Any Nihilists here?

[Angrboda]

As long as there are statements about them which change whether it's good or bad, then it isn't objective.  Who is it helping if it isn't helping them?

Any objective moral system has to respect change in factual details.  Otherwise it wouldn't be objective.  Subjective and non cognitivist moral systems are the ones that don't have to respect those changes - because those details aren't the basis of a subjectivist or noncognitivist assessment.  

Not if those facts are subjective. That's what objective means.

Giving a person dying of thirst water is objectively helpful.  It's why there's a duty to care even when prisoners go on hunger strikes.  It's a good example of exclusively subotimal decision fields too, though, because in the process of saving their life we might override their own wishes and..arguably, reduce the effectiveness of their protest.  So, in this situation, you're stuck with two bad options.  In one of them you help and the guy might get angry with you, in the other you watch someone die when you could have helped.  I'd say, at best, if you select the second option, you're both morally and practically apathetic.  At worst, you might be personally culpable for their death.

You're trying to demonstrate that at least one thing is objectively good / bad. You can't do that by assuming that some other thing that you haven't shown to be objectively morally good which implies the other thing is itself morally good. That's just begging the question. You haven't answered the objection, all you've done is kick the can down the road.

[The Grand Nudger]

The list of things in the set of the good is debatable. I can only say that if some person I'm talking to puts "grinding kittens faces against a metal file" in there.... then we just aren't talking about the same thing when we use the terms?

A change in a subjective fact, in metaethical parlance, would be some change in your own opinion or attitude. Not a change in the facts of an object or act in question. In a subjective moral system, objective facts can change all they want and It doesn't matter, because your conclusion isn't derived from anything about the x in question.

In an objective moral system, your opinion or attitude could change about some given x, but absent a change in facts of that thing x it will remain whatever it was before you had your change of heart.

[Angrboda]

The list of things in the set of the good is debatable.  I can only say that if some person I'm talking to puts "grinding kittens faces against a metal file" in there.... then we just aren't talking about the same thing when we use the terms?

Not presently. So far the set of things objectively good or bad is zero.

A change in a subjective fact, in metaethical parlance, would be some change in your own opinion or attitude.  Not a change in the facts of an object or act in question.  In a subjective moral system, objective facts can change all they want and It doesn't matter, because your conclusion isn't derived from anything about the x in question.  

Which besides being false is not particularly relevant.

In an objective moral system, your opinion or attitude could change about some given x, but absent a change in facts of that thing x it will remain whatever it was before you had your change of heart.

I believe I already said that. Are you going to get around to demonstrating objective morals or are you going to tap dance some more?

[The Grand Nudger]

As if I hadn't already? When I say that some x is bad, I'm -always- contending that x is objectively harmful. That is all that moral realism claims.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...because you say so. :-(

[The Grand Nudger]

That would be a subjectivist moral system...like the commands of some silly god...so...no? The whole point of an objective moral statement is that you read it and check it for exactly what it says on the tin. If I say something is harmful and it isn't - then I'm wrong. There's no point in trying to pull teeth here. It's a non novel claim.

[FrustratedFool]

That would be a subjectivist moral system...like the commands of some silly god...so...no? The whole point of an objective moral statement is that you read it and check it for exactly what it says on the tin. If I say something is harmful and it isn't - then I'm wrong. There's no point in trying to pull teeth here. It's a non novel claim.

But you wouldn't be checking to see if something is harmful. You'd be checking to see if it is wrong.

You have defined harm as wrong. But why? It seems you just intuit that causing unjust harm is wrong. But that's not the same kind of knowledge as measuring physical external reality.

Basically, why is causing harm wrong?

[The Grand Nudger]

It's the other way around...but the question is evergreen. Why is a cat a cat?

[FrustratedFool]

Cat is just an agreed upon term to refer to a physical object and carries no ought with it.

But wrongness isn't a physical thing, cannot be measured, and carries an injunction.

They are not the same at all.

It seems you are trying to use bad as a direct synonym for harm. But that runs into a problem which names for objects doesn't, the ought/is problem.

Let's take your synonym and just replace bad with harm and vice versa.

With that acceptance, we can now agree that harm/bad is now something physical and measurable. But the question just now changes to: Why should I not cause harm/bad? Note this is a meaningful question, unlike Why should I not cause cat, which is nonsense.

So, why should I not cause harm/bad?

Edit: Additionally, why should anyone accept your belief that harm=bad? Without a shared physical object we can all measure/test, why not believe bad is something else? It seems arbitrary and subjective.

[The Grand Nudger]

Motivation is personal. Maybe you do want to cause harm - but to an objectivist, a subjective justification for harm falls flat.

As I told you before, I'm a value pluralist. I think we're talking about more than just harm (or just help) when we make moral utterances. Feel free to add other things in there. We'll consider each candidate objectively. I use harm because it's simple..because we're all familiar with it. Because we use it in our everyday discussions about right and wrong. All of it using objectivist propositions, ofc.

As before, if pouring boiling water on a geriatrics labia isn't even one of the things we're talking about when we discuss Bad Things™ - then IDK what would be. To be blunt, this entire line of objection is absurd from the other end. Arguing for the sake of arguing, hoping a hole comes up - to no end and in a not entirely credible manner.

I can help you skip past this part. There isn't a hole. Moral realism is valid even if it isn't true. It's the standard position of moral academia. That we're not just mouthing empty phrases, we're trying to communicate something. That it's possible to get any fact-alike statement right or wrong, that at least some moral statements are fact alike, and so we can get what we're trying to communicate right and wrong.