Is Moral Nihilism a Morality?

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

IOW you think it would be incoherent with respect to the premise of nihilism as you see it. 

That doesn't mean it's impossible for nihilism to do so (only impermissible, lol), as we've discussed, only that the consequences for doing so is a meaningful incoherence. Yet nihilism does carry at least a minimal set of normatives that can't be denied -coherently, by a rational person - even if a person doesn't agree with them.. It has struck others as capable of being a moral framework. People do wonder if any comment on morality can be divorced from normative implications.

Yes, I'm always like this, are you?

If permissibility is meaningless x because y, then it is not permissible to label things x permissible because y. That would be meaningless. If all moral statements are wrong, then x does not deserve z for y. It's a tight knot, but that's nihilism for ya. Obviously we can do it, so that's not a comment on our ability, but on what we should or shouldn't do, if we properly understand nihilism and genuinely hold it to be true. It's not that we can't, or that nihilism can't. It's not impossible. You think that a nihilist shouldn't. You think that it's wrong to do so. All things beings equal, you think that an "emptier" position deserves the title "nihilism" more than a comparatively fuller one.

Do you see why people wonder whether normativity and desert can be divorced from comments on morality, even metaethical positions? Some people have been conditioned to think that there's a special sauce in normative propositions - but there isn't. Just trying to discuss something logically imposes categorical normatives. I know, I know, but those are logically normative.

I'll ask again, whats the difference in, say, moral realism..between the logically and the morally normative? How about relativism? If three systems all present normative functions and all make use of the language of desert in fundamentally identically ways, implicitly or explicitly, in what way are the two of them moral systems that the third isn't or can't be? Perhaps one is "fuller", perhaps one is more coherent. Fullness and coherence, however, are not requirements of moral systems. As I mentioned, it's not that I disagree with you about the coherence of nihilism, or how..in a sense, nihilist normatives could be seen to erode the credibility of nihilism as a position.

If nothing else, you could add this to the list of reasons why you think nihilism is self defeating. Even as the attempted antithesis of moral positions it somehow manages to create normatives and provide assessments of desert. We could rephrase the entire discussion simply by asking the same question of two different positions.

Is there a list of things that a nihilist can't do* - while remaining consistent with their properly understood and genuinely held nihilism.
Is there a list of things that a utilitarian hedonist can't do* - while remaining consistent with their properly understood and genuinely held utilitarian hedonism?