The difference between ethical atheism and nihlism is that ethical atheists have more faith

[jstrodel]

If naturalism is true e.g. there is no God and the material universe, more or less, is all that exists, the naturalist is faced with two possible stances:

1. Deny the existence of the reality of any morality at all - a human being is no more valuable than an amoeba
2. Ascribe some sort of arbitrary value to human beings

I believe that choice two, which is what the vast majority of atheists choose to do is epistemologically very similar to religious faith. In religious faith, people recognize a moral, teleological order of life in which value is ascribed to human beings as a consequence of them being created. In atheism, the value is simply ascribed to human life. The atheist might object that the value is not an objective fact, but only what is consider to be objective, but that completely denies the way that atheists use moral language (see, the language of liberalism).

I would argue, follow Alaisdair MacIntyre, that atheists have essentially a choice between Nietzschean nihilism or Aristotelian teleological ethics. Many atheists really in secret have a sort of Deist, teleological approach to ethics when they invoke evolutionary processes as grounding human life in some sort of goal driven process that confers moral worth on people. If they were honest atheists, they would simply call themselves Deists and accept that the way they talk about evolution is essentially giving a teleological property to it that it lacks in the naturalistic understanding. Evolution says nothing about why people should be considered more ethically valuable than rocks, to say so is to move from atheistic evolution to theistic or deistic evolution.

Ethical atheism requires faith. The language of physics, chemistry and biology cannot describe the moral worth of people. It cannot create a political philosophy, or tell people how to live the good life. Of course morality is related to biology, physics and chemistry, but none of these things ground atheist ethics in any kind of remotely rigorous way.

The reality, in the end, that the ethical, responsible atheist is just an atheist than happens to have more faith than the nihilist. The process of assigning values to human life is not a rigorous process. Someone might argue "people can feel pain, and I don't want to feel pain, and pain can be measured physiologically or sentience understood scientifically". This may be true, but there is no reason to associate pain with morality, unless people are designed to associate these things.

The honest atheist might as well go the whole way and either become a Deist and accept some sort of teleological universe that justifies the moral language that constantly refers to this universe, or become a nihilist and strip his vocabulary of all teleological concepts.

What the honest atheist cannot do is tell a Christian that he is corrupted epistemologically by his faith and then proceed to deny that God exists and talk about human rights. He must either choose to ground his ethical concepts in teleology and ethics that he cannot completely percieve that seem reasonable as a Deist or Christian or stop using ethical concepts at all.

The Christian is not irrational in grounding his beliefs in a supernatural religion (I myself have experienced many supernatural confirmations of the Christian faith). It is the atheist who is irrational in grounding his ethical concepts, the most important in life, in arbitrary ethical concepts that, no matter how much evidence is revealed, will never be found to have any value, because the concepts have no ground other than the opinions of the atheist.[/u][/i]

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

And if an atheist were to admit he/she is a nihilist?

What now?

[jstrodel]

And if an atheist were to admit he/she is a nihilist?

What now?

That person should not vote, they should abandon all pretense of having a moral authority, they should not marry or raise a family because they will be unable to teach their children to be good people, they should not engage in any activity which requires moral reasoning, which is almost everything.

Most of all, they should never pressure anyone to accept their beliefs, because there is no ethical imperative attached to following or not following their beliefs.

---

Of course, most atheist who read this will acknowledge the contradiction involved in their "ethical atheism" and go on, continuing to exist that Christians have some sort of made up imperative to be "honest" according to the standard that atheists make up.

They may be able to do it legally, but they cannot be consistent with themselves. They should not do it without a deep sense of cynicism.

[Annik]

Most atheists (if they do chose a specific philosophy) will pick from nihilism or existentialism (or some mixture). I identify with existentialism.


Also, are you assuming that morals are universal. They are very much NOT. It's a cultural thing and humans are very cultural. There is no "assigned worth". In fact, most people only think humans are so great because we are humans (and we think we're sooooo smart and unique). Dolphins show signs of communication (although we're not sure if they have actual language), they have names (that they give to each other and identify with), culture, their own sense of dolphin-y morality (such as murdering pedophiles) and they are self-aware. What makes humans better than dolphins?

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

So in other words there are moral imperatives that result from not believing in any moral imperitives?

[Minimalist]

Your god is a murderous fuck. Anyone who professes belief in such a horrid being should be denied the right to vote.

Now what, asshole?

[Question Mark]

I don't see what theists could have against arbitrary morality. That is after all what all morality is, especially religious morality. The only difference is that secular morality is based on man's experiences and reason, and religious morality is supposedly based on what god says.

Secular morality: Murder is wrong because it deprives the victim of their right to live, and has demonstrable negative effects on the people the victim is close to.

Religious morality: God tells us that murder is wrong, and so therefore it is.

[jstrodel]

Most atheists (if they do chose a specific philosophy) will pick from nihilism or existentialism (or some mixture). I identify with existentialism.


Also, are you assuming that morals are universal. They are very much NOT. It's a cultural thing and humans are very cultural. There is no "assigned worth". In fact, most people only think humans are so great because we are humans (and we think we're sooooo smart and unique). Dolphins show signs of communication (although we're not sure if they have actual language), they have names (that they give to each other and identify with), culture, their own sense of dolphin-y morality (such as murdering pedophiles) and they are self-aware. What makes humans better than dolphins?

You are repeating the main point of the post. Exactly, what makes people more important than dolphins? Or ants, for that matter? Why should human civilization exist at all, why not be a primitivist? Why not believe that one race is superior to another, or create a nationalistic morality?

The most important question in the world is how to be a good person. You are not really getting to the bottom of the issue. Nothing that you have written scratches the surface of the debates surrounding moral skepticism. Because you have a nicer sounding name for moral skepticism, called existentialism, does not answer the question. What makes people more important than dolphins. Or in another way: How do you know that Jewish people aren't inferior to whites? Why shouldn't one group enslave another group?

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

Nothing makes us more important than dolphins. But just because that's true doesn't mean we're obligated to live like primitives. There are no obligations, remember? We can do whatever we want.

[jstrodel]

So in other words there are moral imperatives that result from not believing in any moral imperitives?

If there are no moral imperatives, the only ground for actions is pure cynicism.

It is even more egregious cynicism to suggest there is some sort of paradox there, as you are doing.

If you are a nihilist, you cannot be a moral person. You would argue, as someone that is incapable of being a moral person, I have no duty to be a moral person.

No, as a person who is amoral, what you are free to do is to live in complete cynicism. If you participate in the political processes and speak as if there are moral absolutes, you are a liar, plain and simple. Of course you do not have duties to avoid lying, but the linguistic categories of cynicism and deceit still apply to you.

But this gets back to my original point: there is really no duty attached to any of this, for the nihilist. But the nihilist will separate himself from the rest of the world, which does not function according to this pattern, and will be hated, as is appropriate.