By the way, what reason does a nihilist have for complying to certain morals? If they are meaningless statements, then why care about ethics? — JacobPhilosophy
The nihilist has basically no real reasons for complying with morality in general since doesn't exist/have any real grounding. The nihilist might comply with conventional morality for social appearances or because it personally makes him feel good but outside of that there's no real backing to it. — BitconnectCarlos
I agree with everything you wrote here. A nihilist could be a perfectly moral person. I just think that an intellectually honest nihilist should have very little if any resistance to engaging in depravity if social conditions were to make it advantageous or if the moral nihilist were just curious for any reason and he knew he could get away with it. — BitconnectCarlos
At the end of the day the theistic moral realist has a God to answer to and believes he will be judged by actual, objective standards. He has skin in the game. Bad actions have consequences in the next life.
A moral nihilist may be a good person. Plenty of people just have naturally good dispositions or are responsive to positive social pressures, but others don't. — BitconnectCarlos
But if we only observe human behavior in this life, the sentences you have written above don't necessarily translate to better predictions of what action any given individual will take. — Adam's Off Ox
I don't see how the label of nihilist informs any discussion on good or evil, from an ethical or philosophical perspective. — Adam's Off Ox
The intellectually honest nihilist is constantly in tension because he still values things and often has strong attachments while at the same time he rejects the idea of objective value. — BitconnectCarlos
The outcome of this tension is a life of voluntary deception. It’s hopeless to try to universally logically justify our values, attachments, or actions with any consistency. Logic and emotion are apples and oranges. — Pinprick
I don't follow your conclusion. If it's hopeless to try to universally justify our values, doesn't the nihilist escape tension by rejecting universal values? — Adam's Off Ox
So the nihilist experiences preferences, which you may call values, without falling back on some rational or logical meaning for those values. — Adam's Off Ox
You seem to be supporting the nihilist's position. — Adam's Off Ox
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