What would be the harm?

[The Grand Nudger]

If I don't have a binding issue with killing cattle...what chance does an ant have to garner my sympathies?  

I dunno.  You're the one claiming that there are objective mores floating around in the ether.  My position is that since you don't have strong feelings about the animals' welfare, and since those around you don't elicit worry or fear of castigation about the issue, that you are unlikely to consider the welfare of the animals in your dietary decisions.

Then you'd simply be wrong on each count...regarding articles that don't impeach moral objectivity in the first place.  That's a Benny problem..just as any of my dietary inequities would be a Gae problem.  Human beings are capable of moral failure, and..clearly, human beings are capable of rational failure...though, to a realist...the two statements are redundant as we've previously discussed.  It might be helpful for you to remember that deeming something to be wrong for the wrong reasons is just as much an example of a moral and/or rational failure as some other thing may be.

 But that's because I don't believe there are things which are just right because they're right--

Neither does a realist. Even a non natural realist considers things to be wrong because they present themselves as tokens of some type, that they signify a form.

I believe morality is a process of feeling and subsequent negotiation with others.

So does a realist.  A realist, however, in light of relevant facts of the matter, recognizes that this is not all there is to the subject.

How about a lion?  If it shreds an animal for lunch, is it acting immorally?

I don't think so, no.  We don't generally consider them capable of rational failure.  They are not like us in that relevant way.  If they had a mind capable of apprehending moral value...and that mind was capable of a moral assessment in light of that moral information...then we might hold them morally accountable.  Since they don't, they can't..and we wont.  I'm super friendly to the notion of sliding the bar closer to us than others may think..and it;s noted that many animals express a sort of proto moral impulse often described as a sense of empathy. This is generally thought to be the precursor of our own much more elaborate rational systems of morality - and it still informs us, deeply, with regards to it..though not always accurately.

Since you are claiming that causing harm is intrinsically moral, and not dependent on the whims of a subjective agent, does it really matter what kind of agent commits the harm?

Sure..why wouldn't it?  If were discussing moral objectivity, the ability to understand a moral proposition is relevant to any prospective moral agents desert.  If we're not..then, obviously, it doesn't matter at all.

Or are you going to argue capacity, with the caveat that we don't get to consider brain function and determinism in considering capacity among humans?

Don't we consider that, though, in determining any particular human beings moral capacity?  Why wouldn't we?  It does seem to be the case that there are human beings who either lack moral agency, or possess an underdeveloped moral agency.  Then, there is the fact that all human beings who do possess a well developed moral agency can still be compromised with respect to the same by a great many factors of both environment and biology.  

So you claim there are objective mores, give the example of the causing of physical harm being immoral, and then embrace the causing of physical harm, and with a certain degree of irreverence to boot.  If instead, "Meh, they're just fucking cows" it was "Meh, they're just fucking homos" (or niggers, or bitches, or Republicans), would you accept the rejoinder "Meh. . . you might be right, but I take pleasure in it and anyway we know that people are imperfect."

I actually do understand that some people take pleasure in their immorality, however that may express itself.  Whats the problem?  

Seems like about one step away from Friday-hookers-Sunday-confessional.

That probably has something to do with the fact that you're not listening. Or...I suppose you really could be as dumb as you're making yourself out to be, too? At some point...it gets hard to tell the difference between the two.

So, just to recap...that there are meaningfully objective moral propositions does not guarantee that any specific proposition is among them, or..that if said proposition is among them, it will compel all human beings to act equally - or even at all. We're capable of indifference, we're capable of moral ignorance, we're capable of moral failure.....and we're capable ( even hard wired to enjoy some amount) of base cruelty. In each of these cases, it is the moral agency of human beings that is shown to be suspect...not the meaningful objectivity of a moral proposition, or some fundamental human inability to form an objective moral proposition. Regardless of whether some moral proposition adequately communicates what is wrong and why, there will be people whose behavior and/or attitude does not conform to it.

That's why we reserve the right to hit people over the head with bricks, as previously noted. Sometimes, people just can't be reasoned with. Familiar? Ditto with animals. They generally don't wander into our mouths, control their populations, or stay off our property on account of sitting them down and having a rational chat about the various realities of our respective situations. Some of us are more like them than others, in that regard.

This is extremely relevant to consequentialist ethics, specifically in light of the fact that a consequentialist ethic is an invocation of instrumental goods. The contention is that doing (or not doing) some x will be good-for the good...but that doesn't mean that the thing x being done -is- good, in and of itself. There is both some amount of harm we allow for the good, and some amount of harm we are willing to do for the good. The success of either qualifier in principle depends on the rationality of the case being made....though,m hilarious, actually achieving the good may not. We can do that completely by accident. Just as we can fail by accident, or even out of necessity. That's one of the most troubling realizations of the human condition..at least in my book. That the instances in which we must succeed by necessity are vastly outweighed by those in which we must countenance some moral failure or another by the same. It may be that this won;t always be the case, that we are constrained at present by factors beyond any of our ability to adequately mediate. This could explain why our notions of moral desert are not immediately or directly equivalent to the status of our moral propositions. A ton of moral theory swirls around those questions. How, why, and when a person can do a bad thing that carries no weight of consequence...or when two identical consequences are not an issue of an identical moral failure. The long and short of this is that we appear to exist in a state of near perpetual moral and practical compromise...and, just to toss you a bone that makes your comments about religion vastly less infantile than you originally conceived them as...perhaps this is exactly what religion tries to express with concepts like sin and miasma and fate? They're not wrong in thinking that we exist in this state...and that they have some insight is hardly surprising..they written by human beings, after all. They're wrong in asserting that our desire to resolve it can instantiate an agent or force capable of doing so....and wrong in that even f it could, just as in the case with human beings, that would necessitate that this force or agent was remotely interested in doing so.