#normativeethics

This is a great video debate between one of my favourite people on earth, namely, Scott Clifton (aka Theoretical Bullshit) who is an atheist and metaphysical naturalist and Christian Apologist Matt Slick.

The debate explores some fairly heavy duty philosophical topics in both meta-ethics and normative ethics.

Much of the time is spent in the meta-ethical sphere. Both of them seem to advance cognitivist points of view that are realist.

Scott is clearly an ethical naturalist and Slick is clearly an ethical non-naturalist (supernaturalist). Here the debate goes through the Euthyphro Dilemma and the alleged "third way" of defining "God" as the "Good" in the attempt to avoid the consequences of the dilemma.

There is also a brief foray into moral epistemology and ethical intuitionism which both interlocutors appeal to.

Finally, there is a big debate about moral motivation and although they never really use the philosophical nomenclature the debate on this front becomes a debate between moral internalists championed by Slick and moral externalists/Humean account of moral motivation championed by Scott.

Insofar as the debate steps into the normative ethical realm it is essentially a battle between consequentialism on the one hand and deontology on the other, with a brief discussion about contractarianism in the form of John Rawls' original position.