What would be the harm?

[Angrboda]

I can toss you a lifeline, btw, give you something to chew on that actually -is- problematic for moral realism and realist moral theory and theorists as it relates to consequentialist ethics and those who advocate for them, such as Harris. 

What if doing The Good™ actually leads to some terrible consequence?  What if doing The Bad™ leads to the The Good End™?  Far more worrisome than cornering oneself into arguing for absurdities, eh?

First off, I'm not arguing on the basis of consequentialism and as far as I can see, this conversation has little if anything to do with consequentialism. You keep imagining my position has something to do with consequentialism because doing so gives you a convenient handle to use in overturning my argument. But since consequentialism is not my argument, you're simply appealing to your ability to defeat a straw man which is doing nothing more than boring me to tears and giving me furtgher reason to doubt you.

And when asked why it is bad, you end up chasing your tail.  I am engaging the proposition.  You have failed to support it.  If you cannot provide a rational reason for believing that harm is objectively bad, I'm under no compulsion to believe it.

Again, you are not, because the contention offered by harris and other intuitivists is not that "harm is bad because" in any way, shape, or form.  There is no because.  Your circular arguments that follow from "because" are your own, not theirs.  

If their and your contention is that harm is bad, not for any reasons but just because it is so, then it's nothing more than ipse dixit and can be summarily tossed. Please tell me you're not arguing that harm is bad not for any reason but rather because you said so. If they do not have reasons for their conclusion, then their conclusion can be dismissed. Ipse dixit arguments have a strong tendency to be subjective. If you and Harris cannnot provide objective reasons for your assertion, even in principle, then your belief is subjective out of necessity. That harm cannot be objectively defined on its own provides evidence that the statement "harm is bad" is not an objective statement and so cannot be anything but a subjective truth. And the circular argument is implied because Harris is implying that his belief that harm is bad is a rational belief. Rational beliefs have reasons for them by definition. You're confusing my pointing out that a subjective reason for something cannot form an objective basis for something with me believing that the only reason something might be objectively bad is because of a subjective reason. I'm perfectly sympathetic to the possibility that moral realism is in fact valid, just not to you and Harris' reasons or definitions about what is or is not bad. That philosophers have uniformly panned such notions as you and Harris are promoting even after having examined the arguments strongly suggests that you and Harris are out to lunch.

In that framework, there is no because or why.  Harm is bad as a brute fact, it's what, or one of, the things we are talking about when we say "bad"....and we are capable of observing harm.

Since you aren't even able to provide an objective definition of harm, the idea that harm is bad is a fact is laughable. It's one of the things that you are talking about when you say bad because you have a subjective belief that harm is both objectively definable and an objective foundation for badness. Persons such as myself who do not hold such beliefs don't necessarily view harm and bad being related in the way you suggest.

No, you haven't.  What way have you shown that harm is bad?  I count two.  First that harm is bad because it is contrary to goals.  But goals are subjective, so that doesn't make harm objectively bad.  The other thing you've appealed to is that harm might be bad based on something other than subjective desires.  That something might be bad does not in any sense demonstrate that it is bad and so that objection goes nowhere.  You keep claiming to have provided things that you have not in fact provided.  If you feel otherwise, you need only show one thing that makes harm objectively bad, whatever it may be.  And it can't be that harm is bad for the obvious reason.

Then you are making a claim.  That we can show the depth of a wound or a pile of rubble is not, you contend, objective.

That a wound has a certain depth or that something is a pile of rubble does not in itself make it bad. And yes, I'm making a claim, namely that you have not provided an objective definition of harm or something objective that makes something harm, and the evidence for my claim is your inability to provide such when asked to do so just now. Wounds and piles of rubble are not objectively bad. They are just states of affairs in the world. I am not disputing that we can measure wounds or piles of rubble. Our ability to measure something does not make something bad by virtue of our ability to measure it. So providing me with a wound or a pile of rubble do not, by themselves, show that these states of affairs are bad. You were asked to show that wounds and piles of rubble are bad, not merely that they exist. I have no disagreement as to that they exist and are measurable. That you think that a wound or a pile of rubble is necessarily bad stems from what exactly?