(March 10, 2015 at 10:41 am)Cato Wrote: Existential nihilism most certainly.
Ethical nihilism certainly not.
The problem you typically have in this discussion is someone either conflating the two or insisting that ethical nihilism necessarily follows from existential nihilism.
Ethical nihilism, if established, may serve to stop the slide into nihilism proper but it does so only by radically downgrading what most people understand their moral perceptions to be about. I don't know of many who would consider that raping a baby was merely a morally neutral unsocial act. In fact I would say most people would react in horror to such an amoral view of a gross immoral act against an innocent human being. Though it is true that raping a baby is very bad for the baby, the parents and for society, to assert as Ethical nihilism does, that morality is only about judging what detracts or contributes to the flourishing of society is woefully inadequate. Ethical nihilism fails because it does not comport with the reality of our perception of moral values. If anything it wants to tell us we are all deluded.