is on a debate tour of Britain. Apparently Polly Toynbee pulled out of debating him. I heard on Uncommon Descent that a replacement had been found. (I’d emailed WLC to volunteer myself! – but I guess it has to be Somebody.)
I’m starting this thread to house any comments about the tour and the debate.
But, if the truth of a statement, per one definition, is determined by the extent to which it corresponds to what we observe of objective reality then moral prescriptions are neither true nor false since they are claims about what should be not what is.
And if they cannot be true or false by any objective measure, how do we decide which, if any, are the superior claims?
From your argument above, it follows that “Let’s gas the Jews” is, as far as humans can objectively tell, as moral a statement as “let’s feed the hungry”. If that is your position, you and I don’t have anything further to debate, as you accept the ramifications of moral subjectivism.
If, however you agree with me that “lets feed the hungry” is, as far as humans can tell, objectively more moral than “let’s gas the Jews”, then the argument that humans can’t determine objective values because they are subjective entities, or cannot determine objectively better moral statements from worse ones, is obfuscating sophistry.
One either must assume that humans can determine objectively true moral statements, or they have nothing to offer in an argument about morality except sophistry and rhetoric.