doing is describing a fact about reality. It's the same as 'some people get their moral rules from society' or 'some people get moral rules from science or philosophy.' No one is arguing this. I agree with you. Yet you cannot get from a description of how reality is to a position about what we ought to do. You cannot get an ought from an is. I don't know if this is what you are attempting here, but I can't think of any other reason you continue to state facts about reality than you think that position is justified.
Then you need to think harder. I
am describing a fact about reality. I'm describing a fact about atheists and their description of their own beliefs. That is a relevant fact in rebutting your claim that moral platonism is difficult to reconcile with atheists' self-ascribed definition. In other words, you are making an implicit claim about atheists' self-ascribed definition, and I'm saying that claim is false, and giving a reason why. That reason can be a descriptive claim (an is-claim) about atheists self-description that contradicts your own is-claims about atheists' self-description. Once again, nothing to do with is-ought problems.
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Switching the terms again. Your argument was for mathematical platonism. Now it's moral platonism.
Nope.
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No that's not my argument.
True. It is
my argument proving your assertion (1) is false. If you think it is unsound, either show it is invalid or the false premise(s).
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Then you don't believe
1. Objective moral values exist or
2. You can know anything about them and so for all practical purposes they may as well not exist. (A world with no objective moral values is logically equivalent to a world in which nothing can be known (justified true belief) about objective moral values that do exist, from a practical point of view)
You are a moral nihilist.
1) Are you familiar with Kantian moral theories? Are you aware that they also give no justification (or at least no essential one) for why you should have one goal rather than another? According to Kant, immorality is the result of irrational willing, not of having the wrong goals. You can have almost any goal you want as long as you don't act irrationally (i.e. immorally) in achieving it. Would you thus contend that Kantians are also moral nihilists?
2) I've also been explicit in stating that I don't think that morality (objective or not) requires justifying having one goal rather than another. That is your own unargued for assumption.
3) I guess Christians who believe on faith in an objective moral order are also moral nihilists. As I pointed out earlier, moral skepticism arguments apply to all moral theories, not just naturalistic ones.
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Now you're backpedaling. You explicitly stated that your theory was one possible example of an objective morality that may exist and could be justified without appealing to God.
No, I'm not backpedaling. I'm trying to have discussion about the nature of morality. You have a particular conception of morality under which the moral theory I put forward probably doesn't count as a moral theory. I've put on hold any discussion of the meaning of "morality" by agreeing to not assert that my "moral" theory is a moral theory. The reason I'm doing this is because the theory I put forward doesn't fall afoul of the criteria for a moral theory you put forward: it is both objective and non-relative. So you'll have to come up with a different reason why it doesn't actually count as a moral theory (this is why well_named suggested that you're actually bothered by its lack of absolute metaphysical grounding).
Last edited by Original Position; 03-20-2018 at 11:44 AM.
Reason: clarity