Any Nihilists here?

[GrandizerII]

That's not testing a moral claim, that's testing a physical claim???

Let's say that someone tells you causing harm is bad.  How can we test that?

This is a reasonable question which is not getting the respect it deserves. What exactly makes an act morally good/bad/neutral as opposed to practical/impractical?

I was one time a moral subjectivist, then I became a moral objectivist, and now I have no idea where to stand on this matter of whether morality is ultimately subjective or objective.

You know what I think is partly the crux of the matter here? Seems to me like the moral objectivist doesn't consider "moral oughts" to be a separate category from "practical oughts" whereas someone like you does appear to consider them separate categories. For the former, it seems like "moral oughts" are "practical oughts on steroids" or something like that, whereas the latter don't see it like that, and so that's partly what causes both sides of the debate to talk past one another.

Sometimes I think like this:
Yes, harm sucks, harm is awful, and we ought to avoid that for practical reasons. But there is indeed this nagging question of why it's "religiously so bad". If harm is bad simply because it sucks and/or because we're better off as a society not causing one another harm and what have you, then it would be great for all of us if we adhered to that maxim, but where is the religious aspect of it being bad coming from exactly? Seems like it's going to come down to things that, at the core, are quite subjective.

Other times, I'm thinking:
But hold on. Why shouldn't "practical oughts" being objective be a natural easy step to "moral oughts" being objective? After all, perhaps this "religious" aspect of oughts being categorically different from practical aspects is an illusion, and there is really no such thing therefore as a "religious moral ought".

And then sometimes (like right now), I'm thinking this:
What am I even saying? Even practical oughts don't appear to stem purely from objective facts, and values and goals in line with these values are going to be essential to get to oughts. And are not values subjective at the core? Or maybe they are objective in a very meaningful and relevant sense, and I'm not really getting what is being meant by "objective", and so it turns out oughts are really indeed objective? But then, what is being meant by "objective" here? And how does this effectively address your challenge exactly?

And so I go in circles here.

It's a tough one.

[FrustratedFool]

So, in order to test whether causing harm is bad you propose scolding someone as an experiment.

But that seems to test whether or not scolding causes physical harm etc rather than tests for badness. All you're doing is testing to see if action X (scolding) causes harm. But it cannot show that causing harm is bad.

I agree that scolding causes harm.

But what test do you propose to see whether or not causing harm by seeing is bad or good?

[Belacqua]

That's not testing a moral claim, that's testing a physical claim???

Let's say that someone tells you causing harm is bad.  How can we test that?

Yes, you're right. If we prove that wanking causes hairy palms, that is a physical demonstration, not a moral one. It doesn't address whether wanking is bad. If you live in Siberia, hairy palms may be a positive good. 

There are a couple of ways to think of this, maybe. One is a language analysis: the word "harm" includes badness in its meaning. There is no good harm. So saying that harm is bad is tautological. This doesn't prove anything beyond the language, though. 

We could express these as "if/then" statements. So for example "when the guy broke my leg and put me in the hospital, it harmed my chances of making the soccer team." If your goal is making the soccer team, then getting your leg broken interferes with your chances. So it becomes a bit utilitarian and practical. 

There will be cases where the goal is more obviously moral than making the soccer team. If you want the starving villagers to be fed, then it's bad to blow up the grain shipment. I think it would require some elaborate arguments to demonstrate that feeding the villagers is bad, though I suppose it's possible. There is no scientific proof. 

Then in general cases there are if/then statements which we can probably all agree on. So for example, "If you want a baby to grow up healthy and strong and have a good chance at happiness in life, then it is bad to chop off its arms and legs." There is no scientific proof that it's good for a baby to grow up with a chance at happiness, but it's something I think sane people would agree on. 

So in extreme cases I think despite a lack of proof, we can still say that any sane person would agree. Is it bad to nuke Paris and kill everybody there simply for my entertainment? I see no way that a sane person could make an argument that it is good. 

Right at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle addresses the difficulty of having certainty in ethical questions. 

We must not expect more precision than the subject-matter admits of. The student should have reached years of discretion

Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts.

So to refer to your other thread, we can state the width of a table with confidence and precision. But we can't expect the same level of confidence and precision in moral statements. But this doesn't mean that moral statements are meaningless, only that in most cases we have to live with more fuzziness. 

We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true, and with premisses of the same kind, to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits...

emphasis added

[Belacqua]

I agree that scolding causes harm.

Jeez, man -- about half the posts on this forum do nothing but scold. We must be doing a hell of a lot of harm.

[FrustratedFool]

Lol, spelling error on my part. Replace scolding with scalding.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It's a source of amusement to me that the suicide rate among nihilists isn't through the roof.

Boru

[GrandizerII]

It's a source of amusement to me that the suicide rate among nihilists isn't through the roof.

Boru

Suicide takes effort. Continuing to live is much easier.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It's a source of amusement to me that the suicide rate among nihilists isn't through the roof.

Boru

Suicide takes effort. Continuing to live is much easier.

That's exactly wrong. Suicides happen because living becomes too hard.

I just can't imagine that someone who believes (objectively or subjectively) that nothing matters, nothing counts for anything, and - in extreme cases - nothing even exists, wouldn't descend into a maelstrom of depression and despair that ended with them taking their own life.

Boru

[GrandizerII]

Suicide takes effort. Continuing to live is much easier.

That's exactly wrong. Suicides happen because living becomes too hard.

I just can't imagine that someone who believes (objectively or subjectively) that nothing matters, nothing counts for anything, and - in extreme cases - nothing even exists, wouldn't descend into a maelstrom of depression and despair that ended with them taking their own life.

Boru

It takes a combination of factors that go beyond just feeling life is too hard or experiencing some existential crisis to be driven to commit suicide. Our instinct to keep going is generally quite strong.

And suicide is not something that just usually happens on the spot. Often times, a lot of physical and mental preparation needs to be made in order to take one's own life.

[Ahriman]

Physical harm can't really be counted as "objective harm", because physical harm doesn't always affect the core identity of the person being harmed, meaning, that physical harm might not cause its victim any sort of emotional distress, thus not really "harming" the person, only the person's body. Even if the victim does feel emotional distress as a result of being physically harmed, it can't be considered an "objective harm", because their emotional distress is subjective.