RE: Is Moral Nihilism a Morality?
June 14, 2019 at 8:48 am
(This post was last modified: June 14, 2019 at 9:18 am by SenseMaker007.)
@Gae Bolga Your claim is that ethical nihilism implicitly makes a normative statement. Ethical nihilism is divided into noncognitivism and Error Theory. Noncognitivism is the view that all normative statements are meaningless and Error Theory is the view that all normative statements are false. For your claim to be true then both the statement "All normative statements are meaningless." and the statement "All normative statements are false." would have to be normative statements in their own terms. If you agree with this then it leads me to wonder if you understand what a normative statement is. You are implicitly making two arguments:
Argument 1:
Premise 1: Noncognitivism says that normative statements are meaningless.
Premsie 2: Noncognitivism is true
Conclusion: Therefore noncognitivism is making a normative statement.
Argument 2:
Premise 1: Error Theory says that all normative statements are false.
Premise: Error Theory is true.
Conclusion: Therefore Error Theory is making a normative statement.
These arguments are both invalid because the conclusion, in both cases, is an obvious non-sequitur.
Now, I am well aware that you aren't explicitly saying that either of these views are true because you are a moral realist and you haven't offered any arguments that they're true. But you keep claiming that ethical nihilism makes normative statements even in its own terms and even from its own perspective. That is implicitly saying that even if ethical nihilism is true it still makes a normative statement. This is absurd because, as you can see, there is nothing embedded in the premise of ethical nihilism that leads to the conclusion that ethical nihilism is making a normative statement.
Argument 1:
Premise 1: Noncognitivism says that normative statements are meaningless.
Premsie 2: Noncognitivism is true
Conclusion: Therefore noncognitivism is making a normative statement.
Argument 2:
Premise 1: Error Theory says that all normative statements are false.
Premise: Error Theory is true.
Conclusion: Therefore Error Theory is making a normative statement.
These arguments are both invalid because the conclusion, in both cases, is an obvious non-sequitur.
Now, I am well aware that you aren't explicitly saying that either of these views are true because you are a moral realist and you haven't offered any arguments that they're true. But you keep claiming that ethical nihilism makes normative statements even in its own terms and even from its own perspective. That is implicitly saying that even if ethical nihilism is true it still makes a normative statement. This is absurd because, as you can see, there is nothing embedded in the premise of ethical nihilism that leads to the conclusion that ethical nihilism is making a normative statement.
