Uwotm8? Shoulda gone for netball, I know those rulesHow can we determine whether objective morality really exists?
I will use the basketball analogy.
[....snip...]
The game of basketball may never be perfectly entertaining. But there is some set of objective basketball rules that would represent the best rules even if we mortals can never know exactly what those rules are."
I get the gist tho. I agree with the point that there's in principle some best (or at least better and worse) set of rules, but only once you have set your goal.
Here you assume the goal for basketball is to be Entertaining (we don't worry about that malarkey in netball!), I was trying to suggest we don't need God in order to have a goal for Oughts. We can say 'maximising the well-being of conscious creatures' is the grounding for Oughts, and I gave my reasons why. Regardless of whether we call it Objective Morality or not. So in your analogy, 'the well'being of conscious creatures' is the equivalent of Entertaining, yeah?
How we go about achieving that goal, well then it gets complicated. Because I might value some things more than you.
But there are basic needs and desires we mostly share, and we could design rules to try to ensure we all get them. (Food, shelter, freedom of speech, a healthy environment, healthcare, education, protection against murder, violence, theft, cheaters, or whatever). And practical rules like everybody driving on the same side of the road. Then there will be some things we want, which mean sacrificing other things we want - like paying taxes to live in a society which looks after our basic needs when required. Or equal rights for women might help me, but I'd lose a bit of privilege under equal rights for all races. But by referring back to the goal of maximising everyone's well-being, I'd say yeah, fair enough we should all have a fair chance in life if we want to maximise well-being, that's a good rule.
Other stuff might not be legislated by rules, but there are less formal mechanisms, like social mores and manners, being a good neighbour, a good citizen. Then there's the influence of parents and schools, and the more subtle influence of our cultural archetypes and stories - religion, myths, fairytales, books, tv and so on.
So yes I agree, there are lots of ways to design basketball and morality codes, but first you have to know your goal and be able to justify it so that it's a goal we share - effectively treat it as objectively true that we should maximise the well-being of conscious creatures. For religions which say God is the Perfect Source of morality and the Perfect Law Giver, that means God's definition of Good is objectively perfect, true. Not like my opinion or yours. it's the perfect unquestionable truth. Likewise his rules.