Is Moral Nihilism a Morality?

[vulcanlogician]

"That way the fallacy of the stolen concept lies."

That was a thoughtful post, Jor. I had to look up the stolen concept fallacy. But (in doing so) I came to realize that advancing the claim that moral nihilists are indeed realists would not be logically sound. The moral nihilist is to morality as the atheist is to gods. As a realist, I don't want to use the same caveman tactics that theists use. It would be fallacious to say that nihilism is an incoherent or self-contradictory position. It isn't.

But I think that exploring the notion that "moral nihilism is a morality" raises some interesting epistemological questions about how much "positive belief" may lie in the nonbelief of something. "What is belief?" is an important question in epistemology. Perhaps equally important is: "What is nonbelief?"

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VL, aren't our morals ultimately derived from our instincts for survival?

I covered that recently here, if you gotta minute to look it over. (The part where I talk about instincts is half way down, after the second Smaug quote.)

Also, aren't our jails full of "rational" human beings?

A rational being is merely capable of figuring out the right thing to do and doing it. That doesn't mean rational beings will always use their rational faculties in this way.

I feel this argument is entirely a philosophical one.

Well it is the philosophy subforum, Iggy.