I like to stick with other people's definitions and not come up with my own. Merriam-Webster for example:
1: not permitted or allowed
Thanks for being my straight man! :)
While reading your response the first time I got a bit annoyed frankly speaking. So I decided to answer it later when I wouldn't just scream blue!
I might have misinterpreted your meaning, but it seems like you present a straw man of my argument. I was trying to make concepts like forbidden and permitted pay rent - even in a world where there is no objective morality, as well as show that our - at least my - intuition about "forbiddeness" and "permittedness" is derived form the kind of consequences that they result in. It's not like something is not permitted in a group, but do not have any bad consequences if preformed.
Do you believe in an objective morality capable of being scientifically investigated (a la Sam Harris *or others*), or are you a moral nihilist/relativist? There seems to be some division on this point. I would have thought Less Wrong to be well in the former camp.
Edit: There seems to be some confusion - when I say "an objective morality capable of being scientifically investigated (a la Sam Harris *or others*)" - I do NOT mean something like a "one true, universal, metaphysical morality for all mind-designs" like the Socratic/Platonic Form of Good or any such nonsense. I just mean something in reality that's mind-independent - in the sense that it is hard-wired, e.g. by evolution, and thus independent/prior to any later knowledge or cognitive content - and thus can be investigated scientifically. It is a definite "is" from which we can make true "ought" statements relative to that "is". See drethelin's comment and my analysis of Clippy.