Objective morality as a proper basic belief

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm getting a little sick of this. I honestly wasn't even initially responding to you, I was bitching out Henry and you just kind of stuck your head in. That secular humanist morality isn't based on an appeal to authority unlike religious 'morality' makes calling it objective a paradox. I would have thought that was obvious.

It's obviously absurd.  Why would an objective moral schema appeal to an authority, or, more accurately, why would it appeal to anything other than authoritative facts?  

Objective means it can be determined to produce X result consistently whether we like it or not. If that result (consequences) changes (because we live in the real world), it's not objective (nor absolute, but that one is so obvious it's not even worth bringing up). Throwing my fist forward with all my strength is not always going to produce the same result or have the same consequences. It's purely situational, and even then, time and circumstance can change the results and corresponding consequences.

No, that's not what it means for a morality to be objective.  In an objective morality..sometimes, stabbing someone can be a "good" or at least a "not bad"...based on the objectively verifiable facts of any given situation.  In an objective morality, for example.  Stabbing me in the neck is likely bad. Stabbing me in the neck in defense of yourself is likely neutral (or, if you prefer, bad balanced by a competing moral imperative) and stabbing me in the neck so that I might breath and live, is good.  In each case, I was stabbed in the neck, but because the specifics of each stabbing were variable, the moral conclusions regarding each changes in direct reference to those objective facts about the stabbing which change.

'A great many secular moralists would disagree', way to appeal to authority. If it's true, it's true, whether the majority agree or not. Even if you're right, you're committing a fallacy.

Why on earth would you think that was an appeal to authority?  I didn't claim that a single one of them was right because they had a PHD at the end of their names, I merely pointed out that secular objective moral theorists do...indeed, exist.  The moral schemas they propose are secular, objective moral schemas.  You don;t have to agree with them, obviously...but moral objectivity doesn't depend on your agreement any more than the existence of secular moral schemas and theorists depends on your agreement.

I'm just about done with this inane conversation but even rape is subjective, and here's how: Cows need to be impregnated to produce milk. Cows can't exactly give consent to sex, so...we force them to breed, which you could call rape.

I've never seen a cow that has to be forced to breed...in my life.  I'm sure there are a few, I wouldn't know what to do in that situation.  I'd probably shoot it, lol?

But we get milk and that makes us happy, and if you stop there without going into painful milking procedures and whatnot, there's a good and bad consideration there where it could be argued that the cows don't really understand what's happening and we derive great pleasure from drinking or cooking with milk.

Why would the latter, our pleasure in drinking milk..be relevant at all if the cows do not understand or are not harmed by being bred or milked?  Suppose they were harmed by being bred or milked.  Then what?  It's bad that we breed them?  Okay.  We often do things we consider to be bad.  This would still be true under an objective moral schema.  

Or if you insist on using humans only (see how even well-being is subjective? We have to decide if it only applies to humans, or to what degree it applies to everything else) then let's say it's an apocalyptic era and the human population is drastically reduced. We need babies. The surviving women aren't really interested in the male stock available. In the interest of the species, an argument could at least be made. Reprehensible as this would be in 99.999999999% of situations, there's that small exception that makes things debatable.

No, actually, I still don't see how well being is subjective..I can see that many people express subjective opinions -on wellbeing, but there seems to be a way to winnow down the list of opinions that are and aren't factual. I'm pretty sure that a human morality would necessarily have to refer to human beings...but objective metrics can be made (and are made) to include other animals as well.  We could argue, for example, that cruel procedures..those that cause undue suffering to the livestock, are ethically compromised.  We do argue that.  We even write it into law.  There are standards regarding the equipment that a diary producer can use.  There are further trade organizations and niche licensers which put even stricter restrictions on what they consider ethical, or morally responsible farming of all kinds.  

Is that not based upon something identifiably objective?  It's harm..again, too, isn't it?