There are no moral facts

[Immanuel Can]

it's still a moral opinion which I can explain rationally - and that explanation may persuade others.

What "explanation" is that? You haven't explained why anybody else should be "persuaded" by it...you've just gratuitously claimed they might.

Two things here: what is my explanation for why I morally condemn slavery?; why should anyone be persuaded by my explanation? The first I can't be bothered to set out here.

But you just said you "can explain rationally." And you even think that the explanation you have not given "may persuade," you say. And then you refuse to provide anything. Are we to believe that you "can" do what you simply refuse to do?

And why would you refuse to do something you insist is so easy for you to do. If you "can" do it, why not do it? "Can't be bothered" doesn't really justify avoiding the question.

You can't demonstrate moral objectivity,

I can't demonstrate it on your metaphysical presuppositions, it's true.

We value things. We say we 'have' values. So are values real things that exist somehow, somewhere? Do they have 'substance'?

Not simply because we "value" them. But we may "value" a thing that exists or "has substance", or a thing that does not exist or have any "substance". So the question is begged here: which one are we dealing with, in each case?

And can a materialist, naturalist or physicalist talk coherently about values?

No. Not "coherently." They can talk gratuitously about them, but not in such a way that they "cohere" with Materialism, Naturalism or Physicalism.

Does a materialist have to deny they exist?

To be consistent with his Materialism, yes he does.

Can't a physicalist experience and talk about beauty?

Beauty is aesthetic, not moral. That would be a category error. Maybe I'll just assume you misspoke, and let that one go.

Can't a naturalist be honest?

He can if it suits him. But given Naturalism, there is absolutely no reason he has to be. That's the point.

What and where are abstract things, and in what way do they exist?

You mean things like, love, courage, honour, friendship, decency, and so on? Or do you mean things like selves, identities, persons, perspectives, opinions, logic, mathematical values, hypotheticals, persuasion, and so on?

There are many things we all have to believe in in order to operate meaningfully in the world, which no one of us has ever been able to describe by way of materials or physical entities.

You would have to be willing to consider the possibility that your metaphysical presuppositions (whether Materialism, or Atheism, or Gradualism, or whatever you profess to take as first principles) could be wrong; and then I could show you why objective morality is rational, given different metaphysical presuppositions.

But can such a thing be demonstrated without addressing such presuppositions? No. For just as I cannot prove to you that Burkina Faso is a real country, and you could deny it endlessly, so long as you had never been there yourself, we are at a stalemate on that.

But the fault is in the presuppositions, not in objective morality per se. Like Burkina Faso, if it exists, it exists.

The existence of Burkina Faso can easily be demonstrated - empirically. There are facts - true factual assertions - about it. And any factual assertion about it can be falsified.

I can make tons of arguments why I think Burkina Faso exists. But I have not yet been there, and neither have you, I'm guessing. So no argument is sufficient to disarm you, if you set yourself to deny Burkina Faso exists. You can deny anything I, or even anything "experts" or "the internet" can provide. And even if I dragged you to Burkina Faso, you could claim you were only having an LSD trip, and the things you were seeing weren't really there.

There are no ways to persuade somebody who has decided not to see anything.

Now, do the same for moral rightness and wrongness. I agree that your believing they exist doesn't mean they exist. So - show us they exist.

As I say, there's no way to "show" somebody if they don't want to be shown. So tell me what you would accept as evidence, and I'll see if I can provide it.

But if you can't, then the problem would not be with me. It's would be with the fact that there simply is no standard of evidence you will accept.

Let's tackle it this way: I presume you believe in some of the things I listed above (love, courage, honour, friendship...or selves, identity, reason, mathematical symbols....and so on). What test do you suggest would confirm the real existence of such things for yourself?

[Gary Childress]

Take a f cking hint you moron. Look up the meaning of amoral and immoral.
|Now f ck off back under your rock.

b: being neither moral nor immoral
specifically : lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply
Science as such is completely amoral.

You are on your own.

I understand the meanings of moral and amoral, moron. That's why I am grilling you over the incompatible conclusions.

P1. Natural selection is amoral.
P2. The holocaust is natural selection
Sound&valid conclusion: The holocaust is AMORAL.
Sculptor's conclusion: The holocaust is IMMORAL

For somebody who keeps whining that other people don't address your points, you sure are avoiding my point like the plague.
Is your religion at risk of collapsing in on itself or something?

I would say premise #2 sounds likely to be true, that technically every holocaust is (I suppose) an example of "natural selection” in some shape or form. However, I would say that when humans are involved in "natural selection" then what we call "morality" can enter the picture, unlike what is (perhaps) the case with other creatures or inanimate objects. And some cases of natural selection (such as human-made holocausts against other humans) are immoral (or in this case; not the case amoral = ~A).

I don't think that would be a case of "special pleading" any more than it is "special pleading" to say that there is a difference between accidentally killing someone and intentionally committing premeditated murder. I mean, we draw such distinctions on a regular basis. I don't see why we couldn't draw similar distinctions here.

So I would revise premise #1 to:

P1 (r): Some cases of natural selection are not amoral.

Unless I'm mistaken, it would then not follow that all holocausts are amoral.

If my first premise were that all cases of natural selection are amoral and then I said, but this one was just really bad so it’s an exception, then it could be special pleading. However, I am not positing that all cases of natural selection are amoral. So I don’t believe it can be special pleading.

But it's been a while since I dusted off my intro to logic book, so now I'm recovering from brain hurt.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I'm not sure I understand. You seem to be saying that you are not denying "externality and independence" but "upon more serious philosophical reflection" you are saying it's not the case; so doesn't that mean you ARE denying it? Or what do you mean by the passage above?

Yes I deny it when deliberated at the meta-level.

Example;
I accept the sighted and felt table exists within common sense and the conventional sense.
But I argue there is no 'real' table-in-itself within a higher philosophical sense.

Russell: There is No Real Table??
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27599

Thanks for the clarification.

So is it a matter of what level at which we are discussing or contemplating the table? Do you think that one level takes ultimate precedence over another or does that depend upon what one is discussing or contemplating? For example: If one is talking on the level of quantum physics, we might talk about there being no table at all (just a collection of particles, forces, fields, or whatnot) and if one is talking about where to place a cup of coffee, one would be talking at the level of the existence of tables.

Or when you say no "real table in itself" do you mean something along the lines of idealism that there is no external reality at all.

Whatever level is to be used depend on which is OPTIMAL for the circumstances. There is no one level that is superior to the other in the ultimate sense of practicality.
If you compare in terms of complexity of knowledge, obviously QM is more complex than classical Physics.

Idealism??
That there is "no real table-in-itself" is a form of Philosophical Anti-Realism and a form of Idealism [in my case it is Kantian Transcendental Idealism].

But note when someone claim there is an independent external reality, that is Empirical Idealism.