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.