Objective morality as a proper basic belief

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think Harm can stand alone as a moral theory let along be objective in its own right.

Harm -isn't- a moral theory, it's a moral axiom...a properly basic belief. A properly basic belief of objective harm as a moral axiom is a properly basic belief in objective morality, but not a full moral theory, objective or otherwise.

1. I keep seeing the statement "harm is objective". That is true only in the sense that there is harm or there isn't harm--which, by iteself, is insufficient to make moral judgments. It does nothing to address categories of harm (and their relative weight in an equation), thresholds of harm, intensity of harm, competing harms, exceptions to harm -- all of which are needed to assess moral choices--all of which are subjective.

Do you think it;s impossible to objectively assess categories and relative weights of harm?  What's more harmful, a fishing story, attempted rape, one instance of manslaughter, two of murder, or genocide?  

Additionally, to assess harm, all kinds of moral value must be inferred and assigned to issues like relative (quantity) harm, comparing and grading different types of harm (physical, mental, slander, other intangible harms), intent, a higher value placed on humans, exceptions in war, punishment for crimes that can't possibly be repeated, etc. Over time and across cultures these underlying values are different, so any moral system based on harm changes along with it.

OFC things must be inferrred, that's called moral reasoning.  How do you plan on getting a true conclusion from moral reasoning without sound propositions?  

2. It does not take into account actions which may cause no harm like undiscovered adultery,

another one who thinks that if he gets away with it he hasn;t harmed his wife..huh?  You fucking people, lol.

instances of lying that don't have real consequences,

You mean..a harmless lie?  Why yes, yes it does address that.  It's not a moral issue.  Lemme tell you about this 9 foot hammerhead I almost caught with my bare hands.  

breaking promises,

did the broken promise cause harm, was it broken because of harm keeping it would have caused?

etc., OR consensual harm like drug use

Unless you're driving drunk, hopelessly addicted, or you get your drugs from a bad, bad man...not a moral issue.

 assisted suicide,

Mercy or murder?

voluntary slavery

Harmful by simple complicity in an intrinsicly harmful system

, medical testing.

The mountain of ethics laws related to medical testing suggests that this, too, is addressed.

3. Morality based on Harm does little to instruct us on our moral obligations to act and if you claim it can compel us to act, on what grounds?

Do you wish to harm others or be harmed? Can a truly immoral society survive and if it could would you live there? We can go high or low with this one.

4. It seems to hang your hat on harm alone is just a huge ball of situational ethics (the very definition of subjective) or is riding on top of another moral theory that has already established value to all the moving parts.

Except that situational ethics isn't the definition of a subjective morality at all.  All ethics are inherently situational...as there has to be a moral situation for it to be a moral issue in the first place.  Circumstances are as objective as harm is.

This is why, for example, we call one killer a hero and another a monster and another unfit to be held accountable. Nothing about the act has changed, killing is objectively harmful, but we modify or withold moral desert based upon the agency of the subject in question and the circumstance in which (or even by which) the act was carried out. Here again, you've -explicitly- confused moral absolutism for moral objectivity.

Situational ethics, or situation ethics, takes into account the particular context of an act when evaluating it ethically, rather than judging it according to absolute moral standards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational_ethics

How are you going to competently comment on an objective morality of -any- foundation if you don;t even know what that is Steve? If...you do not possess....sound propositions?

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-after having cheated on her, perhaps he;s faced with an exclusively sub-optimal field of moral decisions.

Divorce her, causing harm (though, probably more harm to himself than her at this point.....)
Tell her, causing harm (here again, more to him than to her, lol)
Lie to her, causing harm

Hilariously, your hypothetically not-immoral prick.... chooses the option of greatest harm.  Good job, bet he believes in jesus, at least he avoided two of the things that would cause harm to himself.  

Vir-tu-ous

How is "lie to her" causing harm?

Ask your wife, then ask her if it's worse to lie about her dress or about fucking another woman.  I'm sure she'll clear it up for you.

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I partially agree with you on parts 1 and 4, in that there's nuance that is inevitably subjective, but disagree about everything else, especially 3. If what we agree on is that minimizing harm and maximizing well-being, that informs our actions because we will contemplate the ramifications of them in those terms. It's not like we're children learning how the world works, we're adults and we have functioning rational capacities. You'd have to be utterly addled to be incapable of thinking about this in critical terms and the fact that we have in-built empathy and experience with what harms us, we know how to evaluate similar situations when we see them. Yes, some situations are pretty extreme and don't necessarily have a readily evident answer but those are the vast minority but nothing prevents us from drawing upon the cumulative experiences and other objective information to come to a conclusion even if in hindsight we feel we should have acted differently, or if no one can come to a consensus and a less preferable or no action is taken. If something is so wrong with you that you don't feel compelled to act on your own moral convictions, you're either in possession of a very unsound moral foundation or are misunderstanding the entire position.

When we cannot objectively establish some deciding moral fact of the matter x, we have a tendency to withhold condemnation or err on the side of caution.  So, for example, when our own subjectivity or any number of competing moral facts of the matter make it difficult to authoritatively pronounce some x wrong, immoral, or even blatantly illegal (ala murder) We let the thing go as being "arguable".  That's objective moral integrity.  Not moral subjectivity. We say things like "I still think it was wrong"..rather than "I know it was wrong". We let someone slide in their criminal trial, and then hammer them in civil court on grounds of legalism, ALA OJ.