You should probably ask them.

Objective morality if it exists is a set or moral oughts that exists independent of subjects (If all subjects were removed from the picture, the rules would still exist). Either it exists or it doesn't. If it doesnt, then moral antirealism/nihilism is true. If it does, then it must be binding or it is meaningless. If it exists and is binding, then some....thing must bind it to the subjects it applies to. The only possibility is 'God,' or an effective God (superintelligent moral supercomputer). If 'God' does not exist, then a binding objective morality doesn't either.

If you can justify a binding objective morality without 'God,' then your claim that atheism allows objective morality is true. If you can't, then if you are an atheist, you are a moral nihilist whether you admit it or not. The logic is sound and applies regardless of your worldview.

They lack belief in God so they must be atheists, right?

You don't seem to get the issue. Very few people believe that god is a source of morals, while simultaneously holding that god does not exist. Which is the position you are implicitly claiming that many people in this thread are holding.



At the end of the day, no matter how you try and twist and turn the argument to favor your claims, the best evidence we have of morals is that we observe them. Not fanciful theology, loaded rhetoric, cumbersome logical statements or dubious taxonomy.

I don't really care if naturalistic attempts to describe moral systems are all terrible. Let's assume every criticism of them raised ITT is valid. So what? There remains no compelling evidence to believe in a god, so that's out. I still feel inclined, as do most in our society, to reduce suffering and increase happiness and flourishing. I can still reason that policies like gay marriage help to accomplish this. And yes, it may be that the interconnected web of social behaviours I have feels about is local and transient and not some cosmic, ultimate morality grounded in a deity. But so what? Why should I care that it isn't? Does this diminish in any practical way the strength of my position on gay marriage?

FWIW you're confused. He introduced mathematical platonism only in order to suggest "moral platonism" as a realist position about morality by analogy.

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.

Nope.

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).

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.

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).

You're implying here that truth itself is subjective.





Well of course that is one of the major problems with Kantianism is that you cannot resolve conflicts of duty. But legitimately, how can something be right or wrong if it is not binding?

I'll even give you that Kantianism is true. So what? Why should I follow it? This goes for any other 'objective' moral theory you can think of. I'll grant every single one of them. If we're not ultimately bound to follow them, then they're meaningless.

Well then what's the point of holding it? "You can have any old goal you like, so long as you aren't being irrational!" Who's gonna make me? Objective morality existing would just be a descriptive fact about reality with no meaning at all if I'm not bound to follow it. It may as well not exist. Yet moral questions are certainly more powerful than this.

If you believe morality is real and we are actually bound in some way to do or not do certain things, then that is an argument for God.

It destroys the substance of any moral view you have, and makes your position hold as much water as any other subjective opinion.

That makes little sense. Morals literally translates to judgments for behavior, if you accept some way of finding / learning morals - the "bound by" pretty much follows.

You're not merely discussing the X in some arbitrary equation.

"Objective" really doesn't mean "binding" or "compulsory" or anything like that. That's another example of how I think you are misusing the terms "subjective" and "objective". The is/ought distinction is useful, but it's not the same thing.

I also think this idea that either moral precepts must have the force of a metaphysical absolute or else they are meaningless is wrong. Or, at the very least it's not a very useful way to understand meaning and value given the apparent lack of metaphysical absolutes like the ones you are looking for. You seem to be making the argument that "if metaphysically absolute moral truths exist, then God probably exists". Which is fine, I think that argument is valid. However, there is no reason to really believe that metaphysically absolute moral truths exist.

This is also what tame_deuces is trying to get at when he says that you're accusing atheists of holding a view of morality which depends implicitly on theism. The problem isn't really that atheists are being inconsistent, it's that you think any less absolute of a meta-ethics is "meaningless" but many atheists disagree, as would many moral philosophers I imagine.

One obvious way in which an ontologically deflated account of morality can still be binding: social enforcement of norms, laws, and values. Bill Haywood mentioned this earlier, in describing how we encounter such norms and values as "objective" at least in the sense that they exist before us and we are socialized into them very much as something real and external to ourselves. I would argue that in reality this is as much compulsion as we really need. Morality is inherently social, and although we can analyze "oughts" in a purely individualistic way in reality that is never the way we encounter them in the world.

I thought I mentioned something similar about 4-5 pages ago:

Again, so what? OK, all of our human moral utterances aren't grounded in some ultimate cosmic deity bequeathed morality. How does this affect me? I can still provided detailed arguments that gay marriage helps to increase human happiness and success, values that society overwhelmingly accepts.

And I can argue that going against what society accepts is what's really right. Neither one of us are right or wrong unless objective morality exists. If it doesnt exist then moral ought claims are void of substance. This has been addressed before.

If no one is ultimately held accountable for following or not following moral rules, then it doesn't matter if they exist or not. They may as well not exist.

I want you to go a step further, though. I see no reason to believe the universe has the kind of deistic imparting of ultimate morality you wish for. OK. So what then? Curl up and die?

I'm interested in helping to structure society in a way that increases human happiness and success, where we share values and debate how to optimally advance those values. Maybe you don't want to call this morality. Let's call it ukulity - ukulety - ukulele. Ya, let's call that thing ukulele. You and I could have an entire debate on ukulele, such as whether we should advocate for gay marriage or not. Now that a lot of people get to live more fullfilling lives on the metrics they value, why should I care that ukulele doesn't have ultimate cosmic importance?

Find your own meaning in pushing up that rock, Sisyphus. Learn to love your burden.

That and Victor Frankl has always seemed to me to be a desperate attempt to protect against existential despair; one without much merit I might add.

I suppose the other alternative is to completely embrace selfishness and hedonism (altruism that gives you happy feelings would fall under this as well).

Why should you care is precisely my question.

This is SO me.

Maybe you missed the full extent of what Camus was saying.

You will be rolling that boulder up hill for all eternity. His view was not limited to just this particular subjective experience/life. Sisyphus was sentenced to roll the boulder up hill forever. Die. Live again. Roll it back up again. And so on. In this broader context, morality loses importance almost entirely.

There ya go. So why are people arguing whether 2+2 equals five or six?

You think hedonism is implied by atheism or naturalism?

Yes, pretty much.

For it to be inconsistent, the implication in the given criticism is the atheist in question must accept that morals come from God. That's a criticism that makes little sense.

It would be different if DoOrDoNot merely said these positions were wrong. Then the implication would merely be that DoOrDoNot holds that morals can only come from God. I'd say that it is a tougher position to argue than DoOrDoNot pretends, but at least we'd have a discussion and not an accusation.

Then you've reduced the question of right or wrong down to reward and punishment. Which really makes the entire question of morals rather redundant, and we should be speaking of laws instead.

I mentioned nothing about reward and punishment. Accountability is the key factor here. I don't even think you can talk about objective moral oughts intelligibly absent the concept of moral accountability. The two are inseparable.