Atheism and Ethics

[Lucian]

i actually think we disagree that this is a standard. Harm is indeed measurable and objective, but harm itself is not a standard it is a matter of physics chemistry and biology. A standard can be applied to it, where more harm is bad and less harm good, and luckily we both subscribe to that. The question of whether that standard is down to a moral realist conception of morality being accurage though is the dispute. I mentioned it being objectively bad regardless of what people think earlier as an example of a typical moral realist position that I have heard / read.

I'm using it as a standard, and it's easily the most common standard on earth.  You think "an objective standard can be applied to it"... I have to ask, what do you think realism is saying if not that?

Ok, we are talking past each other
Harm exists. I agree. 
We can say we ought to minimise harm unnecessarily and that we can apply a standard we can morality against such actions. Wonderful
We can say that this is some sort of binding principle true regardless of what people believe.  Balderdash; no such binding principle exists. 

There is the disagreement in an oversimplified form between a form of moral realism and someone who denies it like I do. Moral realism without that latter part and a discussion of normative force (not normative ethics) just isn’t moral realism as far as I understand it, and perhaps that is just me being ignorant