Kingsley Victor

say stealing or murder. The wrongness of such acts does not have any physically testable component; thus, if the moral facts prohibiting them are real, they must constitute or possess a queer or non-natural/immaterial nature. But the objectivity of moral facts is 2/

The realness of gravity, the constituents of protons, the components of neural circuitry, and a host of other materially anchored stuff can be exhausted by science and by experience by virtue of their material nature. The same cannot be said of the wrongness of 1/

You seemed to be arguing that moral disagreement isn't evidence that moral truths require an external ground to be real. This is an entirely different argument. You're saying it is not evidence that it must be a conscious being. Well, yes, by itself, it does not 1/

aims to protect. The necessity of a God is a different argument altogether. If objective facts are real, they must possess a queer or supernatural nature, and to secure their power to motivate human behaviour, a rational being must oversee them. 2/2

Lol. Objective moral truths must exist independently of consensus. Consensus is just in-group agreement. It is possible for a consensus to correctly track an objective fact, but the fact itself must exist independently of consensus to genuinely secure what the consensus 1/

If human consensus isn't a reliable measure of moral truth, then it follows simpliciter that for morality to be truth-apt or non-negotiable, an authority external to humanity must ground it. What's so hard to understand here?

*sigh* Nowhere did I claim that it establishes the existence of objective moral facts. Why do you keep strawmanning me?

@grok Please explain this to him. I'm tired already.

*sigh* Disagreement and changing social mores DEMONSTRATE the need for objective moral authority. It does not demonstrate the existence of one. For any moral claim to be truly non-negotiable or even truth-apt, an objective anchor is necessary,

anything is subjective, or a mere opinion. Reality, and even the moral landscape, would be identical to whatever is within God's will and intellect. 2/2

Lol. Are you serious? Moral disagreement demonstrates the necessity, or need for objective moral authority; it merely does not demonstrate the existence of one. If God exists and relates to the world as its foundation, then there is no sense in which God's view about 1/

It is self-evident that objective morality would require an external authority. The variance in human judgment, and the transience of communal morality already demonstrate that. Our common interests could diverge, and the moral behaviour securing them with them.

of moral progress without a non-negotiable objective anchor. 2/2

Still missing the point. Two groups could agree on the consequences of murder, but still apply the moral requirement not to murder to the in-group alone. If they think it is a fair assessment of moral progress, why should they concern themselves with out-group meaning 1/

My argument is that objective morality requires out-of-the-subject anchors. Human understanding differ across those principles. Moreover, we have to assume that those things have some objective value before proceeding with judgment.

If humans do not even share the same sense of moral progress, how then do you judge which group has it right without objective moral facts?

You missed the point. The argument is whether, without objective moral facts, there can be a realistic grading of moral behaviours in one group against another, not whether the beliefs of each group are true.

Well, yes, but the point is whether we can meaningfully grade the progress that ensues as a result of specific moral behaviours without objectivity. If it can be reduced to an in-group meaning of progress, what would be a sound basis for moral judgment between the groups?

It makes sense insofar as there are shared criteria, or we need to foster cooperation. It is not necessarily truth-apt. Do you agree that holding shared religious beliefs fosters cooperation and enables flourishing in a sense meaningful to the participants?

Cool. The essence of my tweet is that new atheists argue that the absence of the necessity of religion in determining moral behaviour is as if it answers the need for a supernatural ground for moral facts.