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          Lately I've been thinking about how much of a mess our moral intuitions and normative ethics in general are, and whether this fact could be developed into an argument against moral realism. While I am not sure enough about the thoughts I have on this topic to claim that they constitute a successful argument, I want to share them and see how they might be best developed here. First, let me expand on what I mean when I say that morality is a 'mess':     Consider moral luck: One of the fundamental principles of morality that we all take for granted in our ordinary moral practice is that factors completely outside of our control should not be relevant to our moral standing. People cannot be assessed for what is not their fault and is instead just a matter of pure luck (Call this the 'control principle'). And, indeed, this moral judgement is clearly reflected in our criminal justice system: we treat murder worse than attempted murder, which is worth than mansla

Disclaimer: I almost completely renounce this post and the methodology I use. Since writing it I've come to think most of the philosophical framework used in here is dubious, especially as it appears the van Inwagen's "Fregean" argument. I've decided to keep the post up anyway though as it does express plausible reservations if you don't share my newfound metaphilosophical gripes. The Failure of the Ontological Argument Introduction Anselm’s famous ontological argument (often called the ontological argument) and its modernizations are a popular subject of debate between philosophers, apologists, and online communities. Compared to other common arguments for the existence of God, Anselm’s argument has a reputation for being conceptually difficult. So, the first task of this essay is to translate Anselm’s argument from his Proslogion into modern terms so that it can be thoroughly understood. Anselm’s argument is also notorious for being “sketchy,”  in that f