RE: Moral Nihilism
May 11, 2009 at 5:11 pm
(This post was last modified: May 11, 2009 at 5:11 pm by LukeMC.)
Charles, you seem to be mixing up atheism and scientific naturalism. While the two of them commonly occur together, they are not synonymous. You are defining an atheist as somebody who rejects all supernatural claims, as opposed to someone who merely rejects the god claim. An atheist could reject god but at the same time believe in a transcendent set of morals with no author which spontaneously began to exist at the dawn of the universe. However this is probably rare 
For those who deny all supernatural claims, all transcendent claims, etc, I will agree with you that moral nihilism follows. There is no set of objective morals, the universe does not care and in the grand scheme of things it does not matter if you kill babies for pleasure. I agree with you entirely. By no standards can this be seen as intrisically wrong.
However, for the sake of passing on our genes, it is vitally important that we do not eat our community. Humans born with a tendency to eat their community would be killed by the people in self-defence, an age-old instinct. As such, killing in general becomes counter-productive on the level of the community. This isn't transcendental or magical, it is just how events unfold. There is no wisdom nor moral championship in this basic level of understanding. If people aren't killing each other, their genes will be more likely to pass on, so it follows that those who do try to kill people won't pass on their genes and this trait (if containing a genetic link) will die out.
As people become more self-aware and realise they won't be able to function if J Stalin across the the street goes around killing them, they decide to make a set of rules prohibiting people from killing one another. Still not trancendental, still merely a cross between instinct and selfish thinking. A desire for preservation is ingrained in us.
As feelings such as empathy develop and we recognise other people have the same feelings as us, we come to understand that subjecting them to things we find unpleasant is not productive. It makes them angry, resentful, less likely to help the community hence jeopardising the genepool. Still not trancendental.
Now we are at a time where we can debate which tribe or civilization has the most useful set of prohibition and ideals. We look at the quality of peoples' lives and the better the quality, the more likely they will reproduce and/or serve the community. However, our sense of empathy has grown so strong that we want people to avoid suffering sheerly because we don't like suffering. We want people to be happy because our sense of empathy tells us that happy is a pleasant feeling, and we want other people to feel this. These are the grounds for which we set up international laws.
The thing is, killing a baby is not useful, and our sense of empathy tells us not to do it. It isn't intrinsically wrong, because no such moral guideline exists. To construct a subjective set of morals doesn't remedy this either, because as you said Charles, things vary across cultures. However, some cultures have a far better standard of living than others. These cultures will thrive and probably have a monopoly over whatever the planet's subjective moral code will ultimately be. This doesn't make anything rhight or wrong, because such concepts still don't exist objectively. But subjectively speaking, the cultures which exhibit the greatest quality of life will tend to be the ones which are empathetic and value other human beings. Due to their empathy, they consider happiness to be a success of the society and by this standard they create their subjective set of morals.
Being a human being myself, I feel empathy towards others. I enjoy feeling happy and therefore would like other people to feel happy too, as I know how pleasant it is. I would prefer the culture with the most empathy- the culture which treats people the most equally, without senseless massacres- to be the culture which dominates the planet. Having a planet unanimously agreed on the subjective moral standards of this culture would not make any action right or wrong, and in the grand scheme of things it would be meaningless and we might aswell stab forks into each other, but on the scale of the society, on the scale of human beings who feel empathy, it means something to us to preserve and protect ourselves. It follows logically that in the rejection of the supernatural, we reject the notion that any moral absolutes exist, but this does not mean to say we don't have an ingrained and progressive drive to be happy for our own sakes. This is why we don't kill.
I apoligise sincerely for the length of this as I'm sure you've heard most of this before and found it all somewhat boring and inconsistent. What I was trying to do was show how you are correct in stating that moral nihilism follows from rejecting the supernatural, and that objectively human life has no value, but that nontheless it is consistent for naturalists to behave in particular ways of behaving sheerly because we value our own lives and have the capacity to empathise and assign value to the lives of others. I might aswell kill people, but I naturally value my happiness and naturally empathise with others. These feelings aren't moral or immoral, they are natural and I cannot escape them. I will call them moral or immoral, but I know deep down I am being subjective and that ultimately they don't matter. This won't override the electrochemical reactions so heavily ingrained in my brain though. It is out of my control. (In the same way I can know that the scent of manure is neither "bad" nor "good" objectively, but this doesn't stop me from finding the experience unpleasant, as it is naturally within me to perceive things in such a way.)
I hope you understood my points and I'd be happy for you input. Thanks.
For those who deny all supernatural claims, all transcendent claims, etc, I will agree with you that moral nihilism follows. There is no set of objective morals, the universe does not care and in the grand scheme of things it does not matter if you kill babies for pleasure. I agree with you entirely. By no standards can this be seen as intrisically wrong.
However, for the sake of passing on our genes, it is vitally important that we do not eat our community. Humans born with a tendency to eat their community would be killed by the people in self-defence, an age-old instinct. As such, killing in general becomes counter-productive on the level of the community. This isn't transcendental or magical, it is just how events unfold. There is no wisdom nor moral championship in this basic level of understanding. If people aren't killing each other, their genes will be more likely to pass on, so it follows that those who do try to kill people won't pass on their genes and this trait (if containing a genetic link) will die out.
As people become more self-aware and realise they won't be able to function if J Stalin across the the street goes around killing them, they decide to make a set of rules prohibiting people from killing one another. Still not trancendental, still merely a cross between instinct and selfish thinking. A desire for preservation is ingrained in us.
As feelings such as empathy develop and we recognise other people have the same feelings as us, we come to understand that subjecting them to things we find unpleasant is not productive. It makes them angry, resentful, less likely to help the community hence jeopardising the genepool. Still not trancendental.
Now we are at a time where we can debate which tribe or civilization has the most useful set of prohibition and ideals. We look at the quality of peoples' lives and the better the quality, the more likely they will reproduce and/or serve the community. However, our sense of empathy has grown so strong that we want people to avoid suffering sheerly because we don't like suffering. We want people to be happy because our sense of empathy tells us that happy is a pleasant feeling, and we want other people to feel this. These are the grounds for which we set up international laws.
The thing is, killing a baby is not useful, and our sense of empathy tells us not to do it. It isn't intrinsically wrong, because no such moral guideline exists. To construct a subjective set of morals doesn't remedy this either, because as you said Charles, things vary across cultures. However, some cultures have a far better standard of living than others. These cultures will thrive and probably have a monopoly over whatever the planet's subjective moral code will ultimately be. This doesn't make anything rhight or wrong, because such concepts still don't exist objectively. But subjectively speaking, the cultures which exhibit the greatest quality of life will tend to be the ones which are empathetic and value other human beings. Due to their empathy, they consider happiness to be a success of the society and by this standard they create their subjective set of morals.
Being a human being myself, I feel empathy towards others. I enjoy feeling happy and therefore would like other people to feel happy too, as I know how pleasant it is. I would prefer the culture with the most empathy- the culture which treats people the most equally, without senseless massacres- to be the culture which dominates the planet. Having a planet unanimously agreed on the subjective moral standards of this culture would not make any action right or wrong, and in the grand scheme of things it would be meaningless and we might aswell stab forks into each other, but on the scale of the society, on the scale of human beings who feel empathy, it means something to us to preserve and protect ourselves. It follows logically that in the rejection of the supernatural, we reject the notion that any moral absolutes exist, but this does not mean to say we don't have an ingrained and progressive drive to be happy for our own sakes. This is why we don't kill.
I apoligise sincerely for the length of this as I'm sure you've heard most of this before and found it all somewhat boring and inconsistent. What I was trying to do was show how you are correct in stating that moral nihilism follows from rejecting the supernatural, and that objectively human life has no value, but that nontheless it is consistent for naturalists to behave in particular ways of behaving sheerly because we value our own lives and have the capacity to empathise and assign value to the lives of others. I might aswell kill people, but I naturally value my happiness and naturally empathise with others. These feelings aren't moral or immoral, they are natural and I cannot escape them. I will call them moral or immoral, but I know deep down I am being subjective and that ultimately they don't matter. This won't override the electrochemical reactions so heavily ingrained in my brain though. It is out of my control. (In the same way I can know that the scent of manure is neither "bad" nor "good" objectively, but this doesn't stop me from finding the experience unpleasant, as it is naturally within me to perceive things in such a way.)
I hope you understood my points and I'd be happy for you input. Thanks.
