(January 13, 2017 at 6:25 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(January 13, 2017 at 6:08 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Hmmm. . . are you going to argue in the negative?
For this question, yes.
I would first argue that secular ethics are not satisfactory. There is an obvious subjective judgement built into the question - a value judgement of whether the resulting ethics generally conform to liberal Western values.
I would then argue that certain ways of reasoning about ethics do indeed produce satisfactory results but that they ultimately rely on non-secular premises.
(Although, it would be interesting to play a "bizzaro world" version in which I argue in the negative. Another time perhaps.)
I'm down if you want to try it. I have to say that so far, every formal debate ere has gone like this: post, post, post, someone claims to be super busy, comes back three months later and says he'll have to put off the debate "for a while."
I'm not sure your question requires a formal debate, but I think a 1:1 discussion with all the chatter in a peanut gallery thread could provide a little focus.