Any Nihilists here?

[FrustratedFool]

Harm is a vague word. My bad. I was using it to mean something like 'cause this effect upon his physical body'.
If it makes it clearer, substitute the word 'harm' for 'causes him to bruise'.

I've had this argument with Nudger before. He holds that harm is objective. I do not. And there talks broke down.

Ah. Interesting. I wonder why he sees things this way?

[The Grand Nudger]

Because I think it's fairly easy to establish that there are things that are harmful in fact. That it's not just my opinion, or anyone's opinion, that they cause harm. Any rational and competent observer could watch me take a brick to Bobs head and acknowledge that harm has been done to Bobs head. It won't just be our opinion - it will be a measurable hole in Bobs head.

[The Grand Nudger]

It might be more fun, and lighter, to use help instead of harm. Just like I think harm can be objective, I think help can be objective. It's objectively helpful to give people water if they're dying of thirst.

[FrustratedFool]

Because I think it's fairly easy to establish that there are things that are harmful in fact. That it's not just my opinion, or anyone's opinion, that they cause harm. Any rational and competent observer could watch me take a brick to Bobs head and acknowledge that harm has been done to Bobs head. It won't just be our opinion - it will be a measurable hole in Bobs head.

I think you're getting confused there. Every observer could agree that in fact there is hole in Bob's head. And we could even agree that Bob has been harmed (if we take the moral assessment out of that word).

But how are you getting from harm to immorality? I agree that Bob has been given a hole. Why is that wrong?

Or, to use the new example, giving water to a thirsting man quenches their thirst. Why is that good?

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm a value pluralist. I think we're probably talking about alot of things when we talk about right and wrong. I think harming and helping are two of those things. It seems like it should be obvious why water helps a person dying of thirst?

[FrustratedFool]

It's obvious that water helps.

It's not obvious that helping is an objective moral good (a rather complex abstract statement).

[Angrboda]

Actually it's not obvious. In order for something to be objectively good / bad, it must be true that for all possible subjective states, that something is necessarily good / bad. Basically there must be some change that is necessarily good or bad, regardless of any possible mental state. Nudger keeps giving examples which he thinks hold universally, but as I have pointed out to him multiple times, there is a subjective state where it is not necessarily good / bad as he claims. Thus his argument fails. The person dying of thirst is just the latest in a long line of failed examples. If the person dying of thirst is on a hunger strike, giving them water isn't necessarily helpful.


The other problem is that that Nudge seems to be trying to establish a universal ("All changes X are Y.") using specific examples. You cannot demonstrate a universal with a collection of particulars. That's logic 101.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's objectively helpful whether they want the water or not. The hunger strike example is a subjective objection to an objective fact. It's not that the water is harmful, they don't want it. Their rejection is a statement about them - not water.

[Angrboda]

It's objectively helpful whether they want the water or not.  The hunger strike example is a subjective objection to an objective fact.  It's not that the water is harmful, they don't want it.  Their rejection is a statement about them - not water.

As long as there are statements about them which change whether it's good or bad, then it isn't objective. Who is it helping if it isn't helping them?

[The Grand Nudger]

It's objectively helpful whether they want the water or not.  The hunger strike example is a subjective objection to an objective fact.  It's not that the water is harmful, they don't want it.  Their rejection is a statement about them - not water.

As long as there are statements about them which change whether it's good or bad, then it isn't objective.  Who is it helping if it isn't helping them?

Any objective moral system has to respect change in factual details.  Otherwise it wouldn't be objective.  Subjective and non cognitivist moral systems are the ones that don't have to respect those changes - because those details aren't the basis of a subjectivist or noncognitivist assessment.  

Giving a person dying of thirst water is objectively helpful.  It's why there's a duty to care even when prisoners go on hunger strikes.  It's a good example of exclusively subotimal decision fields too, though, because in the process of saving their life we might override their own wishes and..arguably, reduce the effectiveness of their protest.  So, in this situation, you're stuck with two bad options.  In one of them you help and the guy might get angry with you, in the other you watch someone die when you could have helped. I'd say, at best, if you select the second option, you're both morally and practically apathetic. At worst, you might be personally culpable for their death.

-mind you, that's in a limited hypothetical. There's usually the option of giving a person on hunger strike what they're asking for. Sidestep the whole mess. That'd be where my mind went first.