The Moral argument vs. Moral Realism

 The poster "Royce" on CARM is an arrogant know all who first showed up a year ago calling himself "somnambulant Joyce." He announced that his purpose there was to take me down, and began a barrage of insults toward me. He returned a few months as "Royce" and began defending moral realism. Specifically he argues that moral properies are real and emprical, they can be proved by science to prove that he has an argument about how these properties are supervened upon physical properities. The apologetic issue is that it supposedly beats the moral agument for God and proves we don't need religion to be moral. My argument is that he has no empirical evidence he's just labeling certain behaviors and he no basis in the claim they are the empirical. He has no proof of  anything behind the label.


 Meta:
that is exactly why we can't call moral stuff properties. the redness is a physical accept that is empirical. it can be seen and objectively agreed to. it's not really there as redness as such but it's an appearance. you don't even have that much as a moral property.

Now the great one (Royce) is angry. His expertise is being challenged. so he has to like I'm moron and make like he assumes I've never read a book. Although it's obvious I have read more than he has becuase I name books he's never heard of. He doesn't thin of that because it's not about him. Royce knows how to find the truth. you read phil papers and quote percentages of philosophers who think X. that is truth.


Royce:

False. It's like you don't know what a "non-natural property" or what a "non-physical property" is.

Meta: duh really? maybe more like they are not anything but an idea. since they are just ideas they don't really have any empirical force. We were promised empirical truth. you said it's obvious it's so bleeding obvious only idiot like me would jot fall down and worship moral realism right off the bat.
now, unable to come through on the empirical end he get angry and starts pretending like I've done something wrong. What I did wrong was to call him on his BS.



Royce:

Open a book, already! Pointing out that something is non-physical has no bearing on whether it's a property. 

 Meta:

yes it does. properties are eitehr physical or ideas. if they are ideas they are not objecive you promised objective morality. you said moral realism is so obvious it's proved by scinece it's real and the majority of people who read phil papers agree.


it come out if one realizes that you only good on one of those then you get angry and started talking like he's the worlds biggest idiot but who are covering for. you own idiocy because you support ideas that can't be proved.

it is a basic canon of atheism. it's a basic reason for not believing in god, to not accept anything that can't be proved empirically. they say it over and over again. I can show you tons of atheists saying that. here you are not proving this empirically and still arguing for it and getting angry when you are caught.



Royce:

Plato and Moore must be rolling in their graves! Furthermore, pointing out that something can be seen or agreed upon or is empirical, has no bearing on whether it's a property. You're again confusing epistemology with metaphysics. "Empirical" is an epistemic notion regarding how one comes to know something. That's distinct from the metaphysical question of what a thing is. 

Meta:

BS both of them are ashamed of your mountebank BS.

You can't get away with this bait switch crap. are you a materialist or not? If you are an atheist and you not a materialist (which is Possible i know) you are in a tiny ministry what do that do to your phil papers philosophy of truth? HU? what percentage of philosphers on phil papers accept non materialist atheism?

you can't make good on your calims you have no proof. way back you first came here as somnambuilist you said moral philosophy was objective it can proved by science. now you are couching it in terms of non empirical metaphysics.

cop out! COP OUT!


Royce:

To give you a thought experiment on this: suppose all of us were blind and we never saw or contacted particular organisms that instantiated the property "cat". Does that have any bearing on whether the term "cat" refers to a property or whether that property exists? No. You're knowing cats are there, seeing them, discovering them empirically, etc. has no bearing on whether they are there or whether they instantiate the property in question. Furthermore, take another case where, for whatever reason, only one human has the perceptual faculties for noticing a particular similarity between particular objects (ex: women who can see a bit of the UV spectrum), and they develop a term "V" for referring to this similarity. Unfortunately, they can't get other people to agree that this similarity is there, let alone notice it. Does this have any bearing on whether that feature (i.e. property) is there, or whether V refers to that property? No.

Meta:
that is not analogous. you are now in a position to switch over to metaphysics and non empirical ideas. any moral philosophy could do as well under those conditions.

you have no advantage over belief in God since you retreated from all the distinctive atheist fortress of facts stuff and trying to hind in God's country.