5. I am a secularist / atheist, but I don't know what "Teleonomical" means, or what you mean by it, so I can't answer your question.

But I sure hain't failed the Is/Ought Dilemma. I got a B- on it.

The theist, by contrast, faces no such obstacle because he grounds moral values in a concrete object, namely, God, and so is not committed to a realm of abstract objects.[6]

Who says god is a concrete object? The biggest, falsest, most mistaken premis I have ever read in an argument.

Nobody has ever seen, heard of, touched, smelled, or tasted god. It is a completely imaginary object, there is nothing concrete about it.

What a rube. Where did you get this argument from, @Sushi?

Thank you for the response and clarification :smile:
I guess teleonomical isn't a word, but rather I meant to say was teleonomic, which is the quality of apparent purposefulness and goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by the exercise, augmentation, and, improvement of reasoning.

the quality of apparent purposefulness and goal-directedness of structures and functions in living organisms brought about by the exercise, augmentation, and, improvement of reasoning. — Shushi

I am incredibly sorry, @Sushi, but I still don't get it. Purpose in an ant, for instance, or in a maple-tree, or in a mosquito-larva, is brought about in it by argumentation and improvement of reasoning?

Okay, I see "apparent". So the observer sees organisms' purpose if he argues enough about it. I see it now, thanks.

That's not my argument, but a quote from William Lane Craig, and this isn't a debate about God's existence, or a physical/metaphysical conception of God's nature, but rather this quote is referring to if God possibly exists in this hypothetical argument, then Dr. Craig's argument for morality being consistently objective with God is a strong valid belief and argument.

That's not my argument, — Shushi

But you do use that argument in your thesis. As a premis. I never said you created that argument. I said "where did you get that argument".

Using a false argument or claim in a premis completely invalidates any conclusion drawn later which is supported by the false claim or argument as a premis.

oh! and concrete usually refers to ontological objects or entities, which may or may not be physical. Just out of curiosity, what philosophical/epistemological views do you hold concerning the nature of reality, what is truth and what exists?

referring to if God possibly exists — Shushi

Concrete things exist. Hypthetical things don't necessarily exist. You are white-washing the false argument. Or else you don't understand the impact of the words it uses.

↪god must be atheist oh! and concrete usually refers to ontological objects or entities, which may or may not be physical. Just out of curiosity, what philosophical/epistemological views do you hold concerning the nature of reality, what is truth and what exists? — Shushi

I refuse to be buried under a conglomeration of philosobabble.

God is not concrete. The argument you used said god is concrete. If you want to argue that concrete is actually hypothetical, then I am not your opposing argument partner. I see no reason why that could be arguable.

In the sense that I didn't came up with it, but Dr. Craig did, and I'm jst giving him credit, but yeah it is an argumenrt that i'm using

I think that an atheist could argue for the existence of an Objective morality by attacking the following 2 assumptions:

A1: Prescriptive properties of Oughtness and Mustness exists separately from the evaluative properties of Goodness, Betterness, Worseness, and Badness.

A2: Morality should be understood as something more than just a vaguely defined sub-category of decision making.

I would argue that both assumptions are fundamentally false. Starting with the first assumption, many philosophers often argue that there is a difference between saying that an action is really good and saying that you have a duty to perform that action. Sometimes, they might even insist that there’s a difference between saying that an action is the best possible action to perform at a particular time and saying that you ought to perform that action at that time. In order to demonstrate why I don’t think there is such a distinction, I would like to create a new version of the English language that I call “English 2.0”. English 2.0 is exactly the same as the normal English language except it eliminates the use of words such as “ought”, “should”, “must”, “duty”, “obligation”, and “prohibition”. Phrases that use these words in normal English will be substituted with phrases that use evaluative language words. For example, the phrase “you ought not murder” translates to “murder is a pretty bad action to do” in English 2.0. It could also translate to “the action of murder is among the worst actions that one can perform at any given time”, “ murder is something which produces more harm than benefit” and many other similar statements. Similarly, we can translate the phrase “ you have a duty not to murder an innocent person” to “murdering an innocent person would be really bad” or “murdering an innocent person is so bad that it would be good for you to pretend as though the action is physically impossible for you to perform”. In my opinion, there is no reason to suppose that English 2.0 would be inferior in any way to normal English in the matters of discussing moral decision making. In fact, it would be superior because it would encourage people to make more precise statements which describe the goodness or badness of a particular action. Thus, it would be helpful for us to eliminate the use of words like “ought” and “duty” from the English language. It would also be helpful for us to think of moral actions as existing on a spectrum of supererogatory betterness and worseness. So, it might be argued that this would imply that morality is simply a branch of decision making and many people find that understanding of morality counterintuitive. This brings us to A2.

Most people assume that morality exists as highly disjunctive to the normal decision making of everyday life. A moral decision to avoid having an abortion is very different from a mundane decision to eat a salad for lunch instead of cake. I would argue that there are 2 important similarities between the 2 types of decisions:

1. Both decisions could impact our own well being.
2. Both decisions could impact the well being of others.

In the case of choosing not to have an abortion, this has the possibility of both positive and negative effects for the mother. The positive effects is that it allows the mother to avoid experiencing negative emotions that some people believe may come with choosing to abort. The negative effects is that the mother might have to endure the severe pain of pregnancy and there might be negative emotions associated with giving your child up for adoption. Of course, choosing to eat a salad also has potential positive and negative effects for the person. On one hand, it’s good for your health. On the other hand, it tastes worse than cake. Choosing to eat a salad also could impact the lives of others. It might make you more attractive to your romantic partner in the future which would lead to greater sexual satisfaction for your partner in the future. Obviously, abortion could also be bad for someone other than yourself. Usually, the fetus or the other family members of the fetus could be thought of as being victims of someone choosing to have an abortion. So, what makes us think that some decisions relate to morality while others don’t? Well, some decisions are more emotionally charged than others. Abortion is thought of as a moral decision simply because it makes some people upset and angry that someone might choose to have an abortion. So, does this imply that morality is not objective? Well, not really. On one hand, it is true that whether or not a decision making dilemma is a moral dilemma is subjective. On the other hand, the fact that there are objectively better and worse decision options that one may select suggests that the decision to murder someone or have an abortion falls on an objective spectrum of better and worse things that one can do at a particular time. Thus, it doesn’t matter what is considered moral decision making versus amoral decision making. What matters is that all decision dilemmas have better and worse solutions.

It might not be remiss to note that the idea of the "secular" appeared in a theological package. The introduction was not an argument against the morality established around different sets of professed beliefs. The register of the secular was a way to frame problems that did not fit the paradigms of congregations.

In works like the City of God by Augustine, the telos of the worldly and the godly converged and diverged in different ways. The resulting Ethics that became the shape of what was practiced was a combination or collision of influences, depending upon what expectation was being considered.

Now, some philosophers, such as Nietzsche, wanted to map the theological and the moral as historical moments that separated the development of various codes from each other so that we could see them as different results of some process. But even the philosopher of the future himself was careful not to publish an absolute divide between a worldview and a set of "facts."

I am not sure if the above applies to your thesis at all. It is only what I thought after reading it.

And it has been agreed for the most part, that moral experience with the appearance of objectivity (which are universally shared in a deep principled sense rather than apparently inconsistent shallow comparisons) is properly basic, in the evidentialist sense — Shushi

Agreed by whom? Reformed epistemologists like Alvin Plantinga? ("Properly basic belief" is Plantinga's term that makes sense only in a very specific externalist foundationalist ("proper functionalist") epistemology that he developed, and not widely used outside of his circle, as far as I know. Reformed epistemology derives its name from Reformed theology, aka Calvinism, which tells you just how niche this thing is.) Outside this narrow context, the landscape of epistemology and moral philosophy is much more diverse than you imply.

Personally, I might agree that some of our moral beliefs are basic in the foundationalist sense, in that they are infallible, or incorrigible. We do not require justification for holding them, nor can we reject them at will. But that, of course, pulls the rug from under your challenge, because such beliefs do not require a grounding: they are the grounding.

Not much disagreement with your analysis although let me clarify a few points.

Although I did use the term "propely basic", and that it is from this reformed epistemological context, specifically first coined by Alvin Plantinga, although I'm an Evidentialist, I have in recent years adopted many reformed epistemological principles and ideas and adopted some of them into my "proto" evidentialist paradigm, although I'm not sure whether I'm either of those two camps at this point. But nevertheless I should qualify that in what idea/belief that I consider to be axiomatc, as you've mentioned, I just label properly basic, which I intend to communicate to others that these ideas are no longer reducible, and are therefore just educated guesses / assumptions that may only change if new or different overriding experiential knowledge / beliefs / information such as perceptual data, or memories (like I remembered that I saw or experienced a specific phenomenon).

But yeah, in my most basically proper or axiomatically sense, I do experience the reality of objective moral value through my rational and empirical senses (although it makes sense to me that morality is an entirely rational reality in it's nature; that is to say through my moral experience that morality has a truth value quality [either right or wrong]). I'm not claiming however that morality is therefore objective at this point (which only comes to play once I ground it in an objective source, in other words God, a logos, the Good, a platonic form, an aspect of my biological nature, etc.). I do however believe that I experience the reality of objective moral values (which at this point, before I ground these values to an objective source, this is what I'll refer to as apparent experience of objective moral values), which I reasonably deduce that in principle all non-impared individuals will agree with me that all mankind experiences the reality of being endowed with moral worth and that it appears to be objective, where at the very least everyone can agree that child exploitation or the murder of innocent life for enjoyment will always appear to be wrong, no matter the context (which I don't mean in a deontological vs consequential sense, and realism, antiralism, nominalism, idealism, etc. are secondary discussions about the ontological nature of these values once they are grounded in a source)

I would argue that both assumptions are fundamentally false. Starting with the first assumption, many philosophers often argue that there is a difference between saying that an action is really good and saying that you have a duty to perform that action. — TheHedoMinimalist

I personally don't have much quandaries with your post or idea, but I just want to clarify that in this post, I'm just assuming that there is this distinction between Prescriptive properties and Evaluative properties (the thin/thick distinction), however after evaluating different philosophical camps and personal introspection, I don't necessarily hold onto this distinction as well, but in my case, opposite to you, I believe in only thin concepts such as Normative terms (terms that have the properties of being Objective Values/Good or Wrong) and Prescriptive terms (terms that have the properties of being Objective Duties/ Ought [to] or Ought [not to]), because Prescriptive Statements are a subset Normative Statements (which normative are technically a subset of evaluative) (which I agree with you that Normative statements are Evaluative, only in an opposite sense of instead only being thick, are only thin), because statements that just evaluate something, but don't tell you what to do, are normative but not prescriptive. However in terms of your first critique,you've seemed to bite the bullet and completely attempt to eliminate duty by adopting a new language (not necessarily grounding the truth of said belief ontologically) that fits with this teleonomical (only apparently purposeful) reality of atheism. You only critiqued Objective Moral Duties or Prescriptive Moral terms (Ought), but not necessarily Objective Moral Values (Value) or Normative Statements (the focus of teleonomical vs teleological relates to the is/ought, which in effect logically impacts fact/value as there not being any goal for nature or us means that there aren't duties for us, which the share biological natures that we share aren't values, but only facts, which would be disconnected with our moral experience which acknowledges values, and that they are objective and grounded in an approximately relationally source that is related to us, otherwise your assumptions don't seem self evident, but rather arbitrary although they are commendably consistent but I'd argue doesn't exist, but only seems to be theoritically true). Besides these points, as long as in the real world, as long as there has existed at least one single instance of a command from one personal agent to another, it seems to me that the reality of your view seems to crumble, and at best is an inapplicable theory to our reality.

What matters is that all decision dilemmas have better and worse solutions. — TheHedoMinimalist

About your second critique, I have already addressed it by stating that I personally believe that all thick statements are really thin, but are different from other thin propositions either because they are externally or indirectly related to what is instrinsic or a desired end, or there exists degrees of thiness or intrinsic value in a eudaimonic utilitarian/consequential sense (where deontological principles are non-exclusive to a maximal end as it is impossible for that end to be reached if the best principles aren't applied as only those will always lead to that maximal end), but this is all just speculative reasoning so far for me, and I'll have to figure out a proper way to parse this all out properly, but these are just my thoughts.

Btw, the term "solution" that you used seems to imply a goal rather than just an arbitrarily good option, I think that in your teleonomical world, the best that you can say about these ends that lead to a change that corrects a prior state, is instead good or bad options out of many with necessarily no need to choose in order for corrective purposes, as there aren't any ends that require a need to compel a corrective change in relation to another state of being that can be described as problematic, as the word "solution" implies a goal.

However in terms of your first critique,you've seemed to bite the bullet and completely attempt to eliminate duty by adopting a new language (not necessarily grounding the truth of said belief ontologically) that fits with this teleonomical (only apparently purposeful) reality of atheism. — Shushi

I got a question for you regarding whether or not you think I need to provide some kind of an ontological argument for my “duty eliminativism”. Isn’t it enough for me to argue that duties appear not to exist and are not necessary for discussing moral decision making? I understand that you most likely think that they are necessary but I just want to see if our disagreement is about the necessity of recognizing the concept of duty or is it simply about whether or not duties actually exist. I’m willing to grant that some people might perceive something that they think could be classified as a duty but I just never found that concept useful when discussing decision making. So, I just think it’s not worth talking about.

You only critiqued Objective Moral Duties or Prescriptive Moral terms (Ought), but not necessarily Objective Moral Values (Value) or Normative Statements (the focus of teleonomical vs teleological relates to the is/ought, which in effect logically impacts fact/value as there not being any goal for nature or us means that there aren't duties for us, which the share biological natures that we share aren't values, but only facts, which would be disconnected with our moral experience which acknowledges values, and that they are objective and grounded in an approximately relationally source that is related to us, otherwise your assumptions don't seem self evident, but rather arbitrary although they are commendably consistent but I'd argue doesn't exist, but only seems to be theoritically true). — Shushi

Ok, so I think I should also point out that I also don’t recognize the fact/value relationship as you do. I understand facts to be a series of linguistic choices which allow our private mental understanding of something to be transferred to another person in their mental understanding. For example, consider the fact that “The Earth is the 3rd planet from the sun”. The truthfulness of that fact is contingent on the linguistic choices that we make. For example, we have to define the term “planet” a certain way in order for this fact to be deemed true. If we define our moon and the asteroids between Earth and Venus as planets then it would not be true that the Earth is the 3rd planet from the Sun. This reveals that facts are actually reliant on linguistic choices. But, what determines what linguistic choices that people make? Well, people usually just make the linguistic choices that they were taught to make by their culture but there are some individuals who are linguistic renegades who choose to define a particular word differently than most people would define it. Usually, linguistic renegades are influenced by some moral or political belief. For example, you might have a feminist activist who argues that pornography “silences“ women. Well, she would be using the term “silences” in a pretty unconventional manner and thus creating a fact that is not recognized by most with a simple linguistic trick . Ultimately, the linguistic choices that people make seem to be influenced by their mental understanding of value and evaluation. This implies that the truthfulness of a fact is dependent on the betterness and worseness of the various linguistic choices of the terms contained in the expression of the fact. I believe that there are objectively better and worse ways to define a particular word and there’s probably an absolutely best way to define a word. But, there isn’t a “proper” way to define a word. So, you might be wondering, doesn’t my view suggest that values are subjective since people have different mental understanding of value? I would say that it doesn’t because it is entirely possible for objective betterness and worseness to exist even if most people do not even perceive it correctly. Also, I think meta-ethical subjectivism is somewhat of a self-defeating position in my ontology. This is because if I were to hypothetically believe that all mental understanding that a person has is perfectly accurate for the person who has it, then by the logic of this comprehensive “mental understanding” epistemological subjectivism, a person’s belief in meta-ethical subjectivism is only their mental understanding of meta-ethics and thus meta-ethical subjectivism is only true for people who have a mental understanding that morality is subjective. But, this would be contradictory and incoherent. This would imply that “mental understanding” subjectivism and meta-ethical subjectivism cannot both be true. So, going back to my main explanation... To bring my ontology of facts to statements that we normally associate with morality, take the phrase “murdering an innocent person would be a bad action even if it’s the only way to save multiple lives”. This statement is often thought of as being an opinion rather than a fact. But, what exactly is the difference between opinions and facts? Well, opinions are just more controversial and speculative facts. Just like facts, their goal is to merely transfer a mental understanding of something to another person through language. Describing the mental understanding that murder is a bad action even if it rescues people is quite difficult though. It’s possible that this mental understanding is simply a disgust towards the action without the actual perception that the action is bad. It’s possible that it’s influenced by the perception that the action eventually leads to unintended consequences and a slippery slope towards hell. My point is that there are a variety of “non-linguistic mental reasons” that someone might have for thinking that the action is bad. So, an evaluative statement is actually just an attempt of describing those non-linguistic reasons and thus it could be thought of as a kind of descriptive statement. To summarize my views, facts and opinions are both just methods of communicating mental understanding of various things including values. Objective Values are timeless, spaceless, and non-experienced entities that we often have some mental understanding of. But, that mental understanding could be completely inaccurate. So, you might be wondering, how could values exist as timeless, spaceless, and non-experienced entities? Well, I don’t think it is a safe assumption that everything that exists must have some sort of presence in a mental state or space and time. I don’t think we necessarily have to imagine some sort of a Platonic realm in which values have a presence. Rather, we could posit that the standard view that everything that exists must have a presence is false. Rather, some things exist as what I might call “properties of meta-reality”. Meta-reality is the reality of the existence of a hierarchy of better and worse descriptions of reality. Meta-reality could be described in terms of certain properties such as the objective evaluative properties of betterness and worseness of certain things. Though, I suppose we could also just posit a Platonic realm as well but I’m not sure if that’s more plausible.

Besides these points, as long as in the real world, as long as there has existed at least one single instance of a command from one personal agent to another, it seems to me that the reality of your view seems to crumble, and at best is an inapplicable theory to our reality. — Shushi

How would the existence of a command make my view crumble? If I command you to do something, does this necessary imply that I ought or must do what you say? Does it imply that I should disobey your command? It seems that the statement “I command you not to murder” could be translated to English 2.0 as “I would like persuade you not to murder and it would be better for you to get persuaded or else there will be consequences that have a greater value significance than the rewards of doing what I don’t want you to do”. It’s entirely possible that we use prescriptive language only because it’s sometimes a shorter way of saying things. This doesn’t imply that there’s an ontological reality behind the objective existence of prescriptive properties though.

I have already addressed it by stating that I personally believe that all thick statements are really thin, but are different from other thin propositions either because they are externally or indirectly related to what is instrinsic or a desired end — Shushi

I would say that there is a spectrum of better and worse intrinsic normative aims that one can pursue. I must also point out that I’m not denying the existence of end goals or pursuits. Rather, I’m denying that the existence of better and worse end goals to pursue implies the existence of properties of prescription. In some ways, I would actually just define properties of prescription as linguistic tools that allow us to explain convoluted statements in English 2.0 to simpler English statements that a normal person could understand better. It’s kinda how your biology teacher might describe a mitochondria as “the powerhouse of the cell”. A mitochondria is obviously not an actual house that holds power but simply a reification of something that is unfamiliar to our everyday lives to something that we can better understand.

And it has been agreed for the most part, that moral experience with the appearance of objectivity (which are universally shared in a deep principled sense rather than apparently inconsistent shallow comparisons) is properly basic, in the evidentialist sense, — Shushi

Do you have statistical data of philosophers who specialize in ethics to prove this claim? I didn't know that most moral realists were incline to moral realism because of moral experience. I thought that this just the case for moral intuitionists.

the best contenders of grounding a value, such as morality as objective has either been a nature of something (whether that being is designed with a teleology, or through a teleonomical (closed-system) impersonal determistic force {such as Neo-Darwinistic mechanisms} that shapes the nature of said being), or in an extrensic rather than intrinsic sense, that beings' nature is objectively valueable insofar as that value comes from the nature of a self necessary (eternal/infinite) personal mind/will that created and designed all aspects of reality including said beings. — Shushi

Why should a nature of any existent thing, even a thing that was metaphysically necessary, ground morality?

"This eliminates the euthyphro dilemma for said self necessary personal mind/will;"

I don't see how it does from the information given in the previous quote.

"because an impersonal source literally still makes human beings an accident by product,"

Why is morality considered to be an agent with a choice-making ability or a mindless thing that exists in a causal series?

"that share no relational value to that objective impersonal mind/will reference like the platonic Good (which really isn't a mind or will, is causally effete and therefore not the single source of all reality) which an impersonal mind is not causally effete,"

So if X is causally impotent, or not in a member of a causal series, then X is not morality?
I just don't see how you came to these criteria for what morality ought to be.
If X is just goodness itself, then why is it necessary for X to also be causally potent, have a will, or exist in a causal series? Perhaps you might respond and say that if X is causally impotent, then morality could not be grounded on X, but that would be because a thing does not ground itself- it is itself. So I don't understand why what something is must be grounded on some other thing for that something to be what it is. What exactly do you mean by grounding?

"it still would be undermineded by the euthyphro dilemma as objective moral values would be independent of it and it wouldn't be the single source of all reality"

Plato's Form of the Good is undermined by the Euthyphro dilemma because objective moral values are distinct from the Form of the Good? I have a hard time following the line of reasoning that you employ so can you explain what you mean?

"or else we are accidental by products with no relation nature with this impersonal mind and thus mankind has no moral worth which would be counter intuitive with our properly basic beliefs,"

It is not clear how it follows that if human origins are due to impersonal processes that humans are without "moral worth." Also, why does it matter if something is believed to be true, even if it is intuitive or commonsensical, in an inquiry about the truth regarding metaphysics? It seems like you jump from beliefs you have about X, to facts about X and I don't follow the reasoning that leads to that jump.

"and epistemologically would be impossible to non-arbitrarily determine what are these objective moral values properties that we share with this unknowable impersonal creator/source,"

So Plato's Form of the Good is flawed because human minds can't know what are the objective moral values that follow from the Form of the Good existing as it does? Suppose that moral knowledge is impossible, this doesn't mean that moral nihilism is true.

"and the dilemma of personal beings (us human beings) coming from impersonal causes raises insermountable objections and mysteries (in a monistic sense) that are equivocally similar to objections being raised about the possibility of a magic wand existing and creating from literal nothing something,"

I am trying to see what this has to do with moral ontology. I think that what you mean to say is that if physical reality is caused to exist by abstractions, then it must be the case that abstractions have causal power, but abstractions don't have causal power, so physical reality could not have been caused to exist by abstractions. If I have misinterpreted your argument, please let me know. The issue I have here is why do you seem to think that anyone would say that impersonal abstractions caused physical reality as a counter to whatever thesis you want to defend? I am certain that the impersonal things that naturalists defend, as the cause of humanity, are other physical things and not abstractions. Now, what do you mean with "coming from" exactly? I have used the word cause loosely, but to say that X is causally responsible for Y can mean different things. I am guessing a cause implies an event from the point you make that "personal beings... coming from impersonal causes raises... objections and mysteries... that are... similar to objections being raised about the possibility of a magic wand... creating from... nothing something" and so I can agree that abstract objects never initiate events, they are thought of as a-temporal after all, and can not bring about an event where some effect occurs. Under this understanding, I agree that abstract objections do not cause anything. I don't know if this allows you to conclude that abstract objects never are the cause of an effect; although I don't believe this, suppose that the "self-necessary" thing is an abstract object, and that all other contingent states of affairs continue to exist because of that thing, then there is dependency between these things and it can then be said that there is a causal relationship between these things. Here, the word cause does not suggest an event.

"creating illogical realities such as making 2+1=4, and other similar oddities; so to summarize an impersonal mind is not significantly any different from deterministic impersonal forces in this context."

Contingent states of affairs existing because of a metaphysically necessary abstract object does sound strange, but it should not be compared to logically contradictory statements. If this is false, it should not be because it is logically impossible.

"However, although a christian might object to whether the biological nature of a being from the by product of deterministic impersonal forces is truly objective or not,"

If something is the case, then why does it matter if one is a theist or not? Now, I don't see why it matters how the mind of the agent came about, if we are concerned about mind-independent reality.

"because in some senses it's not because evolution might change the nature and therefore the values as well,"

If we are concerned about mind-independent reality, then this is irrelevant. The very fact that reality is what it is, irrespective of my opinion, or the opinion of anyone else, is what you need to defend. I think that most philosophers do not think that reality is just what we think it is, or say it is, so you should be in good company.

"or in some senses it is as all beings share this nature that is beyond their subjective opinions even though that nature changes (because biological facts are external to us, and are therefoe not arbitrary unlike a ruling culture/sosiety/government imposing what is moral or personal preference), it still would affect us all."

So evolution could have resulted in creatures with different perceptions and perceptual abilities. I think that this is true, but I don't know of philosophical moral realists that want to argue that because we have so and so belief, by evolutionary origins, that so and so belief is a fact. Who is it that you are critiquing? Is it Sam Harris? I never read him, but I have heard before that he made a silly argument for moral realism that is fallacious for something similar.

"It seems that the theist and atheist can have a conceptually endless nuanced debate on whether there may be a secular source for objective values as exemplified between the debate of Dr. Erik Wielenberg and Dr. William Lane Craig, however Objective duties always seem to be neglected and where the Oughtness of following objective moral guidelines is grounded in."

I don't really read much moral philosophy, so forgive me if I am wrong here, but doesn't Kantian ethics defend objective moral duties without making appeals to anything divine? I mean, you can still think that Kant was wrong, but non-theistic objective moral duties aren't absent in moral philosophy.

"As anti climatic as it may seem, according to theists, the moral commands from an authoratative personal entity, especially if it's the source of all reality and designed everything including human beings,
constitutes as sufficient grounds for establishing not only an ontic source for morality, not only the grounding the objectivity of these values,"

I don't see how this is the case; can you explain it? If there is a thing that is the source of all reality, metaphysically necessary, creator of all physical reality, and capable of thought, why would this entail that this thing is related to Goodness or morality in any way?

"but also the oughtness to follow these imperatives because if there weren't these commands from an appropriate source (like the one that designed us all towards a specific nature, which in the case of christian theism, is the nature of the very self-nessary creator itself, or in other words being intentionally "designed" in the image of God),"

Let's say that God is related to goodness in some way, why should humans do as it commands? Because of this relationship with goodness that God has? If so, then the is-ought gap isn't overcome by that fact alone. I also don't see how you concluded that this command since it originates in an appropriate source, implies that we ought to follow the command. Also, what makes something an appropriate source and why?

"then nothing would compell us to follow these objective standards whether it's the nature of God or the evolutionary nature that we all share and affects our behavior to that specific nature."

Suppose a friend told you that smoking causes lung cancer, and from that fact alone, he thinks that no one should smoke, and you think to yourself, "that fact alone does not seem to explain why one should not smoke," and so you so reply to your friend with, "so what if smoking is hazardous to human health? Why should that mean that I should not smoke?" This is, hopefully, an intuitive example of what the is-ought gap is concerned with. Even if Goodness or Morality is identified with God, it still isn't clear why we ought to obey the commands of God. Just because God is Good? Or because he commands me while being an appropriate source? "So what?" is the question that hasn't been answered.

"Dr. William Lane Craig for example explains these criticisms of Platonic Atheism in these quotes,

"So the challenge for the atheist is really acute: he has to account for the objectivity not only of moral values but also of moral duties. Even if he postulates a Platonic Good, he has no adequate answer to the question why we ought to do what is good. By contrast, on theism we ought to do what is good because the Good itself has commanded us to do so."

Craig specializes in the philosophy of time, and I actually enjoyed reading his book on the history of the cosmological argument. However, Craig is mistaken if he thinks that naturalism and physicalism being true necessarily entail that objective moral duties do not exist and that atheists are at a loss as to how to defend their existence (given their other metaphysical commitments). I already mentioned Kant's ethics, and that should be enough to show that Craig is too quick in declaring victory here. If moral nihilism is implied by ontological naturalism or physicalism being true, then Craig has to make his case; furthermore, he needs to start identifying the flaws in non-theistic moral realism that philosophers have defended throughout the history of moral philosophy.

"The question then becomes, is a Divine Command Theory of ethics plausible? Here I want to refer you to my recent debate with Erik Wielenberg on “God and Morality: What Is the Best Account of Objective Moral Values and Duties?” In this debate, Wielenberg agrees that divine commands can be a source of objective moral duties (in effect, opposing Cosmic Sceptic), but he presses three objections to Divine Command Theory: (1) DCT arbitrarily singles out divine commands as the only possible source of moral obligation; (2) DCT implies that non-believers have no moral obligations, since many people are unaware of God’s commands and authority; and (3) DCT makes morally wrong acts inexplicable, since God inexplicably commands people to do what He knows they won’t do. These are more substantive objections than Cosmic Sceptic’s, which is based merely on a misunderstanding.

I actually don't find Wielenberg's criticisms very suggestive.

Objection one could be stronger if he stated that non-theistic moral realism is possible and since it is possible, DCT isn't the only possible moral realism and any claim that so and so is good because of God's commands are premature.

Objection two identified what Wielenberg thinks is a consequence of DCT being true, but that doesn't mean that DCT is false so it is useless as an objection.

Objection three is also useless since implicitly accepts that what God commands is obligatory; what it critiques, again, are the consequences that follow. If so many do not act in the way that was identified as moral or good, then this isn't a deficit on what was identified as moral or good, but news about the extent of poor behavior exhibited by humanity.

“Divine Command Theory?” Precisely because it grounds our moral duties in God’s commands! The genius of this theory is that it provides a plausible grounding, not just for moral values, but also for moral duties. Obligations arise as a result of imperatives issued by a competent authority. As the Good itself, God is supremely competent to issue moral commands to us, thereby constituting our moral duties."

It looks like Craig identified Goodness with God himself. There is a lot that can be said about that claim, but I will leave that for later. Right now I will just say that Craig's answer to the is-ought is a failure.

"Atheistic Moral Platonism, which posits an objective Good, all right, but lacks any basis for objective moral duties because the Good is an impersonal, abstract object."

Craig is wrong in his description of why Plato will not satisfy Hume's criticism; the real reason why Platonic Good does not gives moral duties is because Goodness existing does not imply an ought. It isn't because Platonic Forms are impersonal, abstract entities.

"On Atheistic Moral Platonism moral vices are just as real and objective as moral values, and there is nothing that obligates us to align our lives with one set of these abstract entities rather than the other. on theism we ought to do what is good because the Good itself has commanded us to do so"

Suppose that there is the Platonic form of Evil and the Platonic form of Good, Craig's point is that if the form of goodness could obligate, then so too could the form of evil, but then how can a human engage in the participation of the form of the Good over the form of evil without making his own arbitrary judgment and choosing one over the other? Craig should admit that the is-ought gap is satisfied! Simply because there is the Platonic form of Evil that does the same thing doesn't mean that the is-ought gap hasn't been bridged. Now, if Craig doesn't mean to extend the possibility that Platonism can guarantee moral duties with the statement, "and there is nothing that obligates us to align our lives with one set of these abstract entities rather than the other" then Craig is correct that Platonism fails to bridge the is-ought gap, but this isn't because of the possibility of the platonic form of evil. Instead, it is because something being the case, does not suggest that one ought to behave one way or the other.

"The objectivity of moral values cannot itself provide such a rationally compelling reason, since Dr. Wielenberg acknowledges that he has no rationally compelling arguments either for the objectivity of moral values or for moral Platonism.[5] He thus cannot overcome the presumption against Platonism and, hence, against Godless Normative Realism. The theist, by contrast, faces no such obstacle because he grounds moral values in a concrete object, namely, God, and so is not committed to a realm of abstract objects.[6]"

Craig is just asserting victory again. I agree that Platonism shouldn't answer Hume's concerns, but neither does the existence of a God that is identical to Goodness. If Craig defeated the secular moral theorists that defend moral realism in this debate, then I would like to read those arguments. I wonder how Craig critiques Kantian ethics.

"Second objection: Godless Normative Realism’s account of objective moral duties is seriously flawed. I’ll mention two problems. First, in the absence of a divine lawgiver, why think that we have any moral obligations or prohibitions?"

How does Craig think that this is a valid way of reasoning? This looks like the appeal to ignorance fallacy, but suppose that is just a question to get the reader to ask himself that question, then the question should be followed up with a hypothetical argument made by an atheist answering his question, giving the atheist the strongest case that can be made for his side, and then Craig can refute that. It looks like Craig is not too familiar with moral philosophy to answer his own question if he is being serious.

"On Dr. Wielenberg’s view, moral obligations are constituted by having decisive moral reasons for doing some action.[17] For example, if I’m trying to decide whether to steal someone’s pocketbook, I examine the moral value of alternative actions and see that I have decisive moral reasons for not stealing the pocketbook. Therefore I ought not to steal it."

Well, if I do something because of an obligation, then there is a reason or explanation for my action. So I can agree with Wielenberg here.

"Dr. Wielenberg’s view has the implausible implication that if you have decisive moral reasons for doing something, you are obligated to do it."

I wish you would have quoted the specifics that detail what it was that Wielenberg was defending. Maybe Craig is right, if Wielenberg confused a moral explanation of why one does X with a moral obligation to do X; however, it is still possible that the moral explanation and the moral obligation, for some moral act, are the same for someone; they don't have to be mutually exclusive. I guess I have to read the book to see what is going on.

"That is incompatible with morally supererogatory acts, like sacrificing one’s life for another, for even though such an act is supremely good, it is above and beyond the call of duty."

I can't comment on this without reading the book. I don't see why risking one own's life should serve as a special problem that any other moral act wouldn't if Wielenberg truly failed to bridge the is-ought gap.

"Moreover, Dr. Wielenberg’s view seems to imply that we are always obligated to do the best thing, whereas in some cases we are obligated at most to do a good thing, not the best thing."

Well, how is Craig determining that we ought to do the good thing over the best thing? In any case, if we ought to do a good thing instead of the best thing, and this is because of the success of some moral philosophy that established this as such, then the is-ought gap has been bridged and the process that allows one to make the choice for a good thing over the best thing is tangential to the topic.

"Even if it were morally better, for example, for you to become a doctor rather than an engineer, you’re not morally obligated to become a doctor, for both are good moral choices."

Why is it a moral choice to be a doctor or engineer? I can think of scenarios that make it seem as if these are good actions, but the act of being a doctor or engineer isn't the good act, it is what is done once one is a doctor or engineer. Suppose that one chooses to be a doctor to help those in poor health that lack the funds, or one becomes a civil engineer so that he can provide clean water to those who have no way of providing this for themselves, is the act of becoming a doctor or engineer good or is the subsequent acts good? Or is the intent, that motivated the pursuit for higher education, what makes it good to pursue either path? I guess I need to read the book to see what was the context of that part of the debate.

"In any case, having decisive moral reasons to do an act implies at most that if you want to act morally, then that is the act you ought to do. In other words, the obligation to do the act is only conditional, not unconditional."

Well, is Wielenberg's thesis really, if you want to behave morally, and you have objective moral obligations, then you will behave morally? Because then what is the point of defending objective moral obligation? You could say if you want to behave morally, then you will behave morally. Now, just because you want to do something, on top of having the obligation, doesn't seem to undermine Wielenberg's position, if he succeeded in bridging the is-ought gap. So I must read the book to see what really is going on.

"But a divine command provides an unconditional obligation to perform some act. A robust moral theory ought to provide a basis for unconditional moral obligations, which Wielenberg’s view does not."

Commands of any kind do not do this.

"The second problem is that Dr. Wielenberg’s view subverts the objectivity of moral duties by undermining freedom of the will. Dr. Wielenberg endorses what he calls “the causal closure of the physical.”[18] That implies that your mental states are causally effete. The mind has no effect on the body. The only causality is from physical brain states to mental states. Thus, mental states are causally impotent states which just float along, as it were, on brain states. They do and effect nothing. In that case, everything you think and do is causally determined by prior physical states.[19] You are an electro-chemical machine, and machines have no moral obligations to do anything."

Well, okay, if causal determinism is true, then libertarian free will is not possible, but is Wielenberg a determinist or is he a compatibilist? Perhaps Craig thinks this distinction is irrelevant because the possibility for moral behavior necessitates libertarian free will, but then he needs to make that argument! A libertarian free willer might agree, but compatibilists don't and Craig would make his case by arguing why compatibilism is flawed.

"Your body is not morally obligated to do anything. What about your self, your mind? On Dr. Wielenberg’s view the self is just a succession of discrete mental states; there is no enduring subject which persists from one moment to another.[20]"

That doesn't mean that moral behavior is impossible. Suppose that there is no persisting personal identity throughout time if I give to charity at t1, but at t2, some other person exists that that moment, then why is it false to say that at t1 there was a good act committed by that person? I can think of reasons that relate to the debate between presentists and eternalists, and temporal logic, but I can't see why the lack of a persisting personal identity would be one of them.

"Thus, there literally is no one who can be held morally accountable for prior acts. Moral praise and blame are impossible, since there is no enduring moral agent."

Moral praise or blame must take into account time.

"Your perception of yourself as a moral agent and your sense of moral duties and accountability are illusions of human consciousness. Thus, the objectivity of moral duties, along with moral agency and moral accountability, is undone by Godless Normative Realism."

Craig should have just argued that if physicalism is true, that the self is undermined, and then try to defend this position; Craig could then argue that if there are no persons, then there can be no good acts carried out by anyone. Time seems so irrelevant here.

As Robert Adams says, “If God is the Good itself, then the Good is not an abstract object but a concrete (though not a physical) individual” (Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999], p. 43). If one does want to be a Platonist, it is far more plausible to be a theist, since then putative abstract objects can be seen as either created by God or as ideas in God’s mind, thus giving us a unified view of reality. See the suggestion by C. Stephen Evans, God and Moral Obligation

What exactly does "Good" mean if the words "Good" and "God" are used as a referent for what a thing is? At best, we can say that these words are identical and refer to the same thing, but they don't tell us anything about God or Goodness as these words are as informative as the statement: X is Y, when X = Y, when used by Adams.

"Objectivity: The truth of a moral proposition is independent of the beliefs of any particular human being or human community."

Okay. I agree with this definition. If something is objectively the case, then it is not the case by opinion. So 4 is greater than 1 and this is true independent of anyone's opinion.

"Normativity: Moral considerations, as such, constitute reasons for acting."

So objective moral obligations? Okay, this seems like a definition that I can accept.

"Categoricity: Moral reasons are reasons for all human persons, regardless of what goals or desires they may have."

It sounds like objective moral obligations.

"Authority: Moral reasons are especially weighty reasons."

Well, moral acts that are due to some moral obligation probably find authority in the moral obligation. What do you mean by "weighty reasons?"

"Knowability: In normal circumstances, adult human beings have epistemic access to morally salient considerations."

So knowledge of the moral obligation?

"Unity: A human person can have a moral reason to act or to refrain from acting in ways that affect no one other than the agent who performs the act."

I don't see why this should be a criterion for having moral reasons. Explain?
What if I must act to stop a murderer from taking a life and I so in a way that affects the would-be murder's ability to commit his act?


"Other responses such as the Indefinables ones are ultimately meaningless as ought values are ultimately just turned into facts about deterministic behaviors and nature of beings who by principle can never act or behave outside of their nature, thus any reference of a positive value from a negative value or vice versa in the external world are ultimately just facts about where these naturalistic forces would cause the behaviors/desires of said entities to behave in a certain way, so they ultimately follow the path that their biological natures would have eventually led them to follow, nothing interrupting or helping that path, meaning that anything that will happen in an atheistic world will be the way it is intended to occur rather than supposed to occur including the naturalistic deterministic nature that guides people/entities."

I don't see why this is unless you mean that libertarian free will is a necessary condition for moral actions? If so, then you need to argue against compatibilism.

"Finally (arriving to the main question of this thread) this leaves a non-theistic position to appeal to a view that attempts to derive an Ought value from factual descriptions of actions and behaviors in relation to the relevant entity's nature involved where both nature and descriptive actions align with one another. Or, how Wikipedia describes,

Ethical naturalists contend that moral truths exist, and that their truth value relates to facts about physical reality. Many modern naturalistic philosophers see no impenetrable barrier in deriving "ought" from "is", believing it can be done whenever we analyze goal-directed behavior. They suggest that a statement of the form "In order for agent A to achieve goal B, A reasonably ought to do C" exhibits no category error and may be factually verified or refuted. "Oughts" exist, then, in light of the existence of goals. Few debate that one ought to run quickly if one's goal is to win a race. A tougher question may be whether one "morally ought" to want to win a race in the first place."

I don't see why an atheist is committed to ethical naturalism. Explain?

"Assuming "reasonably" is enough of a compelling force from a libertarian free agent in an athiestic world to follow (as in a deterministic world there wouldn't be anything reasonable about a determined entity acting upon the forces in which it was determined to follow), the issue is that in an atheistic worldview, the entire cosmos is not created, therefore there exists no purpose nor goal for any thing that exists to follow I.e. teleology, as this Wikipedia page demonstrates,
Teleology in biology is the use of the language of goal-directedness in accounts of evolutionary adaptation, which some biologists and philosophers of science find problematic. The term teleonomy has also been proposed. Before Darwin, organisms were seen as existing because God had designed and created them; their features such as eyes were taken by natural theology to have been made to enable them to carry out their functions, such as seeing. Evolutionary biologists often use similar teleological formulations that invoke purpose, but these imply natural selection rather than actual goals, whether conscious or not. Dissenting biologists and religious thinkers held that evolution itself was somehow goal-directed (orthogenesis), and in vitalist versions, driven by a purposeful life force. Since such views are now discredited, with evolution working by natural selection acting on inherited variation, the use of teleology in biology has attracted criticism, and attempts have been made to teach students to avoid teleological language.
(hey, at least this Wikipedia page isn't as biased as their Project Veritas page :joke: )

The issue here, to this argument mainly lies in the Teleology-Teleonomy distinction, where because although there are objective qualities about biology, in order for there to however be any value derived from these objective facts about biological behaviors, there needs to be unequivocally in some shape or form a goal or purpose for these facts or descriptions, but because an atheistic world ontologically committs one to claim and believe that "the quality of apparent purposefulness and goal-directedness" is ultimately behind everything in reality, therefore any value that is normative or has this oughtness quality about it, it is categorically impossible by definition and principle for there to be at the very least any objective moral duties and very unlikely for there to exist any grounds of objective moral values, besides from experience and self inferential introspection grounded in properly basic beliefs of a mysterious phenomena in the aether, which I already stated is nearly an impossible epistemological task to try to ground and validate."


So since atheists reject that things have final causes, that atheists are unable to bridge the is-ought gap? Well, I don't see what would follow. Explain?

"Although one may apply a Descartes existential like argument that makes appeal to a natural rights reference which sort of goes like this
I own my own body
I own what my body produces
I own the ideas that come out of it
I own what I produce with the sweat of my brow
I own the thoughts that I express
I own the property and wealth that I accumulate"

If there was really an atheist that listed all these as facts, to bridge the is-ought gap, then that atheist is engaging in a foolish endeavor.

"The argument here is basically that because you can think that you experience a desire (assuming that you're a libertarian free agent in this view) to be and remain in a specific state of being following said desire, that a self impossed right (which you may personally in an intrinsic fashion, prioritize to be at the top of your desires) is created which compells an obligation for that state of being to not be infringed, violated or overridden by any change in any fashion or form based on this self imposed personal thought."

This also seems to make the atheist needlessly foolish. If the atheist understands the definition of objective morality, then he would never try to make his case with how he feels about something- even if it was about how he feels about his autonomy.

"However, because these thoughts are only intrinsically self referential, although they make an appeal or reference to what one thinks about their own desires being rooted in a nature independent of said thoughts (although this nature is not teleological) (and I should differentiate proberly basic beliefs/axioms with indefeasible experiential beliefs like memory beliefs, or perceptual beliefs, which the experiential reality of objective moral values and duties may be an intrinsic defeater-defeater, that is to say, a belief which is so powerfully warranted that it overwhelms the potential defeaters brought against it. Also I should mention in a moral realist sense, morality has a truth value quality (either right or wrong) although it has an ontic grounding)
Before I move on, sense I'm discussing experiences, beliefs, etc. I think it's worth mentioning destinctions about mental states and properties of the mind
Beliefs - True / False as binary properties. Degree of certainy we have a right to a given proposition. (information that builds on abstract/analytical knowledge/ logic also seems to be empirical through the uncanny application and success of math relationally to external world)
Thoughts - Not true/False
Sensations - proximal stimulus phenomenological map–territory relation (information that builds on axiology/empirical knowledge)
Desires - experienced inclination towards/away something (somewhat axiological in nature through emotion being connected to aesthetic/evaluative value)
although a proper definition of Metaphysics may be worth providing, I should mention that I'm currently in the process of reexamining the distinctions between aesthetics, ethics, and metaphysics, here The Relation of Metaphysics to Aesthetics

nevertheless attempting to start from and to claim that this self-inferential introspection serves the basis for grounding objective values is self contradictory as an ultimate appeal that ultimately boils down to personal introspection or desire which is in its nature subjective (not saying that it's untrue) and evaluative rather than normative, and ultimately only a moral psychological/subjectivist or an amoral/error theory (if solipsism is chosen) of morality are logically attenable, which in a properly basic sense, an external source that is capable of endowing us with a teleological nature and a sense awareness of said nature, as well as this self referential experience/desires that are grounded in this nature that is ultimately grounded from a direct relational connection between said external source and personal nature logically speaking allows these theist to rationally ground their moral values objectively, and with the Moral Devine Command Theory, compels us to follow this nature."

Can you tell me what is the specific argument you have here? Anyone that wants to ground morality on something mind-independent will not try to say that introspection was the basis of morality. Now, this doesn't mean that reason, which occurs in the mind, can't be employed to discover the truth about morality and so reason can be used to discover objective morality. It wouldn't be the basis of morality, but someone like Kant isn't being self-contradictory for employing reason to determine what is morality.

"Although this is just a summary of my theory from some of my published works (and not very technical as that would take too long to formulate, besides the formalities are at times a distraction to the communication of core ideas in an informal setting), are the points that I raised concerning the secularist failied attempt in properly resolving the is ought dilemma due to the teleonomical nature of their arguments, are the points that I raised valid? What are your guys' views about any possible short comings or possible objections that may be raised against the points that I raised?"

I am interested in reading your published works. Can you link them?
I don't know what it is that you think atheists are committed to, in regards to moral realism, but I don't think the biggest problem for atheists is whether or not they can bridge the is-ought gap. The problem for any more theory, whether theistic or not, is if it can defend itself from criticism by contrary moral theories or by moral fictionalists and anyone else who rejects moral realism.