Is Moral Nihilism a Morality?

[The Grand Nudger]

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

No. It's incoherent for nihilism to be a morality because then it wouldn't be nihilism. It has nothing to do with how I see it and everything to do with what nihilism means.

It would be (could be?) incoherent, but perhaps nihilism is incoherent.  That doesn't mean it's impossible for it to do so or be so..and again, you're arguing that it's impossible for nihilism to contain an explicit or implicit set of normative functions.  Impossible for there to be a list of things that a nihilist can't do* - while remaining consistent with their properly understood and genuinely held nihilism...even as you comment on how, if they do those things, they're not "correctly" nihilists.

That is not what I've said. I don't agree with you. On the contrary, it's nihilism that's incoherent and it has nothing to do with consequences. I don't agree with you.

Nihilism may be incoherent, and if nihilism must be empty to deserve the title coherently then a set of nihilist normatives would be a black mark against it - but what would make nihilism incoherent to you and what exists are not interchangeable sets.  Is there a list of things that a nihilist can't do* and still correctly be nihilists?  

Well, if you're always like this then you're not worth discussing with because you can't make yourself clear nor answer questions clearly.

Honestly, I'm not sure that the issue is clarity - but, ofc, you decide what and to whom you respond.   

What does "If permissibility is meaningless x because y" mean? It doesn't appear to make any sense.

So, we've got a statement that some other person may make.  It doesn't matter what the variables are here, to nihilism.  Nihilism doesn't take specific issue with any individual moral metric.  No matter why a person says that doing x is permissible because of y, the only coherent response is, no..in fact, that statement is not true.  X does not make y permissible because permissibility is a meaningless concept.  This is coherent with respect to the nihilists fundamental premise..but it's content equivalent to the statement that x -does not- make y permissible.  So lets say that a utilitarian hedonists claims that stroking the peener is permissible because it hurts no one and generates happiness.  A nihilist, by sheer force of accurate categorization -must contend in response that hurting no one and generating happiness does not, in fact, make beating the peener permissibile.  Permissibility is meaningless.  No amount of jumbling around the components of permissibility matters to nihilism.  

Can a nihilist, who properly understands and genuinely holds their position, affirm the truth of any moral permissibility statement?  

What does "X does not derserve Z for Y" mean? Let's say we replaced it with "Individual does not deserve life for bad behavior" ... even that doesn't quite make sense.

It's a generic statement of desert that we can fit into any schema of desert.  Sure, "Individual does not deserve life for bad behavior" is a sensible comment on desert.  Potentially two.  It's either the contention that someone should die because of bad behavior, or the contention that someone doesn't deserve a life sentence for bad behavior.  

What is?

The point is that you have consistently failed to demonstrate how ethical nihilism, noncognitivism and error theory ever implicitly makes any normative statements. 

That's probably an assessment better left for others, lol.  I get that you don't agree, but after explaining what I mean, showing that implicit normatives are present (even if they're meaningfully incoherent), allowing you to provide them, and commenting on the emergence of the semantics of desert even as you consider which nihilist candidates are more deserving of the title, I..obviously, think the point has been made very well.  

Are you trying to say that we can obviously contradict our beliefs? I.e.  as I said, someone can be a nihilist but still make statements that aren't nihilistic.

OFC that's also true, but no - though here..because of your position on the coherence of nihilism, you think the two are related.  They're not.  An incoherent position is still capable of providing normatives that are internally consistent, in the kindest of interpretations - the sort of position we take when we want to do a deep dive.  Not that it matters, since an existent set of incoherent or inconsistent normatives is still an existent set of normatives.  It may be the case that nihilism is incoherent, and maybe this would ripple down through any implication derived from nihilism - but it wouldn't prevent them from being, from existing.  The question as to whether nihilism is a morality is independent of the question as to whether nihilism is coherent, or any implicit normatives are consistent.  It's only a question as to whether or not nihilism does or can provide those characteristics we take to qualify as a moral system.  Things like normativity and desert.  

It is not incumbent upon me (or any nihilist) to argue for the positions consistency, or for the normatives coherence in order to demonstrate that it can or does possess those characteristics.  Yes, it seems odd that a nihilist would say that x doesn;t deserve y, or that x is not permissible because of y - but that is a definitional statement of nihilisms premise.  That moral statements are wrong.  Unfortunately (for nihilism), as far as normativity and desert are concerned - saying that something doesn't deserve something or doesn't make something permissible (and it doesn't matter the reason) is still a normative comment, still a comment on desert.  These are characteristics of a moral system and they flow directly from the foundational premise of nihilism.  

I like to use the word nihilism to mean what it means, yes.

I think you are struggling to understand this topic.

As above, it doesn't actually matter -why- you think x deserves y (and in this case that x deserves y more than z) - this is an explicit invocation of desert.  

You struggle with relevance.

It's very much relevant.  If there are normatives present in nihilism, and if those normatives are derived in exactly the same way as the normatives of another candidate morality, if there are comments of desert present, and if those comments on desert are derived in exactly the same way as another candidate morality - then nihilism contains equivalent characteristics to things we call moralities.  

You may think this is self defeating, or inconsistent, or incoherent with respect to nihilism - but it's not my aim or my responsibility to argue for any of that (and hey, maybe nihilism is just self defeating and inconsistent and/or incoherent) - only to explain why the question of normative ubiquity in moral statements is, itself, coherent and compelling.

Is there a list of things a nihilist can't do while correctly being a nihilist?  In what way is this list different from the lists of things that an [insert competing realist or relativist moralities here] can;t do while correctly being [whatever we inserted].  

In normative semantics, the contents of that list..which does exist... are our oughts/ought nots.  You can't make a comment about correctly being a nihilist (or any other position) without simultaneously creating such a list by default.  You can't comment on which interpretation of nihilism deserves the title without making explicit reference to normatives.