• PRO

    For example, if a culture existed where rape was the...

    Universal Truth/Morality

    OK, so what I understand is that you agree with my argument more or less, but intended that I refute something other than the actual topic. I think that I could technically win this debate by simply complaining that if you wanted to discuss this new topic, you should have specified it. But, that's not very interesting. Let me elaborate on point 2. If two claims directly contradict, it cannot be the case that both are true. I cannot be a man and not a man or kvaughan and not kvaughan. So, one must, by the very principles of logic, be true. This is supposed to be irrefutable proof that truth does in fact exist. TO defend that truth is relative you say: "I was in a car accident not too long ago, and I made it without any serious injuries. She truly believed that it was her prayers that saved me. That is her reality and nothing can change that. But for me, I think that I was just lucky. This is a great example of subjective truth; no one can know what really happened, so both of our theories are true. My grandma's theory is true for her, as mine is true for me. This is still keeping to the law of contradiction because in my mind, there is only one theory that is true and the same goes for my grandma." Here, you're confusing the limits on our human knowledge with what is actually true. It is either the case that God saved you, or this is not the case, but we can know for sure, given the argument above, that God either saved you or God did not save you. Saying that it is true for your grandma that he saved you and it's true for you that he did not makes no sense. It is true that you each believe this, but only one event actually happened. Now, you are correct in saying that we do not technically know what happened, but this does not mean that both people are right, it means that one person is right, one person is wrong, but we don't know which is which. Morality: moral relativists love to point out that different people and cultures have different notions of morality. I'm inclined to think that this is totally irrelevant. For example, if a culture existed where rape was the accepted norm, it would be open to me to say that their morality is just confused -- rape is wrong and the fact that they don't realize this is irrelevant. This is true for all kinds of facts. If I don't know that 1+1=2, it doesn't make the statement any less true. So, at a minimum, this argument fails to demonstrate that morality is relative. Second, all we need to defend that morality is not relative is a single agreement on something as objectively wrong. Let's take the Holocaust for example. If we can agree that the holocaust was objectively morally wrong, then we can figure out why it was wrong and from that we can create a set of objective standards that define why the holocaust was wrong and generalize this to everyone.

    • https://www.debate.org/debates/Universal-Truth-Morality/1/