Morals

[Jesster]

No. Nihilism is the belief that nothing matters. While morals would not exist if we weren't here to put value into them, they do matter once we are here to define them. There's just no grand morality behind it all.

Think of it like an economic system. If society didn't exist, would economics exist? No. They only come into play once there is a society to apply them to. It's not a force that actually exists in the universe. It's a concept that we create. That doesn't mean that it doesn't matter once we have a reason to use it.

Morals only matter in that they protect what we value, right?  Why does a nihilist think that doesn't matter?

Because a nihilist would say that it's meaningless. A nihilist is a pessimist. That's not at all what I'm saying.

Morals have an explicit value to us because they help us survive as a whole. Morality is just the label we throw on an agreed-upon method to allow us to survive as a species longer. Behavior patterns like that happen because of evolution. I fail to see what's so meaningless or pessimistic about that.

[robvalue]

You use the word "should" again. "Should" is morality, as I said in my first reply. You're talking in circles. There is no objective "should", for anything.

[robvalue]

There is another use of the word "should" which you may be referring to, which is in the pragmatic sense. We "should" do such and such, because it will achieve desirable results.

Of course, what qualifies as desirable results is again entirely subjective.

[Panatheist]

You use the word "should" again. "Should" is morality, as I said in my first reply. You're talking in circles. There is no objective "should", for anything.

I said in the last post there is no reason we "should" value life, that we merely do on the whole.

Correct - if we value our lives then we should, pragmatically speaking, adhere to certain moral codes to protect what we value.

[Panatheist]

So, the account of morality presented to me here is not moral nihilism. Is it moral relativism?

[The Grand Nudger]

Pragmatism. Moral relativism, in context, is the acknowledgement that what is pragmatic for one group may not be or may not be seen to be pragmatic for another.

[robvalue]

Everything boils down to pragmatism in the end. Just some things more directly than others. People are results driven.

I guess the exception would be where you literally don't care what happens at all. That's going to be extremely rare.

[Chad32]

We value life because we're a social species. We all need some form of interaction with other Humans in order to function properly. Though the extent of that can vary wildly. If we were a solitary species, like tigers, then we probably wouldn't care much about the rest of our species, except when it came to breeding. otherwise we'd spend all our time alone. Since we are social, then we have to coexist within a certain set of rules.

[Whateverist]

Why should anyone value life and wellbeing?

The study of morality isn't really about deciding whether or not we want one.   Nor is it about building one from the ground up.  Rather, morality is about the values we and others already have.  They largely overlap but areas of disagreement can be interesting too.

You might as well ask "and why should we draw our next breath?"

[Whateverist]

I read this piece and thought it was okay, although I am not fully convinced: http://www.strongatheism.net/library/phi..._morality/

I understand how morals come from the basic desire we have to preserve ourselves and our wellbeing.  Society could not exist without morals, and ideally morals protect and enhance our flourishing physically and psychologically.

But what is the basis for valuing life at all?  Certainly society will prevent a serial killer from murdering anymore people if (s)he is restrained.  But what makes her killing wrong?  Why should anyone value life and wellbeing?

Wow.  Just took a look at the article.  

The unit of ethics is values. Values are things that one must work to gain or keep (a simple example of that is nutrition). These values are short-handed ways of expressing moral principles (ex. “we need to eat because otherwise we die”), and moral principles are short-handed way of expressing scientific or social facts (such as the facts about metabolism).

Agreed:  "The unit of ethics is values", leastwise that is what we must moral discussions must be about.

But immediately he launches into "values are things one must work to gain or keep".  That is definitely not what values are most essentially.  That is the simply one opinion regarding "what we should do", which is really the essence of ethics and morality.  If you incorporate a should into your the very definition of what we are studying then you're simply arguing coercively for your own values, not investigating the phenomenon of values.

I would argue that values are the sort of thing which if you reflect on it, you realize you always already have.  Moreover, they will shade what you think should be done about them if you aren't careful.  This author is not careful.  Sure there may be exceptions, psychopaths and moral monsters.  But moral arguments aren't really for or about them.