The root of reality issue

 In our going concern world, the question of the root of reality is literally foundational -- and yes, we see a now familiar chart yet again (it is that pivotal):

There are of course, several major options, which we need to compare -- knowing that every option will have difficulties, especially as the question is inescapably self-referential (as, manifestly, we are a part of the going concern reality). Nowadays, in the West, evolutionary materialistic scientism is the inculcated and institutionally dominant view, but as Richard Dawkins inadvertently shows, it fatally stumbles in the starting gates . . . over precisely that self-referentiality:

In short, our rational, responsible, morally governed, conscience-guided freedom is critical, even as St Paul observed 2,000 years ago in his AD 57 Letter to the Romans as he interacted with their moral-legal thinking:

Rom 2:14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them . . . 

So, Dawkins shows us that no proposed reality root can be viable if it fails the Pauline test, conscience-guided, morally governed rationality. (And yes, this gives us an opening to ponder the anthropic question that the root of reality must be such that we are feasible.)

What of the idea -- recently championed by physicist Lawrence Krauss (and yes, the afterword is by Dawkins)  -- that the world comes from "nothing"? (Wikipedia summarises: 'The main theme of the book is the claim that "we have discovered that all signs suggest a universe that could and plausibly did arise from a deeper nothing—involving the absence of space itself and—which may one day return to nothing via processes that may not only be comprehensible but also processes that do not require any external control or direction." ')

The problem here, when sophisticated mathematical apparatus is removed, is that a genuine nothing, utter non-being, has no properties including existence, much less causal capability (which requires existence . . .). Straining language itself, were utter non-being ever so, such would forever obtain; as there literally would be no thing, no reality able to change that. 

No wonder, then, that Wikipedia is forced to admit:

George Ellis, in an interview in Scientific American, said that "Krauss does not address why the laws of physics exist, why they have the form they have, or in what kind of manifestation they existed before the universe existed (which he must believe if he believes they brought the universe into existence). Who or what dreamt up symmetry principles, Lagrangians, specific symmetry groups, gauge theories, and so on? He does not begin to answer these questions." He criticized the philosophical viewpoint of the book, saying "It's very ironic when he says philosophy is bunk and then himself engages in this kind of attempt at philosophy."^[10]

In The New York Times, philosopher of science and physicist David Albert said the book failed to live up to its title; he said Krauss dismissed concerns about what Albert calls his misuse of the term nothing, since if matter comes from relativistic quantum fields, the question becomes where did those fields come from, which Krauss does not discuss.^[11]

Notice, the telling comment: "if matter comes from relativistic quantum fields, the question becomes where did those fields come from, which Krauss does not discuss." That is, there is some thing, a quasi physical domain of relativistic quantum fields. That is a physicalist, quasi-spatially distributed zone, sometimes called a quantum foam, in which sub-cosmi bubble up via fluctuations (and being able to fluctuate is a property with causal potential). In short, the prestige and mystique of science solemnly dressed up in a lab coat, is used to try to extend a materialistic world picture beyond the singularity, the big bang. This thus falls under the same self-defeating incoherence we saw from Dawkins.

The suggestion of circular, retro causation is similar. For, the not yet is called upon to be its own source. 

We are still left, then, with the roots challenge that if a world now is, something always was; something able to account for our going concern world. Involving, bridging the is-ought gap without self-referential self defeat and the need to rise above GIGO limited computationalism, as a material computing substrate is no better than the mechanical-stochastic result of its programming and given or detected data.  involving, that eternal being requires necessary being. That is, entities that are framework to any possible world and cannot not exist, e.g. the number 2 and all its kin. (Try to imagine a distinct world W in which by contrast with another W', 2 does not exist or begins or ceases -- already, just to be distinct 2 and is kin, NZQRCR* etc are already there . . . why Mathematics is universally powerful.)

The serious options on the table, then, must include a necessary being that is causally competent and able to bridge the is-ought gap, founding moral government and Paul's rational, responsible freedom. 

That essentially leaves X-theisms on the table. Of such, polytheism cannot answer to the bill of goods, and so we see:

Of these, only ethical theism can soundly address moral government, as is outlined. 

So, we come to St Peter's challenge on the eve of his judicial murder on the manifestly false charge of treasonous arson:

2 Peter 1: 16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty . . . . 

19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 

21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And is we are inclined to disbelieve the 500, that leaves us facing Paul's challenge to Festus, Agrippa et al in open court:

Acts 26:8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? . . . . 25 But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. 26 For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner. 27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”

The uneasy evasiveness of Agrippa's answer speaks volumes. Volumes that echo from AD 39 to AD 2024 and beyond. For, indeed, "this has not been done in a corner." END

"Democratic" relativism vs the universality of core natural law

 It has been suggested, that democracy allows us to vote in our own judgement; or even, ruin. Indeed, that was the verdict of educated people for two thousand years, given the sobering lessons of Athens' marches of ruinous folly during the Peloponnesian War. Or, Bible students may note the repeated fickleness, folly, error and outright injustice of the many crowds, mobs, riots and ill-considered assemblies in the New Testament. 

(Of these, the voyage of folly leading to shipwreck in Acts 27 is paradigmatic, indeed a study in miniature of follies of governance on the ship of state. Not too far behind, is Festus' plaintive plea for help from Agrippa and Bernice: Ac 25:"24 And Festus said, “King Agrippa and all who are present with us, you see this man about whom the whole Jewish people petitioned me, both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he ought not to live any longer. 25 But I found that he had done nothing deserving death . . . " Is it, then, any surprise, that only a few years later, the Jews rose up in suicidally foolish rebellion, ending in ruin and exile?)

So, then, 

Q: how do we avert the deterioration of democracy into the march of folly madness and injustice of the mob?

ANS: Through the core, natural, built-in law.

For, it is easy to make the mistake that "the majority" [Ac 27:] is always right -- or else, in despair, to assume it is always wrong or always the result of dirty manipulation. Instead, what seems an empty tautology is so:

SOUNDNESS: What is right is right.

That is, our challenge is to soundly, reliably discern the right and to have the integrity and courage to do it even in the face of the notoriously "conflicting thoughts" of Rom 2:15. 

In turn, that points to " the work of the law" that are "written on [our] hearts" of v. 14. 

That is, it is manifest that there are intelligible, knowable . . . but often inconvenient . . . core first duties and first law that emerge as we soundly reflect on key issues and challenges. Duties -- first duties -- that, as they are built into our rational, responsible, conscience guarded freedom, are universal and utterly binding. No king, judge, parliament or referendum can reverse these principles; though of course -- never mind how ill advised it may be -- we are free enough to act contrary to them, at least for the time being until shipwreck (all too predictably) results.

Those who have followed this blog and my other thinking over the years will know, I here allude to the Ciceronian summary of first, branch on which we all sit, duties and principles. Though, today, I want to probe deeper thanks to the foreword by Daniel Mahoney for a translation of a recent (2020) book by Pierre Manent. However, it may be helpful to work our way in by the back door.

First, let us remind ourselves of one of Dawkins' telling cat-out-of-the-bag moments: 

Yes, the establishment evolutionary materialist scientism of our day is self-defeatingly absurd. It cannot account for the necessary freedom to be credibly rational, much less for the resulting challenge of moral government, that we must strive to do the right (though we often stumble). This then allows us to understand the destructive, utterly unprincipled, unsound man:

By contrast, Cicero -- as teased out -- is manifestly right:

Of course, some will object to such boldly stated first principles. On what grounds? 

-- That they err? (= appeal to truth, right reason, warrant and wider prudence)

-- That they are an imposition against freedom? ( = appeal to conscience, neighbour, fairness, justice)

-- That we have no right to impose our "views" or "values"? (= appeal to neighbour, fairness, justice, conscience, and often to implicit imposition of another view!)

-- That theism is suspect, and this is a rush to theism? (= appeal to right reason, warrant, truth; also, failing to appreciate that the IS-OUGHT gap can only be bridged in the root of reality, requiring an IS that is inherently good and utterly wise . . . if you doubt, propose another _____ and show how it bridges ________  . . . rather than ending in immorality, amorality or the notion that right/wrong or good/evil is essentially arbitrary)

-- and the like? (= invariably, an appeal to such said first duties)

Anyway, as we come in the backdoor (having picked the lock), we now find some food for thought posted on the refrigerator door by Mahoney summarising Manent:

Manent reflects on “political action and the common good,” contending that the human good is not unsupported, and that we do not live in a merely arbitrary world; political action, he maintains, should be guided and informed by the old cardinal virtues: courage, prudence, temperance, and justice. As Manent put it in a 2014 essay, | . . . .

 “If we have the right to speak of humanity as a species sharing a common nature, this is because of this pattern of practical virtues, by which we recognize a courageous and just per-son in the human being born in the most distant and apparently dif-ferent latitude.” . . . .  

Manent reflects on the steady displacement of the natural law by the modern conception of human rights. [--> Ironically, your right to say life entails my duty to respect and uphold your life] He questions the widely shared notion of human rights that radically separates them, legitimate as they are in their own sphere, from the ends of human freedom.  [--> the civil peace of justice is due balance of rights, freedoms, duties] Manent rejects the fiction of human “autonomy”—a groundless free -dom, without reasons or purposes, to make our way in the world. Nor is he a partisan of “heteronomy,” where acting human beings take their direction from the will of others. Such categories are far too ab-stract; they tell us nothing about the “rules” inherent in human action itself. Those rules become clear as we act conscientiously in the world, trying to do justice to the sense of right and wrong that defines us as human beings. Starting from moral and political philosophy, from an eminently “practical world,” and not from theology or metaphysics (although Manent is in no way opposed to metaphysical reflection), Manent sets out to recover natural law as the key instrument vivify-ing free will, human choice, and moral and political action. [ Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason (Notre Dame Press, 2020), foreword pp. vii, viii.]

This is already provocative food for thought. But just in Chapter 1, he already goes deeper. As he argues on:

 “Why Natural Law Matters,” Manent highlights the incoherence of a rights project that combines apolitical universalism and a thoughtless cultural relativism. Commentators such as Olivier Roy condemn, for instance, Christian opposition to LGBT rights [--> claims?] but welcome, in the name of cultural tolerance, a far more vociferous opposition to them from European Muslims. The West is always judged severely, in this way of thinking, while the “Other” gets a free pass. As Manent demonstrates, politically and ju-ridically imposed same-sex marriage was not a modest change in the law to make marriage more “inclusive” but a systematic assault on the idea of a normative human nature. It changed the very nature of mar-riage, undercutting its natural foundations. Marriage—“the crucial institution of a human world organized according to natural law”— no longer acknowledges the complementarity of the sexes or the natural foundations of family life. Transgenderism continues this re-jection of the very idea of human nature and an authoritative natural moral law, where sex is radically separated from “gender.” That is surely worthy of reflection and debate before gender ideology be -comes a tyrannical orthodoxy beyond dispute. 

He goes on to indict:

 Machiavelli’s evocative rhetoric and audacious theorizing helped decisively to un-dermine the gap between what people do and what they ought to do, which is the horizon and precondition of all reasonable choice. In his assault on “imaginary principalities” (such as the perennial notion of natural law) in chapter 15 of The Prince, he frees “virtuosos of action,” daring revolutionaries of a new type, from adherence to the natural law. “Necessity,” a willingness to move back and forth between good and evil with an exhilarating alacrity, and immoral daring, become the trademark of those “princes” freed from the constraints of the moral law. They feign respect for that law—see chapter 18 of The Prince—but have no real place for it in their souls. 

There is of course, much more (especially on the pivotal question, "conscience"), but already we have much food for thought towards sound reformation. END

 

The "going concern world" challenge

 I have fairly frequently used a diagram illustrating our worldviews challenges, that speaks of our going concern world:

This, of course, echoes the common business term, the going concern. What it addresses is that long before we of the current generation came along, there was a world in being, playing out dynamics and leaving traces including those of history and of accumulated knowledge. Just to fix to something concrete, consider the context and background involved in this mom-and-pop machinist business in Australia, as it sets about repairing a broken hydraulic arm for an industrial machine:  

In our epistemology-haunted civilisation that is often tempted to give hyperskepticism a default over knowledge, this sort of situation opens up the force of the late Dallas Willard's expansion of the definition of knowledge:

To have knowledge . . . is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”) [--> compare, "warranted, credibly true (and so, reliable) belief"] This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life [--> knowledge belongs to the people], and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric . . . .  

[K]nowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with. Knowledge involves assured [--> I substitute here, warranted, credible]  truth . . .  [pp. 4, 19 & 20:  Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge|Taylor& Francis Group, 2018. It is worth using a light dusting of algebra to show the undeniability of objective knowledge:

a: Take any reasonably identifiable field of focus, but it is convenient to use morality, M, the subject that deals with good/evil, duty and honour, right and wrong etc, and 

b: identify the claim, there  is no objective moral knowledge -- i.e. there are no claimed moral truths that are well warranted so independent of the error-prone idiosyncrasies of a given personality -- and represent it: ~k(M).

c: Now, ~k(M) is about M (thus every particular moral truth claim m1, m2, m3 . . . mk . . . ), implying that for any asserted positive moral truth, it is objectively the case that ~k(mk) obtains [or else, it would be mere giving of idiosyncratic opinion]; and so it manifestly properly belongs to M, it is a part of that domain of thought, study and analysis.

 d: So, ~k(M) is self referential and self denying, i.e. it refutes itself and is false. This being a case of a commonplace on core claims about central, foundational, hard questions, part of why they bristle with difficulties is that they are deeply self-referential.) Thus,

 e: instead, ~[~k(M)] = k(M) obtains, i.e. the first objective moral truth is, there are objective moral truths. 

f: As a first substantial, indeed self evident moral truth, it is wrong, wicked, evil to kidnap a young child, then bind, sexually torture, rape and murder her for one's sick pleasure. (Those who try to deny, evade, dismiss or distract attention from this yardstick case simply show themselves to be monstrous.)]

The obvious, instant challenge here, is that knowledge confers credibility and so legitimate authority; which irks those inclined to overthrow our legacy civilisation and its traditional institutions. To all such, I say, knowledge belongs to the people and to the real world of competence. Knowledge, in the common received sense, is a commonplace, not a vanishingly rare commodity.

Any intellectual scheme that implies that warranted so objective knowledge is not real, is refuted and fallacious, especially global or rhetorically selective hyperskepticism. Such specifically includes schemes that imply, suggest or invite an infinite chain of required definitions, axioms and proofs, or that our knowledge base is hopelessly circular or ill defined, or that language generally fails at communication (or is irretrievably ambiguous), or that only what is reduced to an algebraic logical scheme is sufficiently exact to be trustworthy, etc. All of this is simply an extension of the principle that as our core discussions are inescapably self-referential, any scheme that leads to grand delusion is self-defeating and absurd.

All of this, is part of our going concern world.

Moreover, that going concern world frame implies that the origins, roots and nature of the world must be such that we are possible and indeed actual. This sort of generic, weak anthropic premise, actually constrains the plausibility of worldviews and associated philosophical, scientific, ideological, religious, historical and natural history claims. So much so, that this preliminary body of considerations must be considered as a preface to and due constraint on any speculative philosophical, epistemological/skeptical and logical scheme. Where, it is helpful for such intellectual ventures to first explicitly acknowledge that going concern world framework.

For example, it seems fairly clear that we are rational (though error-prone), responsible, significantly free, morally governed creatures: finite, fallible, morally challenged, too often ill-willed and stubborn or even willfully blind. In that context, it seems clear that say, Dawkins' remark in River out of Eden (1995) is clangingly, absurdly wrong:

Indeed, it has long been known that something is grossly wrong with lab coat clad scientific atheism (and this shows that no, Dawkins is not making an idiosyncratic error that can be brushed aside; instead, he is just caught in a characteristic, cat-out-of-the-bag moment of inconvenient candour):

 It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]

No wonder, Thomas Reid had long since observed that "[h]e must either be a fool, or want to make a fool of me, that would reason me out of my reason and senses."

Their name, sadly, is Legion.

Instead of the suggested amoral  world of pitiless, pointless, mindless indifference, we may ponder Cicero's built-in roots of the natural law, our first duties of reason:

Of course, it is highly controversial to suggest that the only serious candidate reality root that bridges the IS-OUGHT gap is the inherently good, utterly wise creator God. The answer to that is, this is philosophy not dogma, propose and defend a candidate of your own: _____ . It will, however, all too soon emerge that of the live option candidates, it is hard indeed to come up with another . . . going concern world . . . factually adequate, coherent, explanatorily balanced alternative. Already, Dawkins shows how the institutionally dominant evolutionary materialistic scientism fails. 

Trying to pull a world out of utter non being is even more embarrassing:

The small-g gods of paganism (and no, this is not a dirty word) are simply not world root reality. And of theism and its kissing cousins, we may see:

In short, we can see how a natural language based exploration of the going concern world lends to clearing the ground for productive reflections. END

The rise of "AI" (Artificial Intelligence) brings ethical concerns and principles to sharp focus

 For quite some time, I have been working on an initiative to help spark first level digital productivity, ranging from "7 - 11 year olds of all ages," through initial multimedia authoring and a first functional programming course. In the course of further work on Unit 1, I have been led to address "AI":

<<AI promises to transform technology, industry and how we live and work. Arguably, it is driving the second Info-Comms Technology (ICT) economic long wave, with massive creation and destruction of wealth ahead . . . and already in progress. To function and prosper in tomorrow's world, we will need to be able to appreciate and be productive in an age of super smart machines. So, then,  this course is a larval stage for building a desirable future for our region.

Such will of course require considerable attention to not only the obvious safety, privacy, rights and security issues, but also to ethical principles, practices and habits at personal, educational, institutional, business, community and global levels. Precisely, as AI systems, increasingly, are "capable of performing complex tasks that historically only a human could do, such as reasoning, making decisions, or solving problems." Power or capability, clearly, entails duties to do good, be prudent ("first, do no harm"), act wisely, and be honourable. Where, as AI is in reality "CI" -- canned intelligence, such ethical behaviour has to start with us. As, it is we who design, organise, program, inform and guide the AI. For example, AI has potential to help create an all-seeing surveillance state, a totalitarian horror that would more than fulfill anything in the notorious AD 95 passage in the Apocalypse, that no one could buy or sell save those who took the notorious mark of the beast. It is only us who can safeguard our liberty.

More broadly, as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy outlines:  

 Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are digital technologies that will have significant impact on the development of humanity in the near future. They have raised fundamental questions about what we should do with these systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve, and how we can control these . . . .  [Key issues include]: Ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e., tools made and used by humans. This includes issues of privacy (§2.1) and manipulation (§2.2), opacity (§2.3) and bias (§2.4), human-robot interaction (§2.5), employment (§2.6), and the effects of autonomy (§2.7). Then AI systems as subjects, i.e., ethics for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (§2.8) and artificial moral agency (§2.9). Finally, the problem of a possible future AI superintelligence leading to a “singularity” (§2.10). [In, Vincent C Mueller, 2020, "Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics."]

Beyond this, AI ethics points to broader ethics of computing and information, thence general ethics. As ethics is now too often inadequately framed, a good first reference for both the AI concerns and broader aspects of ethics, is Cicero's branch- on- which- we- all- sit, built-in first duties:

The naturally evident, first duties and first, built in law that built our civilisation.  Manifestly, the habitually untruthful, unreasonable, imprudent, unfair (so, untrustworthy) person is not someone who we readily, safely do business with. So, too, as Aristotle pointed out in The Rhetoric, Bk 1 Ch 13, "there is a general idea of just and unjust in accordance with nature," noting from Sophocles' Antigone, how "neither to-day nor yesterday, but from all eternity, these statutes live and no man knoweth whence they came . . . " Further, we may adapt Aquinas' summary: the good (especially, the just) is to be done and evil avoided. Thus, we see outlined core principles of the natural, intelligible, conscience attested law that indeed helped to build our civilisation.  And yes, such first duties include duties and first principles of prudent, sound reasoning, as well as pointing to the famous (and, for cause, still widely influential) ten commandments, as "duties to neighbour" suggests. As the Apostle Paul put it, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law," having earlier noted how when people "by nature do what the law requires," they thus "show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." [Rom. 13:10, 2:14 - 15; cf. Exodus 20:1 - 17, Deut 6:1 - 9, Lev 19:15 - 18 and Matt 22:34 - 40 for relevant but frequently overlooked context.] Where, too, the historic vision holds that God -- our utterly wise and inherently good, eternal root and sustainer -- is manifestly our first neighbour, and our host ("in him we live, and move and have our being" [Ac 17:38]). Thus, for good reason, in our God-fearing region God is widely understood to be the ultimate, adequate source of moral government; being the root level is who by goodness and wisdom properly grounds ought. Such ethical theism is therefore pro-civilisational, something that needs to be said in a day where "religion" is too often, increasingly treated as if it were a dirty word. Moreover, this draws out that ethics is tied to the root of our worldviews, even as we can see that there are indeed self evident first duties we should all heed. Bottom-line: morally sound character counts, in AI, in wider computing, in general business, in community and in civilisation.

So, among other things, AI brings the ethical issues of computing in society to a sharp focus.>>

In so doing, it draws attention to the ethical hole in our civilisation, and the urgent need to fill it. First, as computing and information technology sectors are extremely fast moving, capable of transforming the economy and society at unprecedented rates. So, if we make big, Acts 27 voyage of folly blunders, we can now shipwreck our civilisation very rapidly indeed. And not just through the folly of a nuclear war; already we see troubling signs of lawless authoritarian ideologies reaching for mass surveillance and for censorship, even as they marginalise, brand, target and polarise against today's version of Emanuel Goldstein in Orwell's 1984. And, it is clear that computerised theft of elections is very possible, especially if backed by the unaccountable administrative state and wider "establishment." The AI-empowered deep state is all too real. 

But, the problem is deeper than that. 

For, in recent centuries and decades, we have seen increasingly dominating influence of worldviews and cultural/policy agendas that have in them no root level IS that can properly found OUGHT. Radical relativism, emotivism, subjectivism, hyperskepticism and associated atheism (usually dressed up in a lab coat) have run the board, as "religion," especially our Hebraic-Christian inheritance, has been turned into a dirty word through utterly imbalanced emphasis on the sins and follies of Christendom. That want of balance, indeed, was a challenge for drafting the above cited note. 

So, let me pause and highlight from the Ciceronian first duties that indeed, there are branch on which we all sit, inescapable first principles and first duties: to try to object, one cannot but appeal to the same. As this excites strong emotions, let us simply point out that such objections would include: that's not true, or you have to prove that, or you only think you know that, or that's not fair, or that's only your view you are trying to impose on us, etc. All of these, in fact, directly appeal to the said seven first duties: truth, right reason, warrant and wider prudence, duties to neighbour so to fairness and justice. In short, instant absurdity on attempted denial. Just as it says on the tin, self-evident, known moral first truths, first duties and first law. 

We can broaden the result, as morality, M, is reasonably identifiable as that subject that addresses duty, virtue, honour, goodness (vs evil) right (vs wrong), justice (vs injustice) etc. So, the claim that there is no warranted, objective knowledge about morality, ~k(M), is about M, is intended to be objective knowledge, and properly belongs to M. So, the attempted denial -- were it ever successful -- would imply that ~k(M) is an objective, known moral truth. Oops. So, it is false by self contradiction. Instead, we freely assert ~[~k(M)] = k(M). There undeniably is objectively knowable moral truth, starting with this one. In that light, the similarly self evident status of the first duties is unsurprising.

From this, we can revisit the seemingly invincible hyperskepticism, relativism and emotivism etc of our day. For, objectively warranted, known moral truths defeat hyperskepticism, relativism and subjectivism etc. They may hold dominant influence, handing power elites the ability to impose otherwise indefensible perverse, ill advised policies. But, they are dead, doomed to dry up.

And, it is readily seen that there is but one serious candidate reality root that properly grounds Ought. 

Again, our challenge:

Yes, we see here, the inherently good, utterly wise creator God, a necessary and maximally great being. Those who dismiss, reject or evade, need to put forth another candidate that coherently bridges the is-ought gap: __________ 

That blank will prove hard to fill indeed, as the confusions and unsettled state of ethics in our day will readily substantiate. 

This has long been important, the rise of AI now makes it utterly urgent. END