beyond Objective and Subjective: God.

[Twilight Imperium]

Because empirical evidence only gives us information, we still need a tool to interpret that information. Philosophy is one way to interpret that information.

Empiricism is itself a philosophy.

I find this confusing. What are some other ways to interpret empirical data, though?

Also "god exists because this, this, and this" is a statement about factual reality, hence empiricism.

[Sociobiology]

Because empirical evidence only gives us information, we still need a tool to interpret that information. Philosophy is one way to interpret that information.

which is why I stick to empiricism.
self supporting, unlike induction or deduction.

Philosophy and empiricism are different, but they kind of have to agree about reality. They just take different paths to get there.

Empiricism is itself a philosophy.

and?
chemistry came from alchemy, that does not give value to the conclusions of alchemy.

[Sociobiology]

Empiricism is itself a philosophy.

I find this confusing. What are some other ways to interpret empirical data, though?

inductive and deductive reasoning both of which are more flawed.

[Camicon]

No, but see, here's the thing: in order for any sort of social construct to be objective, there must be something to make it objective. That something would have to be a universal property, otherwise it would not be objective. Since no such thing exists, judging by the complete lack of scientific evidence, then the hypothesis that social constructs are objective cannot be accepted as true. Social constructs can only be objective or subjective, and since they cannot be objective they must be subjective.

Logic. How does it work?

That isn't logical, and you can tell by listing out the entire argument:

(1)in order for any sort of social construct to be objective, there must be something to make it objective.
(2)That something would have to be a universal property, otherwise it would not be objective.
(3)Since no such thing exists, judging by the complete lack of scientific evidence, then the hypothesis that social constructs are objective cannot be accepted as true.
(4)Social constructs can only be objective or subjective, and since they cannot be objective they must be subjective.

(1) is already flawed in assuming that morality, the good, etc. is a social construct.
(3) is flawed in that it makes a claim without providing proof of that claim
(4) is flawed for the same reason as (1), but also because it states that a thing can either be "objective" or "subjective", that is, it either has a universal property, or else it is relative to the individual subject. That is untrue, as Social Constructs are relative to the society, which is composed of many individual subjects, who are obliged to follow its morals.

1) Then change "social construct" to "a thing", if that makes you happy. Same outcome.
3) The inherent claim made by an assertion of subjective morality, is that morality only exists because living things have decided it exists. If there was no life in the universe, then there would be no such thing as morality. Objective morality claims the opposite: that morality will always exist, regardless of whether or not there are living creatures to abide by it. But by the way morality is defined, it cannot exist without action by sentient beings. So it obviously cannot exist in the absence of them. Because morality cannot be objective, it must be subjective.
4) Social constructs are created by society. Glad you finally figured that out.

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

That isn't logical, and you can tell by listing out the entire argument:

(1)in order for any sort of social construct to be objective, there must be something to make it objective.
(2)That something would have to be a universal property, otherwise it would not be objective.
(3)Since no such thing exists, judging by the complete lack of scientific evidence, then the hypothesis that social constructs are objective cannot be accepted as true.
(4)Social constructs can only be objective or subjective, and since they cannot be objective they must be subjective.

(1) is already flawed in assuming that morality, the good, etc. is a social construct.
(3) is flawed in that it makes a claim without providing proof of that claim
(4) is flawed for the same reason as (1), but also because it states that a thing can either be "objective" or "subjective", that is, it either has a universal property, or else it is relative to the individual subject. That is untrue, as Social Constructs are relative to the society, which is composed of many individual subjects, who are obliged to follow its morals.

1) Then change "social construct" to "a thing", if that makes you happy. Same outcome.

Not really.

(3) The inherent claim made by an assertion of subjective morality, is that morality only exists because living things have decided it exists.

A claim, which needs to be argued further.

If there was no life in the universe, then there would be no such thing as morality.

Another claim. One can simply say that though there are no sentient beings upon which to apply morality, if there were such beings, morals would apply to them. Just as saying that, supposing there is no object in space put a single mass, if there was another mass, there would still be an attractive gravitational between them. It doesn't mean that gravity suddenly ceased to exist in the absence of another mass.

Objective morality claims the opposite: that morality will always exist, regardless of whether or not there are living creatures to abide by it.

Which you have yet to disprove in any way.

But by the way morality is defined,

They way you define it.

it cannot exist without action by sentient beings. So it obviously cannot exist in the absence of them.

Or, we may have a hypothetical sentient beings, whose hypothetical actions can be judged based upon an objective morality in the absence of actual sentient beings. Thus, we, actual sentient beings, can imagine a universe without one, and still find that morality can exist, even if we use your definition of action-based morality, on the hypothetical action of hypothetical people in that world, based upon objective principles.

Because morality cannot be objective, it must be subjective.

It can be relative.

4) Social constructs are created by society. Glad you finally figured that out.

What is being argued is that you have no arguments for the statement "morals are social constructs" in the first place, not that social construct are dependent on the society, which is a truism.

[Twilight Imperium]

Or, we may have a hypothetical sentient beings, whose hypothetical actions can be judged based upon an objective morality

The issue with this, I find, is that there are so many different shades of morality already existing, I would be hard-pressed to determine which one is "objective".

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

which is why I stick to empiricism.
self supporting, unlike induction or deduction.

Empiricism is only the evidence, as I have said, but it must still be interpreted. This is the foundation of science, one does not simply record a bunch of numbers, and think, oh, doing these things will produce this bunch of numbers, but must induce from it some general principle, which may be tested. Then, from that general principle, it may be deduced that doing that thing would produce similar results. They are both necessary, keeping only to the evidence is an impossible way to go about things.

and?
chemistry came from alchemy, that does not give value to the conclusions of alchemy.

No, Chemistry isn't a subset of Alchemy, both are distinct sciences with distinct goal, one obviously bullshit science, and the other, actual science.

Empiricism is a subset of philosophy, and is a philosophic method.

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

Or, we may have a hypothetical sentient beings, whose hypothetical actions can be judged based upon an objective morality

The issue with this, I find, is that there are so many different shades of morality already existing, I would be hard-pressed to determine which one is "objective".

But that is not relevant to the argument, which is "if there is an objective morality, how can it exist without sentient beings", and that is a rather simple answer to that question.

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

Because empirical evidence only gives us information, we still need a tool to interpret that information. Philosophy is one way to interpret that information.

Empiricism is itself a philosophy.

I find this confusing. What are some other ways to interpret empirical data, though?

Also "god exists because this, this, and this" is a statement about factual reality, hence empiricism.

The reason why there are debates within science is because empirical data can be interpreted in different ways.

As to God exist because of this and that, that is an argument, drawing from empirical data, but ultimately a philosophical argument.

[Twilight Imperium]

which is why I stick to empiricism.
self supporting, unlike induction or deduction.

Empiricism is only the evidence, as I have said, but it must still be interpreted. This is the foundation of science, one does not simply record a bunch of numbers, and think, oh, doing these things will produce this bunch of numbers, but must induce from it some general principle, which may be tested. Then, from that general principle, it may be deduced that doing that thing would produce similar results. They are both necessary, keeping only to the evidence is an impossible way to go about things.

and?
chemistry came from alchemy, that does not give value to the conclusions of alchemy.

No, Chemistry isn't a subset of Alchemy, both are distinct sciences with distinct goal, one obviously bullshit science, and the other, actual science.

Empiricism is a subset of philosophy, and is a philosophic method.

You just gave two different definitions of the term "empiricism". Moving on, though..

Deductive reasoning and inductive hypothesis are indeed very important to the scientific method, but I'd have trouble describing them as "different". Indeed, it's as you say. We gather empirical data, induce hypothesis, deduce testing, and obtain knowledge.

What are some other ways to do these things?

But that is not relevant to the argument, which is "if there is an objective morality, how can it exist without sentient beings", and that is a rather simple answer to that question.

It still doesn't work, though. In order to judge these hypothetical beings, we would still need sentient beings who could do the judging. Morals aren't derived from the aether, they're developed by sentient beings.

[Camicon]

*snip*

Ah! Thank you for reminding me why I dislike discussions with people that willfully ignorant. I'm just gonna go over here and spend my time more productively. Watch some grass grow, maybe some paint dry. useful things.

[Satosia]

Fair enough. Looking at it further, I think the problem is much simpler than the above arguments, and comes in the middle of step 4. The God that was conceived of in the mind can do nothing, because it is purely a mental construct. It is thus, in reality, powerless. Thus, I (or you, or anybody else) am more powerful than it, because I can do stuff. It is a similar process for knowledge and (although the definition is still murky) moral goodness - a God I construct mentally knows only stuff I know, so I am at worst as knowledgeable as it, and will almost always be more knowledgeable than it because it takes a non-zero amount of time for new information I possess to pass along to my mental construct.

Anselm could counter that.

Therefore, if that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the understanding alone, that very thing than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in the understanding alone, that very thing than which nothing greater can be conceived is a thing than which something greater can be conceived. But this is impossible.

And here we have Anselm's paradox.

My answer to it:

1. The imagination is a sub-category of reality.
2. Everything within the imagination is, therefore, independent of reality.
3. The paradox is real within this reality.
4. However, since one reality is but a sub-form of another reality, it is impossible to be bigger.

What I mean is that the paradox wreaks havoc in the imagination... but it fails to go beyond that.

Your argument is, I think, on the right general lines, but I don't think the paradox even exists. A problem is how you are measuring greatness. How do we define something as being greater than the other? 'Goodness' is a highly subjective measure, and the knowledge possessed by a mental construct is (depending on your view of mental constructs) either zero (like a rock) or at most that of the person imagining it. In addition, there are properties of the universe that might make attaining full knowledge impossible (e.g. quantum mechanics, depending on your perspective on it).

But let us consider power, as I think that is the easiest way to disprove the paradox. First, the structure given above is "If A, then A, then not A", which is an ugly way to write things. Ignoring that, a person's imagination is a sub-set of reality (I'd avoid using category as a word here, as we're close enough to maths that that means something completely different). Within that subset, there exists a maximal element when ordered by greatness. There is as yet no paradox. This maximal element is not, however, a maximal element of the greater set of reality that contains that sub-set. There is still no paradox. This is because "I can imagine a thing than which there is nothing greater" does not mean "I have created something than which there is nothing greater", but "I have created something than which nothing in my imagination is greater".

1. Infinite is always possible, but if God exists then he isn't the "greatest conceivable being" because there's always a higher power which he cannot attain, something that is abstract to even his mind as a concept, and therefore God is but a point in an infinite line which doesn't necessitate to be the maximum limit of infinite. Infinite presupposes that it doesn't have a limit, and bringing a being into existence only places one dot in the infinite line, it doesn't put him at the maxima of all possible values.

Eh, the poset of non-negative whole numbers ordered by division is an infinite set with a maximum element (0, and consider powers of 2 for evidence that it is infinite). It's not intuitive, but it can happen, and isn't one of the (many) problems with this argument

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

*snip*

Ah! Thank you for reminding me why I dislike discussions with people that willfully ignorant. I'm just gonna go over here and spend my time more productively. Watch some grass grow, maybe some paint dry. useful things.

Thank you for refusing to engage in any productive discussion beyond "I'm right, logic and reasoning be damned!"

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

Empiricism is only the evidence, as I have said, but it must still be interpreted. This is the foundation of science, one does not simply record a bunch of numbers, and think, oh, doing these things will produce this bunch of numbers, but must induce from it some general principle, which may be tested. Then, from that general principle, it may be deduced that doing that thing would produce similar results. They are both necessary, keeping only to the evidence is an impossible way to go about things.



No, Chemistry isn't a subset of Alchemy, both are distinct sciences with distinct goal, one obviously bullshit science, and the other, actual science.

Empiricism is a subset of philosophy, and is a philosophic method.

You just gave two different definitions of the term "empiricism". Moving on, though..

The first definition, that is empirical observation and data, is used incorrectly. I will admit that, the fact that we should limit ourselves to simply the empirical evidence (a philosophy) is correctly used.

Deductive reasoning and inductive hypothesis are indeed very important to the scientific method, but I'd have trouble describing them as "different". Indeed, it's as you say. We gather empirical data, induce hypothesis, deduce testing, and obtain knowledge.

Glad we agree on that point, rather than simply throwing out deduction and induction altogether.

What are some other ways to do these things?

To do so by any method would be to apply some sort of philosophy, here used in its broadest sense.

It still doesn't work, though. In order to judge these hypothetical beings, we would still need sentient beings who could do the judging. Morals aren't derived from the aether, they're developed by sentient beings.

I made this distinction very clear in the original post, where we, of this real world, can imagine that there is an imaginary world without sentient beings, and in that imaginary world, we can have hypothetical imaginary beings (that is, twice over imaginary) who are sentient and upon whom, the morals that exist objectively in that imaginary world can be tried upon. If we hold the morals are objective, then, we can simply state that it is the case that it exist, but that it is inapplicable to the non-sentient beings therein, in the same way a mathematical platonist can claim that even if there were no sentient and intelligent being to concieve of a circle, or a 30-60 triangle, such a thing would still exist, but it simply isn't used by the non-sentient and non-intelligent being therein.

[Calimera II]

One of the best OP's I have seen in a very long time.

[Unitaristic Regions]

One of the best OP's I have seen in a very long time.

Thanks, man.

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

the fact morality is product of evolutionary selection of brains. no evidence for moral realism has ever been shown, anti-realism is not a single position but a useless catchall term. morality is a behavior selected by evolution to increase gene transmission. vampire bats have a form of morality as do many social species, but these moralities are dependent on the biology of the species.

This still fail to rise beyond a series of statements. Eusocial species demonstrate behaviour that appears moral, scientific evidence suggest that we have evolved a sense of right and wrong, how does this, in any way, disprove moral realism?

Moral Realism, and Anti-Realisms, all depend on metaphysical arguments, which cannot be obtained simply by ignoring the metaphysics.

no if you recall I asked if you wanted links.

Anthropological and Sociological textbooks are very much avaliable where I am, reference the book and the page number of where it is relevant, and I can probably find it here, read it, and judge for myself, thank you.

Those being social constructs could easily be disproven by showing them to exist as objects. such as magnetism or the earth. social constructs are things that only have a meaning because society gives them a meaning.

What are you arguing here? Simply by showing that there is a diversity of opinion is not enough to prove that all opinions on morality are equally relative and meaningless, in the same way that diversity on the origin and evolution of life on earth does not make all opinions equally true/false.

if you have evidence of good existing in another form, feel free, otherwise the only empirical position left is that it is a social construct.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/

A lenghty article, but I do think that it gives a fair treatment and a fairly good summary to the arguments for and against moral realism.

any link will go through various other arguments and refuting them, showing something is a social construct is simply showing it is nothing else.

And...many links were made to inform the readers on the controversy and the arguments being brought out by both side, and this is especially true for encyclopedia.

a lack of a objective good, or objective right.

To be taken a priori?

although there are some instinctual commonalities explained by evolution (such as altruism), but it also shows why they would not exist for other forms of life.

Evolutionary origins does not dispute Moral Realism, and some people hold that for precisely those reasons we can infer that there is an objective set of morals. I am not familiar enough with their arguments to make any comment on them, but only to say that pointing to an evolutionary origin and existence of similar moral-type behaviour amongst other social animal does not in any way disprove moral realism.

except I never claimed any of that, a social construct can still exist with only a single individual.
being a social construct just means it exists only as the results of behavior.

A social construct results from a society, which involves more than a single subject.

neither is true, morality exists as a combination of instinctual behavior, individual conclusions, and cultural practice.

Which is simply a statement of belief like the Nicene Creed.

it does not exist objectively, it is subjective in nature, which can still be a consensus.

If it does not exist objectively, it does not follow it belongs to the single subject, but rather, it becomes relative, or else does not exist at all.

for reference subjective morality =/= moral subjectivism.

Moral Subjectivism =/= Moral Relativism.

[Christiaanistan]

The problem with the philosopher's theory is that I have a thoroughly deranged imagination, and I can imagine a large number of things that have succeeded in shocking, upon me explaining those things, a number of individuals who were fairly experienced with LSD and other hallucinogens.

Now, that is where the argument that is referred to in the OP starts to break down. You see, I acknowledge being an "unreliable narrator" of both my external and internal world. Therefore, I am fully capable of having things happen in my mind and in my apparent external environment without being fazed by it whatsoever. I am accustomed to unresolved riddles because I seem to produce them in quantity as a sort of peculiar reflex.

This leaves me in a quandary as to how to go about figuring out what I should and should not believe. I have a feeling that I am getting slightly better at aligning my beliefs more closely with reality, but I have been wrong before. I am really not very much bothered by that, though. Whenever I have run into a brick wall, I have just wandered aimlessly until I somehow either got around it or just bookmarked it in my mind as something to be investigated more closely when or if I am more able to do so.

I don't think that most people are very good at handling these kinds of thought processes, though. In fact, I think that most people find such things rather disturbing, and I think that this is part of why most people look for some set of beliefs that has a greater sense of permanence and stability, illusory though it may be. Most people don't handle a state of flux very well. I'm not even entirely certain that it's good for me that I'm sort of stuck there.

Anyway, that's my stance, for what it's worth.

[Sociobiology]

the fact morality is product of evolutionary selection of brains. no evidence for moral realism has ever been shown, anti-realism is not a single position but a useless catchall term. morality is a behavior selected by evolution to increase gene transmission. vampire bats have a form of morality as do many social species, but these moralities are dependent on the biology of the species.

This still fail to rise beyond a series of statements. Eusocial species demonstrate behaviour that appears moral

, no they are moral, they have their own morality, they have of sense of do this/ don't do this.
It functions just like the morality in our brains.

scientific evidence suggest that we have evolved a sense of right and wrong, how does this, in any way, disprove moral realism?

because that morality is completely dependent on ourt biology and will change with the biology of the species. what is moral for one species may not be moral for another.

Moral Realism, and Anti-Realisms, all depend on metaphysical arguments, which cannot be obtained simply by ignoring the metaphysics. [/quote]
but metaphysical have no bearing on reality so why consider it? metaphysics is not something in addition to science is is a less useful less predictive alternative. I don't dismiss it offhand I dismiss it for the same reason I dismiss alchemy if fails to predict reality.

If right and wrong are constructs then realism must be false. if morality is dependent on biological make up there can be no moral universals.

no if you recall I asked if you wanted links.

Anthropological and Sociological textbooks are very much avaliable where I am, reference the book and the page number of where it is relevant, and I can probably find it here, read it, and judge for myself, thank you.

Start with whatever section starts evolutionary psychology and anything on neurology.

Those being social constructs could easily be disproven by showing them to exist as objects. such as magnetism or the earth. social constructs are things that only have a meaning because society gives them a meaning.

What are you arguing here? Simply by showing that there is a diversity of opinion

where did I say that? ALL that exists on the matter is opinion and instinct.
the morality of an act is entirely dependent on the biology of the species and stated goals.

if you have evidence of good existing in another form, feel free, otherwise the only empirical position left is that it is a social construct.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/

A lenghty article, but I do think that it gives a fair treatment and a fairly good summary to the arguments for and against moral realism.

so no evidence.
just baseless conjecture.

a lack of a objective good, or objective right.

To be taken a priori?

no as the result of consider effort to find them.
that they do not exist is the null, the null has failed to be refuted.

although there are some instinctual commonalities explained by evolution (such as altruism), but it also shows why they would not exist for other forms of life.

Evolutionary origins does not dispute Moral Realism, and some people hold that for precisely those reasons we can infer that there is an objective set of morals.

except you can't because biology of a species vary, what is successful for one will not be for another.

except I never claimed any of that, a social construct can still exist with only a single individual.
being a social construct just means it exists only as the results of behavior.

A social construct results from a society, which involves more than a single subject.

not necessary.

neither is true, morality exists as a combination of instinctual behavior, individual conclusions, and cultural practice.

Which is simply a statement of belief like the Nicene Creed.
no it is the conclusions of a great deal of scientifc research, Shermer's book The Scinece of Good and Evil is a rather good collection on the subject for laymen. for a more indepth consideration you can start with these papers.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19586243
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3723/1/rutherford3723.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661310000501

hey there is even a peice about it on your site, if you need a lead in.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/

it does not exist objectively, it is subjective in nature, which can still be a consensus.

If it does not exist objectively, it does not follow it belongs to the single subject, but rather, it becomes relative, or else does not exist at all.

it exists as behavior, not in the traditional sense. Which I stated several times.
Santa claus does not exist in reality, but does exist as a social construct.

for reference subjective morality =/= moral subjectivism.

Moral Subjectivism =/= Moral Relativism.

also true

[Sociobiology]

which is why I stick to empiricism.
self supporting, unlike induction or deduction.

Empiricism is only the evidence,

noit is not, it is a form of reasoning and how evidence is evaluated, working from the simplest model of the universe and adding complexity when and only when it results in a net gain in predictive accuracy of the model. given two models of equal predictive power the lest complex one is prefered, it is a slow method but good at honing in on the most accurate model given limited information.
now yes the other forms are used, but in the end it must always be put to the empirical test. Another very important part is that empiricism can never give so called truth only what is most likely given current information.

and?
chemistry came from alchemy, that does not give value to the conclusions of alchemy.

No, Chemistry isn't a subset of Alchemy, both are distinct sciences with distinct goal, one obviously bullshit science, and the other, actual science.

you may want to learn something about history.

[Mostrov]

Philosophy and empiricism are different, but they kind of have to agree about reality. They just take different paths to get there.

Empiricism is philosophy and is thus heavily based in it.

Because empirical evidence only gives us information, we still need a tool to interpret that information. Philosophy is one way to interpret that information.

which is why I stick to empiricism.
self supporting, unlike induction or deduction.

It isn't self-supporting. Provide empirical evidence for the existence of empiricism, this is a test that it fails and people have realised since Hume. Furthermore the Scientific Method is dependant on inductive thinking in the first place.

[The Rich Port]

Can you demonstrate that?

Because demonstrating a lot of things in reality is actually rather simple.

No, it is only to point out that making grand statements like "This is real, to deny it is to be wrong" doesn't make an argument, and can be replaced with almost anything, such as God, or, in this case, an invisible pony with wings.

Well, actually, it is that simple.

Can you demonstrate God exists? Because I can demonstrate a lot of things to be real without making an argument for them.

[Sociobiology]

Philosophy and empiricism are different, but they kind of have to agree about reality. They just take different paths to get there.

Empiricism is philosophy and is thus heavily based in it.

which is why I stick to empiricism.
self supporting, unlike induction or deduction.

It isn't self-supporting. Provide empirical evidence for the existence of empiricism,

planes fly, the predictions made by empiricism produce functionally accurate results in the real world. by the rules of empiricism that means it works. unlike the other two empiricism only claims to make more likely conclusions, not true ones. Mostly because it would be impossible to model one universe completely accurately without another universe to use to construct the model, and access to every piece of data to ever exist.

Furthermore the Scientific Method is dependant on inductive thinking in the first place.

actually not neither induction nor deduction are relied upon, because no conclusion is taken as true only tentatively likely based on probability, each and every line of reasoning is open to and must be tested. Are deduction and induction used, certainly science is not going to throw out any tool that succeeds by empirical standards, but they are regulated to a lesser position used only as estimators.

[Christiaanistan]

Eh, tip: if nobody else likes your bloody mary recipe, I do not recommend taking it upon yourself to finish it in one sitting and then posting something on a discussion board.

The first thing you have to understand about Descartes' argument for God is the political victory that he achieved by it...on behalf of scientific skepticism.

Although the argument is flawed, Descartes was a champion of scientific skepticism, which is one of the most important planks in the support of the entire scientific method:

http://www.unc.edu/~theis/Exp&R/descartes1.html

If you want an introduction to the modern discussion on it and issues relating to it, here is a good place to start:

http://www.kritike.org/journal/issue_11 ... ne2012.pdf

Whether or not you accept mind-body dualism, which I don't, it was an offshoot of the developments that helped lead to the scientific revolution. This is a big deal. Cartesian skepticism is one of the most central components of modern science.

To me, the main flaw in the reasoning of Descartes was that he made the central fallacy that is inherent in solipsism, which is the assumption of the inviolability of your own existence. Your sense of your own existence is no more reliable than your empirical senses. In spite of all of your thought processes, the very existence of your mind could be just as illusory as the empirical senses which you may doubt.

Most people have trouble with this idea because it sounds like a form of insanity to doubt the existence of one's own mind. Nevertheless, if we are to take skepticism to its ultimate extreme, we must not hold dear to the idea that we ourselves exist.

When you start with this most primitive level of skepticism--building your way up from skepticism about your own existence Cartesian-style--then the desired outcome of going through this process is much more powerful.

[Nationes Pii Redivivi]

no they are moral, they have their own morality, they have of sense of do this/ don't do this.
It functions just like the morality in our brains.

If you wish, are morals....

because that morality is completely dependent on ourt biology and will change with the biology of the species. what is moral for one species may not be moral for another.

Again, how does the evolutionary origin of why we are moral disprove objective morality altogether? It could have been good for our species because it relects an objective good, and hence why we evolved it.

but metaphysical have no bearing on reality so why consider it?

Metaphysics is the study of reality, and what constitute reality.

metaphysics is not something in addition to science is is a less useful less predictive alternative.

Because Metaphysics isn't a science, it is a philosophy, and just as much a philosophy as ethics. Science doesn't ask questions like "what is good?" or "why is it good?".

I don't dismiss it offhand I dismiss it for the same reason I dismiss alchemy if fails to predict reality

Ethics have no predictative power, yet you are making a statement about ethics.

If right and wrong are constructs then realism must be false. if morality is dependent on biological make up there can be no moral universals.

And then you take up a metaphysical proposition, while, at the same time, refusing to engage in metaphysics. You can't simply ignore metaphysics by claiming that the metaphysics you are doing is not metaphysics.

Start with whatever section starts evolutionary psychology and anything on neurology.

Again, that is not proof that Morality is relative. We may have evolved it because it reflects a higher good, and is therefore good for our survival.

where did I say that? ALL that exists on the matter is opinion and instinct.

Another metaphysical proposition, evidence to support that claim?

the morality of an act is entirely dependent on the biology of the species and stated goals.

Evolution does not disprove moral realism in any way. No one is disputing the facts of evolution, just that you have failed to show how it disprove moral realism.

so no evidence.
just baseless conjecture.

So you are willing to dismiss all of philosophy as 'baseless conjecture', and still willing to hold to your own personal philosophy of empiricism (which is an absurd philosophical postion, as, in rejecting induction and deduction, what tools are you going to use to interpret the empirical data)?

no as the result of consider effort to find them.
that they do not exist is the null, the null has failed to be refuted.

So, taken a priori then.

except you can't because biology of a species vary, what is successful for one will not be for another.

Which, again, doesn't disprove moral realism, how we got our sense of morality is hardly relevant to whether there exist an objective set of morals that can be applied to all sentient species. Many people would argue that we evolved in such a way as to consider member of our own species, or, say, our own tribe as being worthy of our moral responsibility, there are arguments now that moral responsibility should be extended to animals as well. Supposing these arguments are right, then what is evolved may, on the one hand, not only represent, in part, a higher objective, but also fall short of that in consideration of survival and fitness.

not necessary.

It is.

no it is the conclusions of a great deal of scientifc research, Shermer's book The Scinece of Good and Evil is a rather good collection on the subject for laymen. for a more indepth consideration you can start with these papers.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19586243
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3723/1/rutherford3723.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661310000501

The leap from "there is an evolutionary explanation as to why we are moral" to "all morals are relative" is unjustified.

hey there is even a peice about it on your site, if you need a lead in.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology/

Which ignores the section discussing the effect of biology and morality on metaethics and the possible (and actual) realist response to them.

it exists as behavior, not in the traditional sense. Which I stated several times.
Santa claus does not exist in reality, but does exist as a social construct.

You fail to show how it is subjective (relative to the individual subject) rather than, more broadly, just relative (relative to a thing, society, the individual subject, etc.)

also true

I am glad we agree there.