(March 10, 2015 at 5:52 pm)rasetsu Wrote: Can one be a moral nihilist but not an existential nihilist?
I tend to flip those around and postulate a nihilistic approach to morals, but that existence itself is not, and cannot be, meaningless. (existential nihilism) Meaning, for me, is an a priori category which we find ourselves 'thrown into' by virtue of the nature of our minds.
Is that a consistent position? I'm not sure. It would seem existential meaning might ground ethical meaning. And I don't hang these beliefs on my theism, btw.
Perhaps, but wouldn't that mean you'd have to rationalize having ethics that did not require acting in accordance with that meaning? Given what we value and find meaning in informs our ethics, wouldn't seeing meaning in existence itself require you ethically to act in respect to that meaning?
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
