Does Atheism Lead to Nihilism?

[Mudhammam]

Chad, if by "true intentionality" you mean the type of freedom that invokes spontaneous generation, I don't think that was really ever a serious proposal

[Simon Moon]

We have a real world that we share, full of predictable effects to causes, in which we share a uniform biological nature, within a set of well explained parameters. This is an objective fact: we live in a reality. We can use that reality to figure out what's good and bad for humans, and more broadly, for other thinking beings: dying is bad for us, as is injury. Pleasure is good for us, etc etc. It's trivial, but it's a thing we can do.

That right there is a sufficient framework upon which to hang morality: that which is good for thinking beings is morally good, and that which is bad is morally bad. These things can be ranked according to the severity of the effect, mitigating circumstances, and other things, and when they come into conflict with each other we can use reason- blind reason- to come to equitable judgments about this. In order for this to work fairly, we can apply the outsider test to it.

Why should morality be about what's good for thinking beings? Try to have a moral system without them, it's impossible. Inanimate objects perform no actions, therefore there is nothing to judge moral or immoral. Only thinking beings can be moral or immoral, and therefore morality requires them; they are the center of what makes a moral system... extant. That's more than enough reason to privilege their existence within the context of morality.

I just don't get what is so hard to understand about this?

And without a doubt, most theists act according to this for almost every decision they make as a moral agent. Even the driving force behind their moral decisions are the same as ours.

They just overlay their god over their natural empathy, ethics and reciprocity, and give him the credit.

The instances they come up against the moral edicts in their holy books that disagree with their innate good morality, they have to engage in the most tortuous mental gymnastics in order to justify obviously immoral actions by their god (genocide, slavery, slaughter of the human race by flood, blood sacrifice, etc).

[Faith No More]

See, I don't agree with that. What we value doesn't determine what is ethically significant. We try to reason backward from what we value to what we find ethical because that seems the appropriate way to justify ethical norms. But that always leaves a gap; yes it's valuable, but is the good also morally good? I think in reality, ethical norms are just picked up along the way, subconsciously, without our conscious choosing of them (e.g. fairness as a value seems built-in to us; we don't 'choose' it). From what I understand of the various moral anti-realisms, I'd have to say that I'm a non-cognitivist, or maybe a presupposition failure type error theorist.

I don't see how what we value could not determine our ethics. Doesn't determining ethics require making value judgements?

[Esquilax]

I just don't get what is so hard to understand about this?

Nor do I, but then, you and I are working from a different basis than theists, who seem to want morality in discrete, concrete edicts, rather than contextually driven principles that need to be reasoned out. If you're trained to think of something as being one way, it must be hard to consider that same thing from a completely different conceptual framework.

Sometimes I get the argument back that this still isn't good enough, presumably because the moral considerations we make based on reality aren't imbued with the same authority that they've come to expect from "deriving" their morality from god, but for one thing, that's hardly our problem. For another, what they're essentially saying is that they're willing to reject a reasonable moral consideration simply because it wasn't said with enough threatening force behind it.

And without a doubt, most theists act according to this for almost every decision they make as a moral agent. Even the driving force behind their moral decisions are the same as ours.

They just overlay their god over their natural empathy, ethics and reciprocity, and give him the credit.

That's basically how god has worked for the entirety of the christian religion. Every iteration of the church just points at things we already know are good, and say "God does that."

[Neo-Scholastic]

Here's the thing with all these "we should all just be selfish and act for our own self interest!" claims: they make a huge and confusing assumption, which is that in the hypothetical in which everyone just does what they want and discards the social contract entirely,

All you have done is push the problem back the self-interest in preserving the tribe (often to the exclusion of other tribes). So the next step is to push it onto the overall survival of Mankind. Then, I suppose to all sentient species. At each level, the motivating principle is self-interest, although at the higher levels it is an ‘enlightened’ self-interest.

We have a real world that we share, full of predictable effects to causes, in which we share a uniform biological nature, within a set of well explained parameters. …that right there is a sufficient framework upon which to hang morality …

How is it even possible for to group particular things into universal categories within the framework of naturalism (your version of reality)? The foundation of your moral system crumples if it isn’t grounded in a metaphysics that is compatible with things, like human beings and moral agents, having essential natures.

[Mudhammam]

At each level, the motivating principle is self-interest, although at the higher levels it is an ‘enlightened’ self-interest.

The same can be said for any action or suggestion ever made, since you're broadening the meaning of "self-interest" by the modifier "enlightened," which is simply to imply self-interest that takes the interests of others into account as though they were one's self.

How is it even possible for to group particular things into universal categories within the framework of naturalism (your version of reality)? The foundation of your moral system crumples if it isn’t grounded in a metaphysics that is compatible with things, like human beings and moral agents, having essential natures.

I think people are content to imagine the worst possible suffering conceivable as essentially bad. From there it's not hard to work out a better framework that guarantees safeguards from the worst possible suffering conceivable and ideals that coincide with what a person defines as their real best interests.

[Esquilax]

All you have done is push the problem back the self-interest in preserving the tribe (often to the exclusion of other tribes). So the next step is to push it onto the overall survival of Mankind. Then, I suppose to all sentient species. At each level, the motivating principle is self-interest, although at the higher levels it is an ‘enlightened’ self-interest.

Yep. I'm basically saying that all of these people focusing on individual self interest are misrepresenting what's really in our best interest. That said, since as I've explained morality necessarily concerns itself with thinking agents, this still aligns with a proper understanding of moral goodness.

How is it even possible for to group particular things into universal categories within the framework of naturalism (your version of reality)?

... Common traits and characteristics? You know, the definition of what a category is?

The foundation of your moral system crumples if it isn’t grounded in a metaphysics that is compatible with things, like human beings and moral agents, having essential natures.

Okay so, I'm getting tired of saying this to you over and over, but an assertion isn't an argument. But more importantly, what you're saying makes literally no sense at all: we can't recognize commonalities unless those commonalities belong to beings that are magic? How the hell does that even follow?

[Angrboda]

I don't see how what we value could not determine our ethics. Doesn't determining ethics require making value judgements?

Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.

http://www3.nd.edu/~wcarbona/Haidt%202001.pdf

[IATIA]

I was wondering what your collective response is to the conclusion that atheism leads to nihilism.

IMHO, it does open the door. It is then one's choice to step through or not.

[wiploc]

I was wondering what your collective response is to the conclusion that atheism leads to nihilism.

IMHO, it does open the door. It is then one's choice to step through or not.

Why doesn't theism open the door to nihilism? Theists like to claim we're supposed to comply with an objective standard that we don't make up ourselves. We don't get to vote on it. We don't have to agree with it. It doesn't have to be good for us. There doesn't have to be anything good about it.

If that isn't nihilism, what is?

And how does having this code dictated by an invisible eccentric make it "objective"?