I never said you were a bad person because you were amoral. Quit putting words into my posts that don't exist...
It's possible that I mistakenly inferred that your phrase, "moral nihilist," carried a disparaging insinuation. In that case I would have been putting words in your mouth, yes. Much likelier, though, is that you indeed meant it pejoratively. That particular phrase is very seldom used except by conventional moral absolutists, usually though not always of the Christian conservative persuasion. (By "conventional" I refer to systems of morality which are conventional by American societal standards.) In that sense, "moral nihilism" is like "secular humanism" in that many of the people who give currency to the phrase have constructed a caricature of the original concept and use it only as a negative label or a straw man. The only instances I have ever heard the concept of moral nihilism invoked sincerely, to my memory, are the cases of philosophers (and non-philosophers) expounding upon or reacting to the conventions of contemporary Western moral thought. It's possible that you were coming from that direction, but very unlikely given your comments in this thread and your general tone of your posts at the Compendium. Either way, I'm not a moral nihilist, because the pejorative concept is gibberish and the actual concept is merely a classier class of gibberish. I'll get to that in a moment.
I also must reiterate my doubt that you actually understand the concepts of either nihilism or morality, let alone amoralism or moral nihilism. Your simplistic citation of dictionary definitions of the words "nihilism" and "amoralism," followed by a conclusion which does not follow, do a particular disservice to my perception that you may know what you're talking about. Your equation of amoralism and moral nihilism is dubious--which perhaps you might have discovered even in a bare-bones way if you had consulted an actual dictionary rather than Wiktionary. Perhaps you might have even have studied more than just dictionary definitions on Wiki pages. The most I can say in your defense is that you are not the first person to draw this particular false equivalence.
Amoralism is relatively straightforward. It means different things to different people, but at its core it is a negation of premises which assert the existence of a moral dimension to our reality. As with many philosophical positions beginning with the letter “A” followed by another word, we cannot appropriately or correctly consider amoralism as a substantial position. We may only consider it as the rejection of another substantial position. My own identification as amoral is only a technicality necessitated by the promulgation of assertions of morality. If people were to ask me my position on the threat post to humans by the Martian Galactic Space Ouch Fleet, my position would be "
What Martian Galactic Space Ouch Fleet?" So it is with morality:
What morality? I recognize morality as a behavioral system for the cohesion of a society. I do not recognize morality to have any bearings on the nature of reality and "right and wrong."
But if I am only amoral on a technicality, I am not morally nihilistic at all. Moral nihilism is a substantial position which makes its own assertions, offering an alternative explanation (to moralism) of the nature of the universe as it is concerned with right and wrong, and of the behavioral guidance or imperatives to be drawn therefrom. Moral nihilism builds upon the amoralist position (contending the absurdity of the notion of a moral dimension to our objective reality) by asserting the meaninglessness or, if you prefer, non-truthfulness both of morality itself and, more importantly, of that which is presumed to derive from morality. (This is significant because morality itself is irrelevant without its derivatives, sort of like a clock with no hands.)
That assertion is dubious, because morality associates itself with all sorts of things with which it has no grounds to associate, and is not actually the source of these things (a fact that religious people have enormous difficulty recognizing, as morality is the primary agency of religious integration into everyday life). This is a flaw inherent to all nihilism, the destruction of legitimate areas of concern by identifying them as derivatives of questionable concepts. Nearly everything with which morality associates itself can be addressed by ethics generally, or else by politics, and thus very little (nor anything of value to any naturalist) is lost by removing morality and its conceptual framework from the discussion. It would be sufficient to stop at amoralism, but moral nihilism blows a hole in ethics that is completely overwhelming, leading many moral nihilists to then try and re-legitimize much of what they would claim to have invalidated. I would never associate with such a coarsely destructive school of thought.
More seriously, however, from a logical perspective—and more controversially, I would daresay—is that moral nihilism is self-invalidating because it implicitly requires the affirmation of a moral dimension to objective reality in order to assert the absurdity of the same, a reverse instance of begging the question. Consider the statement at the heart of moral nihilism: “Moral truth does not objectively exist.” Well, if moral truth doesn't exist, then what is “moral truth”? Either you're talking about the concept of the thing, which
does exist, or you're talking about the thing itself. But if the thing itself doesn't exist, then there is no way to wrap a truly representative concept around it. Thus, you can't say “Moral truth does not objectively exist,” because it is a gibberish. The logical fallacy of doing so anyway reminds me of a similar flaw in one form of articulating the atheist position: “God does not exist.” That's untenable, because there is no coherent definition of “God.”
Now, in fairness, moral nihilism is more concerned with relegating the status of moral premises from objective to arbitrary. “Moral truth does not objectively exist” is my deliberate phrasing; an actual moral nihilist would probably word the central assertion differently. Nevertheless, I doubt it would be possible—and it certainly would not be easy—to escape that fallacy altogether. Another way of thinking of it is that nihilism would not need a moral branch if there were no morality. Then again, nihilism likes to do that kind of thing, so maybe it's a fallacy which is, at least, consistent.
Moral nihilism suffers from a third problem: It is ambiguous to the extent of irrelevance. The concept is symptomatic of an overworked, uninformative philosophical analysis—a far too common occurrence in contemporary philosophy, sadly. Much of present-day philosophical thought and theory are farce. As best I understand it, the concept of moral nihilism is sufficiently vague that it could be taken to mean any number of things. This, ironically, provides you with some cover to declare that you thought moral nihilism is something that it's not.
I never said you were a bad person because you were amoral. Quit putting words into my posts that don't exist... and using them as leverage to try and one-up me about something that gets you into the mood of castigating everything about a person that doesn't fit your preconceived notions about what constitutes a personal stance on something (and believe me; this isn't the first time you've done this).
As I recall, on nearly every occasion we have debated matters of substance, you have begun with an outrageous thesis, which you then proceeded to ill-justify if you bothered at all, and have then gotten caught up in my inevitable criticisms and lost all track of the actual debate. It's not my fault that you introduce your own ignorance as a relevant variable in these debates. That is entirely your doing. If you want to proffer an opinion, you are going to be pressed to support it, and inferior justifications will not be accepted. I have remarkably few preconceived notions about anything, and you would do better to make arguments that do not inspire our debates to shift onto the matter of your own credibility.
I can just as easily say that all that matters to you is awarding yourself with a subjective sense of superiority by painting everyone else around you as smug ignoramuses by creating strawmen of those individuals and their beliefs for you to knock over.
You find it very easy to say a great many things which smarter people would consider daunting if not impossible outright.
I always give you the opportunity to speak to the substance of the points of contention between us. If I say “I am not a moral nihilist and you're stupid to suggest it,” it is your own choice to focus on the “you're stupid to suggest it” part.
...there are two kinds of morality: Personal, and Cultural/Societal.
There are many different instances (codes, institutions, etc.) of morality, varying by culture, but there is only one conceptual form or “kind” of morality. This is another one of those times when studying the etymology of a word can be very helpful in clarifying your understanding. I myself learned more about morality in that one single act than I did in any other single act.
The etymological root of the word
morality is a word meaning “customs.” That ancestral word took
morals to mean much what the word
folkways presently means. (And the word
custom itself has a more more fundamental etymological root based in tribal social framing.)
What is amazing is how well this etymological family tree serves to explain the nature of present-day institutions of morality. Essentially,
morals still means “customs,” except now the former has taken on a positive bias. That's why the idea of morality has such currency. Morality is a concept that the simple-minded and the unthoughtful want to apply to themselves. They all vie for moral standing as a way of justifying their positions and propositions. Christian jargon today places a heavy emphasis on morality and the desirability thereof, with the caveat that only the code of morality described by the Christian god, or in agreement therewith, is truly “moral.”
(Here you can see the preeminence of the positive bias in the modern usage of the word. It would make no sense for a Christian to say that other people's
customs are not “customary,” but it makes perfect sense—and is frequently alleged—that other people's
morals are not “moral.”)
Now it makes sense to revisit the premise of morality as an appropriate system for valuing thoughts, words, and deeds.
First, I suppose, we are obliged visit the epistemological foundations for making such valuations at all. It would be physically possible to get through life without assigning any such valuations, resorting simply to “That's the way things are.” Many people who are non-confrontational, peaceable, and content have drifted in this direction. “Oh, that beef soup smells good. I'll have that rather than the chicken soup.” Such a judgment contains no characterization of beef soup as “right” or the other as “wrong,” and does not even imply that beef soup is superior to the chicken soup. The individual may have an entirely different appetite next time, and choose the chicken soup.
What GenesisOne thinks of as a nihilist is actually this kind of person, who eschews a system of right and wrong—not by not having preferences or making judgments, but by not framing them around a conceptual pole of right and wrong. The correct term for such people is not
nihilist but
utilitarian. Utilitarianism can go to any height of philosophical inquiry without resorting to right and wrong. Genocide in North Korea? Not “wrong,” but “unacceptable because it violates both human rights as determined by law and as determined by the wants and needs of individuals, for no other purpose than to keep a corrupt and ineffective government in power.” If you were to ask a moralist
why genocide in North Korea is “wrong,” you might get a similar explanation. The point is that the moralist then categorizes that explanation as justifying a status of “wrong,” whereas the utilitarian does not bother.
Therefore, what is the epistemological basis for imposing a system of right and wrong? Is there a justification? Well, in the case of morality, the answer to the second question is “Yes,” and the answer to the first question—that depends on whom you ask. Ask the moralist personally, and you will get an answer invoking the authority of the
source of their moral code. For example, “God wills it so!” Ask an amoralist, and you will get the truth: “Morality justifies itself by offering the utility (tee hee) of having a convenient system of labels for quick social reference, fostering social integration.” That isn't an illegitimate thing—a system of labels for quick reference, fostering integration. Every community develops such labels as it matures in complexity. Because people have differing levels of desire, ability, and time to get to know others in their community, comprehensive philosophical conversation is not frequently tenable. Instead, people get to “know” each other by repeating common labels, and community can develop where people's labels overlap or resonate constructively.
But...the desire for a system of social labels is not a sufficient justification for imposing a system of right and wrong. Morality is already epistemologically untenable when you apply the moralist's own justification (which is inevitably either an appeal to authority or an appeal to popularity, both logical fallacies), and now it is untenable when you apply the actual, functional justification for morality.
However, while logicians will accept epistemological inadequacy as grounds for discrediting a concept, most other people won't even know what any of that means. And we can continue, therefore, to evaluate morality as a system of valuation, because there are other ways in which morality is not credible for the role, which can only help to illustrate my statements in previous posts.
The most important feature about morality is that people seldom come up with their own system of morals. Rather, moralistic people adopt their moral code from their community—particularly the communities in which they vest the highest trust, such as family, church, media personality, or political party. Sometimes people do develop their own
single morals when they create derivatives from existing morals, including cases when they disavow existing morals through the assertion of new, derivative morals. People occasionally even extract new systems of morality from existing ones, and, even less frequently, can synthesize systems of morality from the environment as filtered through existing moral systems. However, all of these are responsive anomalies and though they may result from some kind of cognitive dissonance or general critical dissatisfaction with an existing moral system, the broader evolution of moral codes occurs through memetic drift, authority assertion, and social adaptation. It is therefore not a non-meta deliberative process—i.e., as I said, people don't typically come up with their own; they take them from other sources.
(This would be a good opportunity to remind you that you are welcome to ask me to clarify anything you do not understand.)
Morality, like customs, is a form of social integration. Morality differs from customs in that customs only acknowledges a distinction: "This is how we do things, and that is how they do things," whereas moralistic social integration occurs through the tribalistic mode of asserting "This is how we do things, which is good, but
that is how
they do things, which is bad."
Do you see how that works? You can't get a system for valuing qualities merely by pointing out cultural differences. You have to impose a judgment, quite arbitrarily, whence all other judgments will follow. All else aside, morality is epistemologically untenable because it begs the question by utilizing an outside system of valuation to function. Its source does not fit its mode. What is the underlying source for a moral code? Let us say it is the (alleged) teaching of an (alleged) deity, as is often the case. But what is the underlying expression of that moral code? Tribalism. That's why Christianity has endless branches and denominations, but only one “Bible,” notwithstanding its many translations.
Morality is a cultural operation similar to democracy in that it gains strength from being more popular rather than less, and similar to tribalism because of its positive bias in that it emphasizes community boundaries and facilitates the "us versus them" mentality which is at the center of tribalism.
You probably can already see the logical flaw in making the assertion that something is correct or incorrect on the basis of whether it is popular. This is a major fallacy in any absolutist, naturalist, realist, or cognitivist moral system, as indicated, for instance, by the conservative Christian opposition to abortion, which is quite popular a position in America but intellectually despicable. In relativist moral systems, where assertions of correctness and incorrectness are qualified circumstantially, the risk remains but takes a new form: Rather than risking the chance of being outright wrong about something, the appeal to popularity in a relativist moral code risks degenerating into gibberish.
The flaw in the tribal component of moral self-justification is less a logical one than a sociological one. Strong tribal divisions are highly destructive and easy to abuse. Most of human history since the dawn of civilization has consisted of atrocities discriminated only on the basis of who belongs to which tribe. It is extremely precarious to assert a valuation system which has a bias (positive or negative) that fosters such disregard.
I doubt such an ad hoc explanation is particularly clear, but perhaps you comprehend it anyway. Either way, here is a summarization: When you choose whether a thing is good or bad on the basis of whether
your community claims it is good or bad, you miss the opportunity to actually evaluate your choice critically (which I have scarcely even discussed yet), and you fallaciously entrust to that community body, on the basis of its popularity, the authority to determine that other communities are inferior.
It is extremely difficult, if not outright fully impossible, to uphold such a thing.
Another meta-comment: That was all hastily written, so please excuse me if there are more breakdowns in communication than usual. Again, I invite you to seek clarification if you so desire.
Considering you're amoral, and respecting your unique views, I would assume that the only reason you would not kill someone may or may not be whether it's a right thing to do to you, but due to reasons that the Law forbids it and that you wouldn't benefit from this deed anyway. But!
If there were no laws forbidding you, but the values of the nation remain, and before you stands an innocent, waiting in line to go meet her grandma. Now she has something you really want, materialistic or not, but you would only gain this after killing her, and in no other way. Would you kill her for your benefits? Would you kill her for your personal goals?
Enlighten me. What makes a murderer?
I will answer your last question first. In my philosophy, a murder is the unjust or unjustifiable (by the tenants of my philosophy) killing of a life form who possesses a sentient will. This is in contrast to the just killing of an organism who possesses a sentient will, the just killing of an organism who does not, and the unjust killing of an organism who does not possess a sentient will. I don't yet have specific words for the other cases; the case of murder stands out because it unwarrantedly destroys something particularly valuable.
The concept of killing also does not distinguish between intentional versus unintentional killing, and aware versus unaware killing, both of which are warranted distinctions.
Thus, when you're talking about killing, you were only referring to the killing of other humans and perhaps some high animals. But killing is much more general, and probably deserve a wide range of distinct words to better help us understand the distinctions among the common thread. That said, for the remainder of my post I will talk about killing as you meant it.
Your assumption that I don't kill people out of fear or respect for the law is mostly incorrect. However, I wouldn't discount it entirely. I know that in many others the inhibition of the law is the only thing holding them back from killing. In others still, it is the primary if not the sole inhibition. In me, it probably is a factor, but a minority factor and not a major one. Where fear of the law is concerned, I would fear both the destabilization of society that would ensue if more people undertook to violate the law, and the personal punishment that would await me if I were caught. Where respect for the law is concerned, I respect the rule of law as one of the great civilizing forces in humanity and would not easily seek to defy it on so potentially consequential a breach.
Your assumption that I don't kill people for lack of a personal gain is, counter-intuitively, completely incorrect. Only psychopaths would not kill people because they stood nothing to gain, as understood by the converse scenario. The criterion of “something to gain” is a very poor basis for killing, justifiable only in emergencies and even then not always.
Your other paragraph, about killing the kid who's waiting to see grandma, is a question of the ordering of priorities in my philosophy. Specifically, what priorities does the specific personal gain at issue outrank, and what priorities does it not? The answer depends upon the specific gain, and will vary. It also depends, to a lesser extent, on the kid herself. There is presumably a point at which the gain would become sufficiently great that it would justify killing that particular person, since my philosophy does not place the active preservation of all human life at the top of the list of ethical imperatives. If killing her would bring about the end of, let's say, bigotry in the human species, then I would
probably be justified in killing her (although that is a separate question from whether I would actually do it). I say “probably” because we don't know anything about the kid herself. That is illustrated by an alternative scenario: If she herself were they key in ending bigotry in the human species, then almost nothing would justify killing her, as the eradication of bigotry is very high in my list of ethical imperatives.
Make sense?
