What would be the harm?

[Angrboda]

That is the contention of an intuitivist argument, Jorg.  To then respond that this is circular because they're saying that harm is bad because "blah blah blah" is straw.  It's not about misrepresenting you, I'm pointing out that you've -profoundly- misrepresented them.    Your arguments...your arguments that harm is bad because x y and z may in fact be circular, but they are yours.  

No, Khem, they are yours. You only brought out the notion of brute fact after I pointed out that neither of your arguments showed harm to be objective because those were the only arguments you presented for harm being objective. My only argument was that subjective reasons cannot make harm an objective fact, not that harm is bad because of those reasons. How could I possibly be arguing that harm is bad because of those reasons when I'm not arguing that harm is bad at all? Your complaint makes no sense. What I was pointing out was that the reasons you were giving for concluding that harm has an objective definition, that something is immoral regardless of whether something was desired or not, can only appeal to your belief that harm is immoral because there is no other appeal in any of your arguments. If that's not your foundation for asserting that harm has an objective definition, then fine, harm is not objective on that account. I'm cheap. I'm easy. But here's the problem, Khem, you haven't established that harm has an objective description on any other account either. So straw man or no, your argument still fails. I think this whole spiel about how something is not necessarily immoral because someone has reasons was an implicit appeal to the idea that I was responsible for establishing that harm is not objectively immoral, and for that to be the case, you would have to be implicitly claiming that harm is immoral and therefore my pointing out the subjective nature of having reasons for viewing something as harm does not refute that position. There. Circle squared! You were implying that. (ETA: And I'll also point out that you brought out the dictionary in order to show that harm is bad because it meets the dictionary definition of bad. That move was quickly scuttled when it was shown that harm met the dictionary definition of bad because the dictionary defined bad as "contrary to specific [subjective] reasons." So, again no, you were explicitly trying to claim that the things the dictionary mentioned were an objective description of bad and so you explicitly made "harm is bad because of reasons" your position by doing so. I can quote the post where you vomited up the dictionary definition if you need proof. Otherwise your dictionary episode makes no sense. You're just backpedaling fiercely, but I really don't care. You haven't established your conclusion elsewise, so backing away from your own arguments is just a silly and laughable escapade.)

And, sure, brute facts do need to be agreed upon.  Do you disagree with Harris formation of the brute fact of harm?  That the greatest suffering for the greatest number of things, if bad means anything, is bad?  I'm sure that you can appreciate the absurd position that disagreement with this very sensible statement will put you in.  This, alone, is enough to establish that harm is morally relevant...and since harm at least -can be- objectively quantified..you would have to put yourself into further absurdity to disagree with it's validity as an objective metric.  As an evaluative premise.  You further contend that there is no agreement of harm..and that's a claim, and an assertion (so there's no hiding behind "well, I'm not claiming anything".,.yes, yes you are)..and it would take alot of discussion to unpack that one...but at least, for the moment, consider that you may be wrong there as well.

Again, you are confused. I am not saying that harm is bad is not a brute fact because we have subjective reasons for not wanting harm. I'm saying that harm is bad is not a brute fact because it has no objective definition. Something must actually correspond to some state of affairs before one can even postulate that said state of affairs is bad. Harm does not objectively pick out a specific state of affairs and so it cannot be anything but a subjectively held idea, unless, and until, you can establish that it does pick out an objectively identifiable state of affairs. Your claiming that harm is bad is a brute fact does not accomplish this feat. Neither does any of the other rot that you've tried to suggest objectively defines harm. If harm doesn't refer to an objective state of affairs in the world, then the proposition that harm is bad cannot be a brute fact because it is not even a fact, brute or not. My objection, and that of many philosophers is that harm and well-being are subjective values, and so their existence or non-existence is only good or bad from a subjective viewpoint. It may be a widely held viewpoint, and it may be a universally held viewpoint, but that does not change the fact that it is in fact a viewpoint and nothing more than a viewpoint. As a matter of fact, it probably is universally held among humans by virtue of us having the same psychology. A lion or a flesh eating bacteria is not likely to agree that you having a wound is a bad thing. The idea that harm is bad is only true from the perspective that it is bad in relation to the things humans want, and that makes it subjective.

It's still unsatisfying.  Harris argument does not give me, or you, the warm fuzzies and fill us with certainty in the accuracy of our moral propositions.  Oh well.

I don't give a fucking rat's ass whether it's satisfying or not. After all the years you've known me for you to accuse me of dismissing something solely because it does not give me the warm fuzzies can only be presumed to be trolling, because you know goddamn well I don't swing that way. Nihilism doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. I don't dismiss it on that account. Now you've gone from bad to worse.

That still leaves you with the easiest avenue of criticism, though.  Our agency.  Our spotty ability to see harm, or care when we do.  This is exactly where you went, though you confused our agency or compulsion for the foundations of objective justification.

That you think my objection rested upon epistemological difficulties clearly shows that you are out to lunch. My objection lies on two prongs: a) the lack of an objective definition for harm, and b) your inability to provide an example of something that is objectively harmful. Since you can establish the truth of your assertion in neither the specific nor the general, I'm dismissing it as unfounded.

And you didn't bother to provide any explanation for why your previous response to me involved such an egregious misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what I had argued. Were you just going to quietly distance yourself from that by talking about other things? The sheer balls of you accusing me of a straw man argument after having made such a blatantly obvious straw man argument yourself is the sheerest hypocrisy.

And I'm going to be out of this conversation for a few days because of football and other things. In the meantime I suggest you get your head together and think up an objective definition of harm, because you haven't provided one yet, and if harm has no objective definition then arguing that harm is objectively bad is simply moronic. Note that this doesn't commit me to showing that harm doesn't have an objective definition or that harm is not objectively immoral, because I'm not making either claim. I am claiming that you can't rationally assert that harm is objectively immoral. If your assertion is not a rational one, I just don't care.