He's all about keeping science separated from state so as to maintain human freedom and liberty.

Anyone can make a logical proof about anything. The question is whether it is sound. The reason for objective law of mathematics being sound is the fact that we can demonstrate it. If you say 5+5=11, I can prove to you that you are wrong by showing you that your knowledge of math is not consistent with the objective math law that is independent of whether or not people think it is true. I know that math law is objective because it can be demonstrated. — SonJnana

Yet Descartes specifically argued that an evil demon could be tricking us into believing 2+2=4.

But just because something is intuitive or not doesn't make it true. If a kid doesn't intuitively understand math, that doesn't mean that there is no objective math law. If I intuitively think what I see in a magical illusion is real, that doesn't mean that what I intuitively may think the magician is doing is actually happening. — SonJnana

Do you understand what I mean when I say "intuitive"? I'm not meaning it like some warm fuzzy feeling or whatever, I'm meaning in the same way we "intuit" mathematical truths. When you're in math class and learning math, you are doing so through the operation of reason. Math isn't science.

It is a very hard think to do. I do not believe that you've shown it to be coherent or plausible to be honest, but I do respect that attempt that you've made thus far. It's made us both think more and that's the best part about this thread. — SonJnana

Yes, indeed. As I said, it is difficult to show that moral realism is true, given how morality must be if it is real. It is not as if I would be able to show something to be incoherent in moral anti-realism and thus affirm realism. The universe would seem to be indifferent whether there are objective morals or not.

What I am aiming to show is that there aren't any good reasons to deny objective morality. Now that doesn't show objective morality exists but it does show that it is not incoherent and is at least something we can plausibly believe in. And, I think perhaps both of us will agree, there being objective morality is superior than there being none. We ought to hope there is objective morality and be disappointed if there isn't.

Are you familiar with Paul Feyerabend? Sounds like you'd like some of his stuff.

No I wouldn't because I could demonstrate it with objects and it'd be true independent of whether they think it is an objective law or not. But I can't demonstrate that killing is objectively morally bad independent of whether people think it is true. That's the distinction. — SonJnana

Now you're begging the question, though. In what way is demonstrating a mathematical proof different than demonstrating a moral proof?

How even could I go on the offensive and back up my claims when I'm not making any? It's you making the claim and me seeing if it makes sense or not. — SonJnana

Yes, I am making claims and trying to convince you of them. If you disagree you will need to give reasons why you disagree, which is just simply going on the offensive. It's just you saying that there is something wrong with my argument which is preventing you from agreeing with it.

The fact that I think morality is intuitive makes it difficult to show that it is objective to anyone who does not recognize or is not willing to recognize these intuitions. I've tried to make it easier by drawing the similarity between morality and mathematics in that both are synthetic a priori and both are grasped through reason and not empirical observation.

It may be the case that we will never be able to show that morality is objective or subjective. But this is how it is with many metaphysical debates. Oftentimes all we can hope to show is the plausibility, or at least coherence, of a view. In my case, it is particularly difficult for me to argue against moral anti-realism if the other person is reluctant to agree that morality is synthetic a priori and grasped intuitively. The best I can hope to do is to draw an analogy and say that as a child failing to understand mathematics does not disprove mathematics as objective, a person who is unconvinced of the truth of a certain moral claim (such as that murder is wrong) does not show that this claim is false or could not possibly be true.

Ultimately, probably the best I can do is to show that there are no good reasons against moral realism. But then again, that's the case for many things anyway. I don't think I could deductively prove that moral realism is true. I think I can only show it to be coherent and plausible, and that the modern scientific view is not incompatible with it.

I don't have to explain why it can't be objective because I'm not even asserting that it's non-objective. I thought we cleared my position up a long time ago. You are the one asserting why it is objective and if you can't demonstrate that, then you haven't backed up your claim. — SonJnana

Look, I've already demonstrated to you that morality can come in the form of valid logical syllogisms, and that the premises are what are being doubted here. But I've also shown that mathematics also relies on certain premises. Both mathematics and morality are synthetic a priori. And I've argued that if we see mathematics as objective then, barring any good reasons to the opposite, we should also see morality as objective. It is a point in favor, I think, of morality being real that it has this affinity to logical reasoning. It is rational, and we can form cognitive beliefs about it. More importantly, we can disagree about things as well.

If you do not recognize the concepts right or wrong, good or bad, then there's nothing I can do to convince you. Just as you could never convince someone of the objectivity of mathematics if they failed to grasp mathematical principles. Morality is, as I see it, synthetic a priori and is intuitively grasped in the same way mathematics is. Surely you would not think that a child who does not understand mathematics shows that mathematics is entirely subjective?

So I have provided what I see to be a plausible theory of what morality is. As a response you have merely asserted that morality could be something else entirely. I cannot cover all my bases, I cannot knock down every alternative you present. You need to go on the offensive and explain to me what about my theory is false, or the discussion will end as I will have nothing else to say to convince you.

Even if it was intuitive, you still have to explain that there is an objective morality that exists outside of human thinking and that it's not a case of there being no objective morality but rather that humans evolved to be predisposed to want to believe that there is an objective morality and made it a human construct because the ones that didn't committed crimes and were killed by society. — SonJnana

The same could be said about mathematics. You keep going in circles, assuming mathematics is objective and empirical.

Just because you disagree with a moral evaluation, or don't see its pull, doesn't mean morality isn't objective. To say morality has to necessarily be recognized by a mind to be objective begs the question. You need to explain why morality cannot be objective, not just state you don't "see" it intuitively. Because clearly you do see some things that are good and bad, right and wrong, or you wouldn't even know what morality is (apart from some empty commands with no content - is this how you really take morality to be?)

Proof for the objectivity of morality comes from where? Conscience isn't good enough. 5 objects + 5 objects = 10 objects even before humans were around. That's because the math law is objective. However I can't distinguish whether it is objectively morally wrong to murder independently of human thought, or if humans evolved to believe that it is wrong to murder because it's useful. You have to demonstrate that. — SonJnana

Are you not familiar with moral proofs? Moral principles are cognitive and can be manipulated in logic. We can make proofs. The question is whether or not our principles are true, principles like how suffering is bad, and needless harming wrong. But the same is true of mathematics. Again, mathematics could be nominalistic in the same way morality could be subjective. But I'll say that if we see mathematics as real, objectively, then we should also see morality as real, objectively. For it's in the same category of thought. It is now up to the anti-realist to show why, despite the fact that both morality and mathematics are synthetic a priori, mathematics is objective while morality is not.

Why do you not doubt that numbers are real but doubt that suffering is bad? Is it not intuitive that suffering is bad in the same way it is intuitive that 2+3=5?

If you agree that a person who believes 5+5=11 saw 5 objects added to 5 more and ended up with 10 should re-evaluate their reasoning based off of that empirical evidence, you agree that the math knowledge we talk about is based off of an actual objective math law. And we know math laws are objective because we see them in reality. — SonJnana

No, once again, mathematics is synthetic a priori. We don't "see" numbers. We don't "see" math. Nowhere in the sense data are you going to find that. Just like nowhere in the sense data are you going to find good and bad, right and wrong. All of this is synthetic a priori. I've emphasized this many times now: mathematics as well as morality are in the realm of reason. Just by reflection can we come to know mathematical truths, and just by reflection can we come to know moral truths.

That's not to say we are always great at doing morality. For a few simple principles or concepts might be easy enough to acknowledge but the right course of action in a specific particular situation is hardly ever self-evident. Probably in many cases we do the wrong thing by sheer ignorance.

Do you think that beliefs change objective reality? Do you think that just because people believed that 5+5=11 (and not just redefined 11 to mean 10, but they actually believed 11), having 5 objects and then adding 5 would become 11? — SonJnana

No, I don't think beliefs change reality. But I don't think you quite understand that it's not obvious to me, based on what you've said, that mathematics is objectively part of the world. And it certainly is not obvious to me that we somehow "see" mathematics in the sense datum.

Just so I can understand your position even more clear... does your claim of objective morality rely on the assumption that there is teleology, perhaps a god? — SonJnana

No, I don't think so - at least not in the sense of there being a transcendent and all powerful being. Again, my position is that if we agree mathematics is indeed objective, then we also have reason to believe morality is objective, since both are synthetic a priori.

Math statements however are grounded in reality. It doesn't matter if hypothetically everyone thinks that 5+5=11. Regardless of what people think, when you have 5 objects and add 5 more, you objectively have 10 not 11. The people that think it is 11 are wrong. — SonJnana

How do you know this? Again, you're just asserting the objectivity of mathematics.

Where are you going to check these moral principles? Where are you getting this objective morality from? — SonJnana

In the same way you would check mathematical proofs. By thinking about them, a priori and synthetically.

Unless you are solipsistic (in which case I'd end the discussion right here and now), you'd probably agree that the universe is. And mathematics can be derived from is. — SonJnana

But what I've been saying all this time is that we don't derive mathematics from the sense datum we take in, at least not in a wholly passive way.

To argue for an objective ought, you'd have to assume that there is objective purpose behind the universe, and these balls of atoms that we label as humans have objective obligations. Do you believe in God? — SonJnana

See, now you're offering snippets of the metaphysical picture of reality you think is true. That objective morality requires teleology to the universe, perhaps a God, is part of your conception of what objective morality is. You need to actually explain this though because I'm not sure I follow.

You have to prove that there is that objective morality outside of what people think. — SonJnana

But we check statements like 5+5=11 by thinking. You're just assuming mathematics is objective, but it is the person themselves that has to think about mathematical principles to derive conclusions. "Checking" mathematical proofs is not empirically verifiable or anything like that, because mathematics is synthetic a priori.

So why not think of morality like this? Why not say, I can check to see if this law is morally acceptable, or if my actions are in line with moral principles? At its base, mathematics relies on certain axioms that must be taken to be true. Why can't morality be the same?

People can be socially conditioned to think many things, but just because they think that there is an objective morality and make statements about it, doesn't mean that there actually is one. — SonJnana

People can be socially conditioned to believe in an objective reality apart from consciousness, or God, or in the objectivity of mathematics, or the realism of scientific theories, or whatever. This is a possibility of error, yes. But it's still what you keep saying - a maybe, a perhaps. That's not very convincing.

How cryptic...

Or you can perceive those amounts — BlueBanana

How do we perceive amounts? Pretty sure we're given sense data and our mental faculties organize it. Do you think we perceive space and time?

Take two objects. Take three objects. See that there are five objects — BlueBanana

How do I know what two, three, and five objects are, though? I must already have numbers as an a priori concept before.

Basically, moral principles are a priori and can be manipulated into valid logical inferences, operating similarly to mathematical axioms. Many people agree on mathematical truths, and it might surprise you how many people actually agree on moral truths as well. That needlessly slaughtering infants is wrong is going to be generally accepted by most people. We grasp moral truths, moral principles, in a similar way to how we grasp mathematical truths and principles. And so whatever it is that makes mathematical truths actually objectively true is, as I see it here, going to be similar to what makes moral truths objectively true.

The point I'm making is that I don't see morality as too much different to mathematics, and I think you don't recognize that mathematics is a priori in this sense. Empirical senses provide content for mathematical forms, and empirical senses also provide content for the application of moral principles.

If moral principles seem to you weird or not reliable (because they came from evolution, say), we need only remember that the same thing can be said about mathematical principles. Our mathematical sense is just as much a product of evolution as our moral sense would be. Yet most of us think mathematical principles are in fact objective and not a cobweb of the mind.

Mathematical principle can be proven in reality. — SonJnana

How do we do this? I'm stressing that mathematics is synthetic a priori, not synthetic a posteriori. We don't do mathematical experiments, at least not in the sense of using experiments to show 2+3=5.

Conscience is not proof that it is objectively wrong to murder. — SonJnana

I'm not associated conscience with a good or bad feeling, like a hit of dopamine. I'm associating it with the feeling that what one did was right or wrong (with the good and bad feelings, of course).

You can't group objective morality in the same group. — SonJnana

You keep asserting this but I've denied this every time. I just see moral principles as on basically the same level as mathematical principles. Forget the whole "calling" thing, because it's not even that relevant (it's just a phenomenological description with no connection to whether it's actually objective).

"If your brain were to activate hormones that make you feel bad when you murder because that kind of process was useful for your ancestors to survive, that doesn't make it objectively true that it is morally wrong to murder." Conscience is not proof that it is objectively wrong to murder. — SonJnana

But is conscience just the feeling of good or bad, or does it have cognitive content (as I've said many time already)?

k

So because a fact complicates things, we should ignore it? — JustSomeGuy

It's not a fact, it's just a useless and sneaky way for a lot of people to escape having to justify their beliefs by pretending to be the "null position" and begging the question. That's bullshit.

First of all, who is "we"? — JustSomeGuy

Presumably anyone interested in knowing whether God exists or not.

Second, the fact that you apparently think it not only acceptable, but more reasonable to ignore certain details and intricacies of an issue in favour of simplifying it is surprising, being that we're on a philosophy forum and that attitude is very un-philosophical. — JustSomeGuy

Why? I just showed how it was useless and dumb to put agnostic and (a)theism together. It's incoherent and unhelpful.

And third, I'm not opposed to have a term to describe someone who is neither atheist nor theist, but agnostic already means something else entirely, so instead of stealing the words of others, how about creating a new word to serve this new purpose? — JustSomeGuy

Well like you said, words go through changes in definition. As of now agnostic is used primarily as a middle position between atheism and theism.

Just because your "conscience" tells you something is right or wrong doesn't mean that it is objectively morally right or wrong. If that were the case then if my friend conscience tells them to donate 50% of their money then that implies that it is objectively morally good to do that. But other peoples' conscience tells them to donate 25% maybe. You can't get to objectivity from conscience. That's nonsense. It could just be a psychological mechanism that our brains developed because those without empathy didn't pass on their genes and cooperation was promoted by evolution. You can't get an objective morality from that. If your brain were to activate hormones that make you feel bad when you murder because that kind of process was useful for your ancestors to survive, that doesn't make it objectively true that it is morally wrong to murder. Also, there may be people such as psychopaths who may not even have this conscience you speak of. — SonJnana

Just because people can be mistaken in moral beliefs or moral perceptions doesn't mean morality isn't objective. People disagree about things all the time. Doesn't change anything.

What is it about a priori intuition of moral truths that you find problematic? All I'm saying is the concepts "good" and "right" are similar in kind to the concepts "number" and the specific numbers themselves.

We can know 2+3=5 because we can take 2, add 3, and see that there are 5. — SonJnana

How do we "see" they are equal to 5, if not through an intuitive, a priori understanding of certain mathematical concepts? I don't just "see" 2+3=5 when I look at some scribbles on a page or see some things put into the same bunch as other things.

We can develop proofs for mathematics that are sound. But we cant say that it is objectively true harming others needlessly is objectively morally wrong. Show me the proof for that. I've already explained why conscience doesn't work for that. — SonJnana

Well, as I've said, if we are honest and clear-headed I think it should be clear what some of these moral principles are, which we can manipulate logically. And the fact is that we can create valid logical inferences with moral propositions. Honestly I don't see your resistance to this as any more than a prejudice, a prejudice I've been trying to get you to acknowledge.

The point is that agnostic atheism/theism complicates matters unnecessarily. We just want to know what you believe, not how "confidently" you believe in them or whatever. We just want to know: do you believe God exists, or not? It's very simple, you're either a theist, an atheist, or in between as an agnostic, and this is how it's used most commonly in the literature.

Agnosticism is just the position that we do not or cannot possess knowledge of something. — JustSomeGuy

No, agnosticism in philosophy is the lack of any belief on the matter. This is why agnostic atheism and agnostic theism are logically incoherent. Don't let the etymology trip you up here. Agnosticism is used not as a knowledge claim but as a middle-ground between positive beliefs.

From the SEP: "Nowadays, the term “agnostic” is often used (when the issue is God’s existence) to refer to those who follow the recommendation expressed in the conclusion of Huxley’s argument: an agnostic is a person who has entertained the proposition that there is a God but believes neither that it is true nor that it is false." Note that this is not denying the cognitive content of God talk but is denying any positive alignment with a view.

You originally said "Morality is given to us in the form of a command-from-afar, as something we ought to do." So tell me, why should I believe that there is this command coming? Explain to me where it is how you know there is a command, where is it coming from, and why should I believe that it is objective? I don't hear this command. — SonJnana

You don't "hear" the calling of the face of a victim? You don't "hear" the inner voice of your conscience telling you to do something? You don't see morality as a system of imperatives, something we must do based on something that is higher than our own empirical desires?

Again, this is just phenomenology. I'm not necessarily saying here that there actually is someone who calls or grounds these imperatives. It's just how morality manifests in our consciousness.

I don't need any framework. — SonJnana

You do need a framework if you're going to explain what it is about my explanation that you find wanting. Otherwise it's just you denying anything I say as "unconvincing" without any dialectic argument. I need to know what you think is wrong with my argument.

Someone who says one gumball plus two gumballs = three gumballs can be proven right because if you actually have one and add two, you end up with three. — SonJnana

And we know this a priori. What I was pointing out was that one and two and three could just be "mental" stuff that doesn't apply to the "real" world, if we're to be nominalists, and the same could be said about moral things as well. So if we deny morality is real on the grounds that it's just "mental" and not "real", what prevents us from doing this with mathematical claims as well? Why are numbers real but morals not?

So far all you've said to support this is that there is some command, but haven't explained how you know there is this command. — SonJnana

I already said we know of moral things like rightness and goodness through an a priori intuition in the same way we know mathematical things. Rightness and goodness are sui generis concepts and are importantly simple, not being able to be reduced to parts. By the same way we know 2+3=5 and that triangles have 180 degrees, we can know that gratuitous suffering is bad and inflicting needless harm onto others wrong.

Why should I believe that there is a command coming from anything? I lack a belief in that. — SonJnana

I am only saying that morality oftentimes takes the form of a command-from-afar. I'm providing a phenomenological description of our experience of morality.

I personally don't see things as objectively morally good or bad because I haven't been convinced so yet. — SonJnana

But why haven't you been convinced yet? What's the argument against what I've said? I want to know what the metaphysical framework you're coming from is.

Also, just because something feels intuitive doesn't make it true. I can intuitively think that what I see in a magic trick is true, but that doesn't mean it is true. — SonJnana

You misunderstand me. Essentially I am saying that if you deny objective morality than you ought to deny that mathematics is also objective. Consider how both operate through intuitive principles that can be applied through logical reasoning. Both can be rationally argued for - at least, we do believe that someone can be right or wrong about mathematics, so why cannot someone be right or wrong about morality?

A command from who? — SonJnana

I'm hesitant to answer this. I'm only describing what it's like. It's a command from the Other, whether that be God, a victim's face, or whatever.

It does require explanation because it's not intuitive and self-evident. If it was we wouldn't be having this conversation. You can't just say I'm right because it's obvious. You have to explain that. — SonJnana

Again I'm describing the experience of perceiving something as having moral content. Do you doubt that we do, in fact, see things as objectively right and wrong, good and bad, even if they aren't actually?

The point I'm making is that the perception that something is good or bad, right or wrong, is intuitive in the same way it is intuitive that a triangle has 180 degrees. It's synthetic a priori.

Sure, I'll give one. Morality is given to us in the form of a command-from-afar, as something we ought to do. It is not an expression of an emotion, although is certainly involves emotions in consequence. Perceiving something as having moral content is intuitive and self-evident, requiring no further explanation. Unless there is an opposing argument, such moral perception should be taken as similar to any other sort of perception.

But it's the burden of the agnostic to clarify why they are agnostic, so the moral realist can know what to focus on, no? Certainly agnosticism has to be motivated by something.

Now that we have clarified your current view, what is it about objective morality that makes you unsure if it exists?

Okay. Just to be clear, dictionary definitions are not always the best tool to go to for philosophical things. How atheism is defined colloquially is not how atheism is used in rigorous philosophy.

I am not asserting that morality is non-objective. — SonJnana

Okay, so you are agnostic on this and want people to convince you that objective morality is true?

An agnostic atheist doesn't assume God is not real. It lacks the belief in a god.

If you ask me if there is an even number of gumballs in a jar, just because I lack the belief doesn't mean I assume that it is not even and therefore odd. How could I say that it is even with out a reason to think so. How could I say it's not even (and therefore odd) if I don't have any reason to believe that either? I am unconvinced both ways.

Similarly if you can't convince me why morality is objective, I have no reason to believe it. It doesn't mean I believe morality is not objective either. — SonJnana

Agnostic atheism is an incoherent position that begs the question. Lacking belief in God does not mean you believe God does not exist just as lacking a belief in an even number of gumballs does not mean you believe there are an odd number of gumballs. Lacking a belief in objective morality does not mean you believe morality is subjective. I'm not seeing the issue here.

So, the claim that something isn't true is not the same as the claim that it is false. — JustSomeGuy

No, it's more like, the absence of evidence for A is not evidence of the absence of A. Saying something isn't true is equivalent to saying it is false. Saying someone has not provided sufficient reason for believing in A does not mean A is false.

The claim is that morality is objective. If I take the position of not believing that morality is either objective or non-objective, then the burden of proof lies on someone to demonstrate that it is objective. And in the absence of any argument for it that is convincing, I think it is unfair for me to say that any action is objectively wrong even if that feels uncomfortable to me.

I don't think I have to argue for my position because it is a lack of belief of objective morality. And one has to make an argument that something nonphysical exists, not the other way around. That would be like you telling me that there is an invisible unicorn in the room and telling me to prove that it isn't there. — SonJnana

Don't misconstrue this as the same thing as the equally-silly notion of an "agnostic atheist", where atheism is just assumed-to-be-true-unless-proven-wrong. That's precisely not how philosophy works. We don't just assume things are right or wrong. We don't assume anything, we start from the basics and work from there. And the basics are definitely not that physicalism is true, God does not exist, and morality isn't real.

The "invisible unicorn" schtick is frustrating because it shows you are not actually an agnostic here. You're a moral anti-realist. There's no "agnostic moral anti-realist" just as there is no "agnostic atheist". You can believe in the reality of x, deny it, or withdraw from commitment. You can't withdraw from commitment but still have your toe dipped in one camp. Well, I guess you can but it doesn't help the discussion at all, because we're concerned about the status of beliefs and not the status of how deeply you personally believe in something.

Notice how a lack of belief in something is not inherently asymmetrical. The agnostic lacks belief in both moral realism and anti-realism. You need to be uncommitted to both to be an agnostic. Whereas you are only lacking belief in realism, and have anti-realism as your fall-back position. Which is question-begging, as I said before.

So going back to the invisible unicorn: if you think the invisible unicorn does not exist, then you aren't agnostic about its existence. It's very, very simple and I get very frustrated when this sort of reasoning keeps cropping up. I blame it entirely on the new atheist charlatans. Sorry if this sounds like I'm attacking you personally, I just get really triggered by this.

I am just unconvinced that it is objective. I'm taking the position that if someone were to ask me "why is murder objectively morally wrong," I would say I don't know. I won't tell them that it is, but I also won't tell them that it isn't. So that is up to you argue for since I am not asserting that morality is objective or non-objective.

(My position from the original post has changed a little bit because I have found some holes in what I was originally, and I thank you all for that). — SonJnana

Okay, I did not know you had changed your views. So now you are agnostic on this, at least you claim to be. If you are agnostic then you aren't sure if morality is real or not. But remember that a failure to provide a convincing argument for A does not entail ~A, logically. It just means there hasn't been a good argument for A; in the absence of all evidence for A, we may feel compelled to adopt ~A, but ~A still has not been demonstrated itself. Something about A has to be proven to be contradictory or incorrect for ~A to be proven.

I have re-evaluated. In the absence of any argument that rationally demonstrates that there is an objective morality, let alone how that morality would judge actions, it is not being intellectually honest to say that any action is objectively good or bad. I'm open to objective morality, but still haven't seen a good argument for it. — SonJnana

This doesn't sound quite right, since it's question-begging. Why should morality, in the absence of any argument that demonstrates it to be objective, be seen as not-objective? Why shouldn't the opposite be the case? Why shouldn't you have to demonstrate the morality is not-objective? After all, morality certainly seems to appear to us as "objective", as a command-from-afar, an imperative, something we must do out of free will.

To put the "burden of proof" on the moral realist is question-begging because it only makes any sense at all if we already assume certain other metaphysical notions: notions that (if we are to discuss philosophy) need to be argued for (which would then just lead into an argument for moral anti-realism).

So you probably are assuming something along the lines of a "modern" naturalistic picture of the universe: the world operates (mechanically? statistically?) by certain "laws" that are discovered by science, and part of this includes the rejection of any sort of non-physical "stuff". Objective morals are seen as necessarily being non-physical, and thus we can assume they do not exist given the prevailing physicalist framework.

Okay. You may believe this is true. But you need to argue this to be true. For someone like myself is going to deny that physicalism is true, and a realist naturalist is going to deny that objective morals have to be non-physical. You can't just assume this naturalist framework is true, because not everyone agrees with it.

I agree right and wrong aren't the same think as like and dislike. My point is that we claim to say something is right or wrong based off of our preferences. If I like to live in a stable society, I may say murder is wrong. But when we say something is immoral, we're using the standard of our own personal moral code which is based off of our like and dislikes. Or maybe it's because it was socially conditioned and any other moral code is too uncomfortable. Or maybe it seems intuitive because of the person's genes. Or maybe the person themselves beleives something is objectively right or wrong. — SonJnana

The ambiguity here is with your claim that morality is "based" on our preferences. I'm not sure what this exactly means. You say right and wrong are different than like and dislike, so as to regard them as separate things. But you say we claim something is right or wrong based off of our preferences. Since you deny preferences (like and dislike) are identical to right and wrong, and want to argue for anti-realism, you're effectively left with error theory: we have concepts of right and wrong, but they never are instantiated because there are no such things as objective right and wrong moral truths.

You claim that if I want to live in a stable society, I may say murder is wrong. Thus it seems as though you see morality as something people use for their own benefit. But this makes it ambiguous, still, as thus statements like "murder is wrong" seems to be basically saying "do not murder because I want to live in stable society". Yet I will press you on this - is this really what we mean? Do we really think something is moral or immoral based on our contingent preferences? Because it seems obvious to me that the two statements are not equivalent in any sense. One is a moral imperative and the other is non-moral supplication.

The difference between non-cognitivism and error theory is basically that of truth-aptness. Non-cognitivists think moral claims are expressions, say, of emotions or preferences, which themselves cannot have any truth value. Liking chocolate is not a truth claim. Whereas error theorists claim that moral propositions are truth-apt: saying "murder is wrong" is literally saying that murder is something: it is wrong. What separates the error theorist from the moral realist (they are both cognitivist positions) is that the error theorist denies there is anything real about right or wrong (or good and bad, etc).

You have said that the moral realist must provide the demonstration, but you yourself have offered mostly "maybes": maybe morality is socially conditioned, maybe it's "because of someone's genes", maybe they're fooling themselves, etc. You'll need to provide more to convince someone.

So in conclusion there are two things I think you need to explain and clarify:

1.) the general metaphysical framework you are coming from (including what you think objective morals are/must be), and

2.) what the claim "morality is based on preferences" ultimately amounts to, because although I think you wish to present something along the lines of error theory, you nevertheless seem to also vacillate into non-cognitivism.

^ Also this.

According to Kant:
1. What can we know?
2. What ought we to do?
3. For what can we hope? — Mitchell

^ This.

Yes, they would die, because we'd kill them out of fear and hatred.

We can only say killing is wrong because we value a stable society, biological survival, or whatever you value. But the value is subjective. — SonJnana

But again, you're just asserting this. Why is value merely subjective?

I didn't say its not cognitive. — SonJnana

But you're implying that morality stems only from our "valuation" of things, and nothing more. Either you think morality is a sham (error theory), or you think it's an expression of some mental state (non-cognitivism), since those are basically the two major options for moral anti-realists.

To say "I value society" can be a true statement that represents a non-cognitive state, the state of my valuing society. From the non-cognitivist perspective, statements like "murder is wrong" is not really a proposition, it's more like "boo murder!" or "I dislike murder". The difficulty with this, of course, is that "right" and "wrong" seem to not obviously equate to "like" and "dislike". Whereas subjective preferences are one thing that we know frequently, rightness and goodness seem to be non-natural, indefinable things. Which is partially why I said I think the choice is between moral realism and error theory. Rightness and goodness just can't be reduced to subjective preferences. Either morality is a real thing or it's a "cobweb of the mind" (to use Kant's phrase).

Haha! Have you talked about this on the thread about Feser's arguments? I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say about his arguments.