Nihilistic Murderer

[Thumpalumpacus]

Well I think that using a dictionary definition is also a cheap argument tool, so we are 1 for 1 on that.

Except that I addressed your point, instead of dodged it.

Lets just stick with the definition that I use for myself, since I'm not going to be bothered to conform my beliefs to what a dictionary says. I think most nihilists would agree on the definition 'life and everything else is meaningless' So for arguments sake I'm just going to stick with that since that is what I believe. Although I also think that it probably applies to most Nihilists.

Demonstrate the meaninglessness of life, then?

So you say that you don't go out and kill people because of some kind of social contract that you won't be killed. That leads to a second important question: if that social contract wasn't in place, would you kill people? In other words do you want to go out and kill people?

No, I did not say that I refrain from killing because of the social contract. I said that the social contract is evidence that morality has meaning. Those are two entirely different things.

Also regarding morals. I think that the distinction between having no morals and having meaningless morals is an extremely important one. Being a Nihilist doesn't at all mean that I believe that morals don't exist. To me that would be like saying that I don't believe rationality or love or all kinds of other human states exist. It's clear to me that they exist because I can both observe them and experience them. I just don't think that they matter.

Except that they color your actions, and the actions of others, who may or may not share your morals.

It just doesn't matter. I choose to behave in a moral way for a variety of reasons, mostly that I like being a moral person and that it improves my life.

So -- you have a better quality of life due to acting in accordance with your morals ... but at the same time, you think they're irrelevant?

I think everybody has morals (except for maybe the person in that video, which is why I found it so interesting in the first place.) Even a psychopath like Ted Bundy has a moral code. His moral code just placed all the value on himself and none on other people.

Well, it seems to me (though I'm no Internet Psychologist) that both Bundy and the guy in the OP are amoral sociopaths. Also, I'm curious -- if you think morals are meaningless, why do you think "everybody has morals"? It seems to me that if morals were meaningless, then we'd see a broader dispersion of amorality than we actually do.

What do morals do in our lives? They shape our actions. They are often called "precepts" for a reason, in the sense that they guide our behavior going into a situation before we know what we're facing. They act as one of the anchors for our individual identities. I think those facts imbue morality with meaning, even though we do all die and turn to wormfood.