The paragraph you quoted just kicks the can down the road. @chadrmangum says there is a standard, but never demonstrates that the standard is objective. In fact, he seems to argue that the standards are subjective.
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That we should, ought to, morally, agree that 2 + 2 = 4 seems like a pretty objective standard. Where is the subjectivity?
Math is not morality.
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“Ought to” is moral.
Math is not an ought to.
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Agreeing with logic is. That is the point, not that it’s math.
No, it isn’t. It isn’t logical that I should care more about my immediate family than I do a stranger, yet our moral systems are built around our bias towards immediate family. There are many, many examples of morality disagreeing with basic logic.
You’re missing the basic argument and extrapolating beyond what he is saying:
You are going to have to explain your reasoning instead of just asserting it.
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You don’t think that we should agree that 2 + 2 = 4, and it is not subjective. Something ‘we should do’ is a moral argument. The whole point is that there is, even if only one case in point, an objective moral standard.
I don’t think that all logically true statements are automatically moral mandates. Which logical conclusions we decide to apply to morality is subjective.
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He does go on to develop that the presuppositions have to be true. We still have to agree on a logically correct argument. That is an objective moral standard. In itself.
If all moons are made of cheese, then our moon is made of cheese.
Which presuppositions? How does he develop them?
We can disagree, and that is completely moral.
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Do you agree that is a true statement?
Of course it is.
I agree that you are wasting everyone’s time.
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Not those who are understanding the argument. ; - )
You ought to.
Your defense makes some claims which I think are important to note.
You (implicitly) define love, good, and evil in a certain way (“…then He’s evil.” “If He thinks He doesn’t, He’s…not love”); you assert that all people agree with those definitions (“we all know what love is”); and then you define a morality based entirely upon that notion of love (“…then He’s evil.”). I see problems with this progression. First, I do not think your notion of love, good, or evil are the correct ones (in particular I don’t see them supported in the Bible; righteous justice is neither evil nor unloving). Second, and following from the first, it is not the case that we all agree on what love, good, and evil are. (The third part isn’t problematic to me; Jesus essentially affirms that love, when properly understood, is the basis for morality in Matthew 22:36-40, and the principle can be seen elsewhere in Scripture, such as Romans 13:9-10 and Galatians 5:14.) Those two issues are fundamental to your argument, and thus would require some justification.
So, your defense of universalism so far has been an appeal to particular intuitive (for you) notions of love, good, evil, and even of God, none of which I think are accurate, nor are they intuitive to all. They would require some kind of defense beyond assertion (perhaps logic, empirical evidence, Scriptural support, etc.). If they are assertions of your preference or your intuition and cannot be defended for someone who doesn’t have the same preferences and intuition, then implying that others ought to hold to universalism is too big of a leap.
(As a side note, the morality you have defined is objective and, moreover, is higher than God. This is a notable development for the present thread. I have a problem with God being subservient to morality, regardless of how one defines it; if He is subservient to anything, then He is not God; the higher thing would be the “real” God.)
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