I negate the resolution, Resolved: Objective morality exists.

Objective is defined by Cambridge English Dictionary as not influenced by

personal beliefs or feelings.

This definition is superior to others on etymological grounds – other definitions

allow for things to be objective without being objects, abstract or otherwise

To Exist is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as to be; to have the

ability to be known, recognized, or understood

Contention 1: Objective morality fails the test of justifications

Morality cannot have external justifications

Maclntyre, Alasdair. Professor of Social Philosophy at the University of Essex, A

SHORT HISTORY OF ETHICS, 1966, p. 85.

For to justify justice is to show that it is more profitable than injustice, that it is to
our interest to be just. But if we do what is just and right because it is to our
interest, then, so Prochard takes almost for granted, we are not going to because it
is just and right and all. Morality indeed cannot have any justification external to
itself; if we do not do what is right for its own sake, and whether it is to our
interest or not, then we are not doing what is right.

No fundamental standard for values exists

Maclntyre, Alasdair. Professor of Social Philosophy at the University of Essex,

THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY, 1990, p.4.

On the one hand are those who hold that in certain cases where two large-scale
systems of thought and practice are in radical disagreement—such various
examples have been cited as the disagreements between the physics of Aristotle
and the physics of Galileo or Newton, those between the beliefs in practice of
witchcraft by some African peoples and the cosmology of modem science, and
those between the conceptions of right action characteristic of the Homeric world
and the morality of modem individualism— there is and can be no independent
standard of measure of appeal to which their rival claims can be adjudicated, since
each has internal to itself its own fundamental standard of judgment. Such systems
are incommensurable, and the terms in and by means of which judgment is
deliberated in each are so specific and idiosyncratic to each that they cannot be
translated into the terms of the other without gross distortion.

Transcendent truth does not exist

Marshall, William P. Galen J. Roush Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve

University Law School, GEORGIA LAW REVIEW, Fall, 1995, p. 3.

Contemporary philosophical thought, it is said, does not believe in truth, at least in

the “objective” or “transcendent” sense of the word. To the contemporary mind,
objective or transcendent truth is seen as nonsensical or, at best, unintelligible. The
Enlightenment claim that the powers of reason could lead humanity to a
knowledge of truth has been savaged. Beliefs in religious revelation, while still
accepted by some, are seen as too idiosyncratic and too faith-laden for
constructing universal notions of truth. Human cognitive powers fare no better.
Humanity has yet to recover from the empirical skepticism of Hume or the
scathing attack on the capabilities of human knowledge and reason leveled by
Nietzsche.

To prove objective morality, the Aff has to give a way to justify moral obligations
which does not come from subjective sources. Let us look to the nature of moral
obligations to see why that is the case

All moral obligations by nature can be turned into statements containing the word
ought. This is because the word serves as an indicator of moral obligation. Now,
let us look at how propositions about being function. These propositions always
reflect the state of the world – that is, they are fundamentally reflective. They do
not change it. Moral propositions, involving ought, on the other hand, are not
merely reflective. These statements aim to change the world. Simply put,
propositions about what the government is likely to do are completely different
from what it should do. For instance, the government is likely to cut Medicaid, but
should it?