Is Moral Nihilism a Morality?

[SenseMaker007]

In my conception, error theory qualifies according to Wikipedia's definition because it doesn't deem any moral action to be right or wrong. All error theory posits is that all statements of moral fact are in error. If all moral statements of fact are in error, then nothing can be deemed right or wrong.

I agree.

Now, a response would be if you were to say something like "Error Theory doesn't deem all statements to be morally wrong, so it can still be nihilistic, it just says that they are logically wrong from a metaethical standpoint." But then I'd just respond with "That's exactly why it isn't expressing anything normative." This is where I think the confusion resides.

So, do we agree that Error Theory isn't implicitly normative?

Yes, I do. So I'm going to explain the substance of my categorizations at the bottom of this post.

Great!

All noncognitivist theories are nihilistic. None of them allows that a moral statement can even be a belief, let alone a fact. If there are no moral facts, then a normative analysis becomes impossible.

I agree with this 100%.

I've been trying to get Gae to answer this correctly but he just keeps saying that even noncognitivism implicitly expresses normativity, that I've implicitly made normative statements and that I said that it's impermissible to label things permissible. Have you debated with him much before? Is he usually like this? It's very difficult to explain my view to him.

Unless you think that erroneous factual information can express a normative function, error theory fails.

I agree that it fails and, no, I don't think that it can express normative function.

***

To get over our semantic disagreement-


Basically, as I divide things, there are three main categories: realists, relativists, and nihilists. Realists think that moral statements can be true, so error theorists (who think the opposite) don't belong here.

Agreed.

 Relativists think that moral statements are matters of opinion (cultural or individual) and --since opinions can't be false-- error theorists don't belong here either.

Agreed.

Thus, the only category we have left is nihilism which says that moral facts cannot be true either because they are expressions of something (as per noncognitivism) or, as the error theorists say because they don't relate to any real feature of the world.

I suppose our semantic difference could be resolved by making error theory a distinct category, but that's hardly worthwhile. Or we could try to shove error theory into realist or relativist categories which doesn't make sense.

I've since changed my mind about Error Theory not being a form of nihilism. I now think it's what I would call weak nihilism because I can understand why denying the existence of something is nihilistic ... I just think that saying "the whole thing is completely meaningless" is a stronger form of nihilism, as then you aren't even acknowledging that there's any meaningful concept to evaluate.

I say we just proceed in our ethical discourse, keeping in mind that we don't share the exact definition for nihilism. It doesn't actually matter anyway since we are both realists at the end of the day, and we both reject all forms of moral skepticism, nihilistic or otherwise.

We could hold identical views on this matter in spite of defining things slightly differently.

I think for moral nihilism to be a morality it would have to make at least one normative statement ... but if it does it is no longer nihilistic. So I don't think that's possible.

Nihilists can be moral but nihilism can't, basically.

To take the example of Nietzsche that Gae brought up as a supposed example of somebody who has nihilism as a morality:

Nietzsche believed that if you become a nihilist and face things honesty then that will lead to a re-evaluation of values and you'll come up with your own meaningful morality that is best for you (best for you in terms of being able to fulfill your will to power).

Nietzche may not have believed in an objective morality, but he did believe in a morality, but the values he espoused ultimately weren't nihilistic at all. You can't have nihilistic values or nihilistic meaning because values and meaning aren't nihilistic.

It reminds me of Brave New World, which was supposedly an example of a paradise of pleasure that wasn't good enough. But in reality it just wasn't a paradise of pleasure. They supposedly had the perfect drug, Soma, for example, but it had nasty side effects. They were supposedly perfectly satisfied, but they craved something that the so-called "savage" people had. So they obviously weren't really satisfied.

So, just like Brave New World isn't a true hedonistic paradise, Nietzche's nihilism isn't truly nihilistic.

And if the only way to have a nihilistic morality is to have a morality that may, at a glance, seem nihilistic but on closer inspection isn't fully nihilistic ... then I think it's clear that nihilism isn't a morality.

I mean, the very notion of a fully nihilistic morality is pretty much a contradiction in terms, as far as I'm concerned.

Can nihilism lead to a paradigm shift, a breakthrough, a life-changing moment, a re-evaluation of values whereby you come to develop a morality? Sure. But it's not in itself a morality. So I disagree with Cooper and I don't really see how it's possible for anybody to give a knockdown argument for why ethical nihilism is normative. Without redefining ethical nihilism altogether to be something not totally nihilistic. Do you agree?