Moral Nihilism

[Tiberius]

You make my point for me. “Societal morality is always superior to individual morality.” Therefore in Nazi Germany, where the societal morality dictated it was acceptable to murder Jews, it was moral for them to murder Jews.

Without a transcendent moral standard, anything goes if that’s what the majority of people want. What if the majority of people in the UK said it was okay to murder atheists, or any other minority group, would that make murder a moral act?

Morality is not determined by poll.

Yes, in Nazi Germany, at that specific time, in that specific country, it was considered moral to hate and want Jews to be killed. Hitler brainwashed the majority of the people to think this way, and for them, that was the moral truth. If the majority of the people in the UK said it was okay to murder atheists, then to that majority, the murder or atheists would be a moral act. To atheists or other people it might not be, but that wouldn't change the majority public view of the murder. Certainly, morality is not determined by a poll, it is determined by what most of the people think. 200 years ago in the UK, most people thought it was immoral to be a homosexual; these days most people think it is not immoral. So we have two options; either morality is absolute and only one of these outlooks on homosexuality is correct, or morality is relative and both of these outlooks are correct within the time that they existed. With the first, we have problems as to what the absolute moral laws are, how we can know what they are, and if we really trust the source. With the second, the source is quite literally the changing nature of society.

Very well. Let me amend my previous statement to “No mention that taking another innocent person’s life is intrinsically evil. What a telling omission.” Yes, there are justified killings in a Christian worldview: self-defense, capital punishment, and in a just war. Your omission of the victim is still telling.

Innocent by whose standard? I agree, killing someone who is innocent by our own standard is wrong, but what about killing the soldiers in Iraq? Some of them might have honestly believed they were doing the right thing by following Saddam, being loyal etc. There is a quote often used to express this problem: "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Morality is relative, and we find it morally justifiable to kill a soldier in Iraq if he is fighting for an evil dictator, yet in his own country, in his own house, he may be one of the most moral men (by his country's standard).

But you still cannot condemn Nazi Germany for mass murder. Their society thought that was acceptable. Who are you to deny them their right of moral self-determination? If the whole world voted it was okay to murder group X, by your reasoning that would be a moral act. What nonsense.

I find myself repeating things again and again with you. Try to listen this time. The Nazi society found mass murder of the Jews morally acceptable. We do not. Thus we use our moral judgment on them and say "That is evil". It doesn't deny them their right of moral self-determination, it is an observation, nothing more. Now if we were to invade (as we did) and impose our morality on them, this would be denying them their right of moral self-determination, but as I previously mentioned, this is often the reward for victors in wars. If the whole world thought (don't use the word voted, it distorts the point) that murdering group X was ok, it would be a moral act for those people (not an absolute moral act). It wouldn't be moral for group X or anyone who opposed such thinking. People tend to want to be moral, because this is what their society demands of them. Most of us (with the notable exception of psychopaths) think that murder is in most cases wrong, and we all feel good about being in this state because we are the majority. However if a large number of people woke up one morning and all thought the complete opposite, then one of two things would inevitably happen. Either they would stay silent and keep wanting to be part of the majority, even though their individual morality had been changed, or they would become a vocal group and lobby for change in our ethical outlook. I believe a good example of this might be the BNP party in the UK, which is a notably racist party, and yet has (in this modern age, and in this country) gained a large number of members.

And we know that current scientific understanding is never wrong! I’m applying the naturalistic fallacy to the metaethical question of value itself, not an individual case of applied ethics as you mention. If morality is the product of evolution (that which is), and we should adopt that very morality to guide our behavior (that which ought), then we commit the naturalistic fallacy. For it may be the case that our evolutionary morality is immoral.

But I agree, let’s move on.

Current scientific understanding is rarely wrong on the large scale. It is mainly the small scale things that it needs to adjust, however this is irrelevant to the conversation. The point was that I wasn't using a naturalistic fallacy. I never said that if morality is a product of evolution, we should adopt that very morality to guide our behaviour. You are twisting my words. No, scratch that; you are completely misrepresenting my point. I argue that morality is the process by which we can live in a society. Evolutionary morality is never "immoral" for the society it leads because it exists for the sole purpose of making sure we work together, as we have had to do to survive.

Because only a non-nihilist would say "If we all decided murder was ok, we wouldn't have a society anymore." A nihilist would shrug his shoulders and label the whole thing absurd: the survival or extinction of society is meaningless. So your rebuttal is circular.

Oh come on now! So let me see if I've got this right...My argument is circular because I say something a non-nihilist would say, but I cannot have meant that because I am an atheist, and by your presupposition atheists are nihilists. To me that sounds like a circular argument made by you. You have a presupposition that atheists are nihilists, and when I say something only a non-nihilist would say, it contradicts your premise. You are too stubborn to just accept that maybe you might be wrong about the whole atheism/nihilism thing, so instead you deny I could ever have meant what I said. Honestly, your debate tactics astound me.

I’ll supply the same Dawkins quote I gave Sam: “We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.” Dawkins seems to have grasped the inevitable conclusion of his evolutionist atheism, why don’t you?

Shall I paste the entire quote in it's context for you?

A female digger wasp not only lays her egg in a caterpillar (or grasshopper or bee) so that her larva can feed on it but, according to Fabre and others, she carefully guides her sting into each ganglion of the prey's central nervous system, so as to paralyze it but not kill it. This way, the meat keeps fresh. It is not known whether the paralysis acts as a general anesthetic, or if it is like curare in just freezing the victim's ability to move. If the latter, the prey might be aware of being eaten alive from inside but unable to move a muscle to do anything about it. This sounds savagely cruel but, as we shall see, nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

Dawkins was referring to the good and evil we tend to see in nature; he wasn't talking about morality. I think this point is self explanatory.

But the statement “One ought to do that which is good and refrain from doing that which is evil” is true regardless of the culture. Sure, some cultures will define the good and the evil differently from you or me, but the statement itself is true, is it not? That is to say, it is a transcendent moral standard which is culturally neutral.

Indeed, I agree with you. People want to do good things by their culture's standards because this is what is rewarding by the culture, and is how our morality has evolved. We needed to work together to survive, because on our own in the wild we are one of the most pathetic creatures out there. We aren't that strong, we don't have claws for killing and stripping prey, and we don't have very good teeth for devouring raw meat. We need to work together (i.e. be "good") or we will die.

I’m unaware of any society, African or otherwise, that would deny it is evil to torture babies for pleasure. Please document your claim.

I always find it amusing but sad the lengths to which cultural relativists (like yourself – the “morality of the majority”) or emotivists will go in order to deny such prima facie moral absolutes such as the wickedness of torturing babies for pleasure. Oh the ethical gymnastics you perform!

Well the "torture babies for pleasure" thing was a misread on my part, and I apologise. My point about torturing babies and children out of fear they are witches stands though, and you asked for a source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUJSME0TORw (part 1 of 6 I believe). A search on YouTube for "africa child witches" will turn up a large quantity of results though.

Not with the force of obligation. You can say to the Nazi “mass murder is evil” but your moral standard imposes no duty on him to obey it, since your standard is culture-dependent.

I never said "with the force of obligation", I said we could pass a moral judgement on them. We passed a moral judgement on Mugabe when he cheated in the election and tortured opponents, but he laughed at us. This didn't stop us from passing a moral judgement on him. Later of course we imposed our moral judgement on his country when we stopped trade. This of course is a parallel to the victor in war scenario.

As someone once said, “might does not make right.” The fact that a moral code is often imposed on one culture by another does not thereby justify said moral code. An obvious example is the slave trade you mentioned. But by your reasoning, the slave trade was a moral action(s) because our culture thought it was a good idea. It was “morality of the majority” to use your phrase.

Might does not make right, but majority does. The majority of people involved in the Second World War thought that the Nazi's were evil, hence why they invaded and stopped them. The slave trade was a moral action by the culture at the time, I do not think it is a moral action today.

No, but you need a culturally-transcendent moral standard which is duty-imposing by which to judge another culture. Otherwise the culture you’re condemning is immune to your condemnation because it is following its “morality of the majority.”

As I said above, condemnation in no way implies we should go and do something about it. I condemn people who smoke because I think it is an idiotic and disgusting habit, but I'm not going to go around stamping on people's cigarettes.

Adrian, honestly. Your culture’s “morality of the majority” places no burden of obligation on another culture’s “morality of the majority.” You’re intelligent enough to understand this.

Yet you don't seem to be intelligent enough to grasp that this wasn't what I said.

I can think outside the box; I used to reside outside it. I understand your argument, I’m simply pointing out the inconsistency of it.

Inconsistency??? Atheism as nothing to say about morality, it only deals with gods. How is that inconsistent???

Naturalistic evolution is the mother’s milk of modern atheism. Do you deny naturalistic evolution?

I don't deny naturalistic evolution (commonly called...evolution), but I deny that it has anything to do with atheism. Ken Miller is the most prominent textbook author on Evolution and is a devout roman catholic, and the leader of the Human Genome project is a devout Christian too. I still fail to see the link between atheism and evolution.

“Only” no objective purpose? Well at least you acknowledge as much. Using the definition that purpose is the reason for which something exists, people can play make-believe and conjure up any supposed reason for their existence. But these make-believe fantasies cannot supply purpose because there is no reason for their existence beyond the blind, naturalistic, non-teleological mechanisms of evolution. You are a cosmic accident, a meat machine, a colony of bacteria. There was no reasoning behind your existence, therefore you have no purpose.

I've acknowledged that from the beginning. I don't think there are any absolute moral laws, therefore objective purpose does not exist. However as in my rock analogy, something can easily have no objective purpose yet have a subjective one.

Yes, those who entertain childish and naïve fantasies that their life has purpose in a purposeless universe. And atheists think theists are gullible!

Subjective! A purposeless universe doesn't come into it!

Once again you assume that which you need to prove. If human life had purpose (which it does not according to evolution), then its component parts would have purpose. Rather since human life has no purpose (according to evolution), its component parts have no purpose.

You have a very warped view of evolution. Each individual aspect of an organism evolution has a purpose: to adapt to the environment that it is in. We have adapted legs to love about, arms to use tools, and brains to think. Each of these has a purpose! Morality is no different, and it serves a purpose as well.

In that case, I have a Good Book you should read.

Read it, found it very immoral (by my standards of course). Can't believe people think the god who endorsed slavery is the god who creates our moral law.

Don’t be jejune, we all have presuppositions, they’re unavoidable. The trick is to be aware of them and avoid their possible pitfalls, or discard them when they’re incorrect.

Then I shall expect you do discard your presupposition that atheists are nihilists.

That is intellectually admirable of you to say.

Thanks...