As far as I can see right now epistemological idealism is more or less airtight. Kant has done a solid job of making this clear. But metaphysical idealism being true is much less apparent. Check out Chalmers' paper Idealism and the Mind Body Problem for a thorough discussion of the variants of idealism, their merits, and the challenges they face.

Thanks for the discourse and the resources.

Wayfarer, thank you for correcting the author I cited. I made the appropriate edit.

I suppose the conversation collapses into an argument over scientific realism. Can any of you provide some sources to learn more about this debate? Also is it the case that the materialist/physicalist claim “All facts are grounded in physical facts” or “All that exists is the physical” is a scientific realist position?

I am interested in reconciling this discussion with the study of consciousness. For example Dennett has claimed an eliminative materialist model is correct “if materialism is true.” Does this committ to a scientific realist position?

It’s been an enjoyable conversation khaled and noble. I’m going to bed. I hope you both have a good night/day

Yes they likely will still believe in their god regardless of what argument you put forward.

In which case demonstrating that their form of morality doesn’t exist would be a matter of demonstrating that their god does not say one ought to do anything. Probably the popular route to take to achieve this would be to argue that their god doesn’t exist and therefore cannot say one ought to do anything. Would you agree with this?

Ah, but I don’t think a Christian would claim precisely the definition of morality you provided. I don’t think they typically believe that their morals are self evident to everyone. They may instead claim a definition like “A moral action is what my God says one ought to do”

But if someone claimed the operational definition of morality, you may be able to make them take a moral relativism position.

Or rather, that their morality doesn’t exist

Khaled I will say that if someone came to you claiming morality to mean exactly the definition you provided, you should have no trouble demonstrating they are wrong.

Khaled I don’t think that’s a useful notion of morality, as it is clearly false. Do you think that’s what other people mean when they use the word “morality”?

Then applying the operational definition of morality, “It is moral for an agent to perform an action if that action achieves a result desired by that agent” do we then have “There is no single action that achieves a result desirable by all agents”?

Khaled can I take that to mean “There is no action that is universally moral across all agents.”

Are either of you advocating any particular proposition?

I may have mixed up which of you was arguing which point, my apologies. Khaled I might agree that in describing morality in terms of the wants of an agent we lose some sense of what we intend with the word morality. Can you suggest a precise description of morality that avoids this problem?

And Noble Dust, are you attempting to identify an action that is universally moral across all agents?

Khaled, am I correct in gathering that you are taking some action to be moral for some agent to perform if it achieves a result desired by that particular agent? If so, could one action be moral for some agent to perform and immoral for another agent to perform, if the result that action achieves is desirable for the former agent and not desirable for the latter?