Hello, Anyone interested in a debate?

[Angrboda]

As noted in the analogy to science, we never have a universal set of particulars, so we are left assuming the particulars are representative of the whole.  In the case of actual moralities, there aren't sufficient number to presume representativeness; each morality is divergent in its particulars.  Aristotle may presume, but as in science, presumption of perfection in particulars fails to prevent you from falling into error by relying on those particulars.  We saw it with Galen's medical treatises, with Ptolemaic cosmology, with Newtonian physics — the reality is that you cannot guarantee a glimpse at what is hidden underneath simply by presuming you have a set of trustworthy views.  That's begging the question.  

First, I would disagree with your assertion that morality is divergent in the particulars.  Generally speaking, moralistic determinations across a broad spectrum of societies and cultures tend to lead to the same result for the same causes.  This is not to say there are no differences, only that the majority of the systems are functionally the same while the semantics (thanks benny) of the systems differ.

The way in which moral systems differ is more than a semantic difference.  Take the Jewish view of murder and the Hindu view.  The Jew seeks not to offend God while the Hindu seeks to avoid incurring bad karma.  Each of these constitutes a theory as to why something is immoral.  It is these theories that make up the 'pictures' of what objective morality consists in.  Contrary to your assertion, moralities do differ in both particular and more importantly they differ in the theory on offer as to why certain things are immoral.  It is these theories which you must reconcile as they are the models of what is lying underneath, that being the objective reality.  You are trying to reconcile the particulars rather than the theories, whereas it is the theories which constitute the nature of morality.  

Second, particular perfections may not be contend to be assumptions.  A particular perfection is akin to the thing being what it is (everything is perfect in and of itself, though not perfect objectively).  To state particular perfections do not exist is to state the object is not what it is (or is not properly being itself).  Now realism does indeed contend the particular perfections are part of some universal set.  For any subjective observation or morality to have credibility it must be part of a universal set which thereby allows for correlation and correspondence of the information contained in the given particular with other particulars of the same object to approach certainty.  As those particulars approach infinity the knowledge approaches certainty or objectivity.  

We're simply repeating ourselves here.  I don't disagree that in the ideal case in which we are able to make unlimited observations we can come to some sort of model of a physical reality.  However morals differ from physical reality in important ways.  Moral systems tend to be passed down whole from one generation to another.  But more importantly, we have no way to falsify that a particular observation of a moral theory is in fact false.  This is a major problem for your summation procedure as there does not appear any way, short of polling individuals, to determine whether a particular view of morality is in fact a view of actual, objective morality, rather than simply being a spurious and unrelated assertion.  It is the problem of testability which grounds your idea of modeling objective morals upon a summation of independent views.  There is no way to test whether a particular individual's view of morality is in fact a legitimate perception of the moral contours in doubt.

How does an individual get multiple views as to whether some specific moral fact is truth?  Do they not only have their own moral judgement to fall back on?  That's getting back to individual morals being 'composited' by them voting with their own particular sense of morality as being the only perspective they can contribute.  Again, the question is "how do we test" that a given moral hypothesis belongs to objective morality or not?  In the end, the only test is our individual judgement about the truth or falsity of the moral hypothesis.  We don't have multiple personalities that we can look at tentative moral facts with multiple perspectives.  The only test is the assent or dissent from the hypothesis; that leads us right back into morality simply being a matter of counting heads, which is the relativism you're trying to avoid.

The individuals facilitates various views by imagination or variable experiences.  For example in any given situation imagine your are the victim, the perpetrator, the bystander, the dependent, the individual, the state, etcetera.  As the individual considers the moral situation as if they were different persons (while in fact being the same person) they are effectual changing their perspective orientation around the phenomena (it is like they are walking around the problem to look at it from different angles).   The individual may further change the means by consideration of other similar situations or what others have stated is the moral solution to the given moral dilemma.

I find this a wholly impractical suggestion.  Moral theories aren't perspective dependent like you suggest.  A person operating from a theory of karmic law will view all the different roles of the actors through that same lense.  You haven't multiplied the number of views at all.  All you've done is create pseudo-observations which poison the picture of the objective whole.

The problem here is one familiar in science, namely the underdetermination of theory.  If you postulate that a set of moral truths is only imperfectly representative of the hidden reality, how do you determine which of the set is truly reflective of the reality, and which part of it is in error?  Do we simply take the intersection of all moral views and call that our set of hidden truths?  How do we know any better to trust the intersection rather than the differences?  Surely this is no way to arrive at objective moral truth.  More importantly, it obfuscates the reason why an objective moral fact is moral.  Am I not to kill because it angers God, or because it incurs bad karma, because it is contrary to my sense of empathy, because living persons have inalienable rights?  How do I determine why what is immoral is immoral from an incompatible set of explanations?  This revisits the question of multiple views by individuals: how does the Jew, Hindu, etcetera gain 'different angles' from looking at incompatible views?

Once again I do not quite see how these are incompatible as all are held as bad (angering god, incurring bad karma, acting contrary to my sense of empathy).  As per my original argument it would appear we are arguing which imaginary friend will be offended.  I would argue that people do not have an inalienable right to life on the contention that as a theist and philosopher my existence does not cease upon the separation of my biological life and that such a right to life would be in contradiction to the natural law and the billions of living organisms we have killed today alone if not over our lifetimes (think bacteria which are living and would have an inalienable right to life as well).

I specifically said a right to life for living persons.  That takes it out of the realm of natural law.

It appears you are interjecting the continuum fallacy stating that unless a definitive finite number of observations may be stipulate as constituting representative of the objective reality than we must assume there is no number of observations which will be considered representative and thus the objective reality may not be known.  As noted we know this logic is fallacious and may even be used in a contra point to state unless specification can be made of how many non-representative points are required to stipulate there is no representation of the objective hidden reality than we must assume there is no number of observations which will be considered non-representative and thus the objective reality is known.  

We are dealing with the question of discovering the metaphysical truths about objective morality, the theory so to speak.  It is not merely an empirical question, but one of matching up observations with specific models of that underlying reality.  Since the number of those models is extremely limited and sharply divergent, I am arguing that you have yet to present a method for reconciling them in order to arrive at one view which is the metaphysical truth.  This is not a question of the vagueness of the boundary between true and false views of morality, it's pointing out that you have no way of distinguishing them. Period.  Until you propose a method for reconciling Jew with Hindu theory, with Jain theory, with Confucian, you are left making noises about pencils and other empirical cases which are unlike the case with morals.  

It appears we have reached the point of Cartesian dualism.  Either we contend that nothing may be considered as representative of the objective reality and thus we cannot know the objective reality; thereby negating everything including our person.  Or we contend that everything may be considered representative of the objective reality upon which knowledge may be predicated upon as consisting of normitives and outliers.

I would argue that you have yet to reach a point where Cartesian skepticism would apply.