I was recently asked to consider nihilism as a serious worldview. Having read a little bit of Nietzsche (the father of nihilism) and seeing where his worldview took him, I had always dismissed nihilism as failing to pass the two tests for worldviews: "inner intellectual coherence" and the ability to "comprehend the data of reality" (James Sire, The Universe Next Door, p246). But having recently spoken to some self confessed nihilists, I realised that I should at least try to take it a bit more seriously as a legitimate worldview, and so I delved into The Vienna Triangle episode 4 podcast (available on itunes) to examine it a bit more closely. In this podcast, a nihilist philosopher asserts that objective morals are obviously worthless, and for those who would disagree, he says:
All I can do is suggest that they look over the entirety of the history of human species. Look at the butchering, the slaughtering, the hating, the cruelty, the brutality, the violence, the animosity and general stomach churning actions of our fellow human beings through the long centuries of recorded time. Now assume that your predilections are right and that objective morals really do fundamentally and metaphysically distinctly exist. Clearly such entities as these, simply by way of existing have done nothing for mankind. Even if we really can externally justify our condemnation of child rapists by way of grounding that judgment in some objective moral fact, it doesn't do, to be blunt, a dam thing at all to stop the child rapist or remove the pain and suffering that befall the poor little victims. With regard to all the good that these objective moral values are obviously not doing, it is as if we are trapped here as two thirsty men trapped in a desert, arguing over whether or not there really is water on mars. Sure, perhaps it could be comforting to ones such as those men trapped as they are in the desert to know that somewhere out there, there really is water. But it certainly doesn't help them, not as they wither away and die under the heat of the sun. Such as it is with moral values. Even in a world full of objective moral values, and even potentially knowable ones at that removing epistemic difficulties, we still have people who would twist the facts and interpret those values in light of their own subjective desires, abilities and dispositions. (TVT episode 4, from 13:52)
Firstly, this statement seems to be an incredible overreach. It’s one thing to argue that objective morals are worthless, it’s quite another to say that "objective morals are obviously worthless". Obvious is a very strong word, and it appears to be chosen because of its strength. However, given that obvious means easily perceived or understood, clear, self-evident or apparent; and given that the vast majority of the world's population operates as if some things really are moral and others really are immoral, it’s hard not to dismiss the whole thesis as obviously false. If objective morals are indeed worthless, it’s certainly not obvious to the vast majority of the world. For the vast majority of the world's population, objective morality is required for ethics, law and order. And so it’s hard to see how suggesting that they're obviously worthless is anything but a desperate attempt escape the burden of proof, presumably because the vast majority of the world's population disagrees with the thesis.
Secondly, note that this statement begins with the words "All I can do". I'm not sure if this was said in the moment, or if the author wrote it down because he actually meant it. But if he did mean it, then if this argument doesn't stand, there is no other argument to fall back on. According to the author, this thesis stands on one leg. In order to convince us, the argument as stated by the author is literally "all [he] can do".
Thirdly, if there are no moral facts, then one wonders why human history is described using such moral language. If nihilism is correct and the events of history are neither right nor wrong, but they just simply were, then in what sense can anything in history be described as "cruelty" or "stomach churning"? Aren't these the kind of moral categories that we need to understand as subjective opinion rather than objective truths? The author seems to assume that some things can be objectively cruel and stomach churning, in order to argue that nothing can be.
Fourthly, the whole statement proceeds as if it’s an argument, but then turns out to be a bare assertion without any justification. The "argument" (if you can call it that) is: look at the history of humanity, now assume that my thesis is wrong, and now here's my thesis. It’s an incredibly bold claim that seems to be justified solely with the word "clearly", as if what's not obvious to everyone, is obvious to everyone: "clearly [objective morals] simply by way of existing have done nothing for mankind." This thesis is then simply re-stated with an example (again without any justification): "Even if we really can externally justify our condemnation of child rapists by way of grounding that judgment in some objective moral fact, it doesn't do, to be blunt, a dam thing at all to stop the child rapist."
Fifthly, this last statement is directly contradicted by the author himself. Later in the podcast, when asked about whether "the existence of a moral fact such as rape is wrong, has done nothing to actually cause a rapist not to rape?" the author replies: "it’s not that it never has. I'll acknowledge that there might be people out there who would be rapists if not for their belief that it was objectively wrong. But to me that's not objective moral values saving the day" (TVT episode 4, from 25:08). And so objective morality "doesn't do, to be blunt, a dam thing at all" and yet "it’s not that it never has". This is such an obvious changing of the goal posts that it’s hard to see how objective moral are worthless in any real sense. Is saving all the rape victims from the "people out there who would be rapists if not for their belief that it was objectively wrong" really worthless? Are moral facts obviously worthless if they don't "save the day"?
Sixthly, the analogy that the author uses to illustrate his thesis is a classic case of circular reasoning - assuming the very thing that you're trying to establish. The author describes all discussion about objective moral values as "two thirsty men trapped in a desert, arguing over whether or not there really is water on mars". This is simply assuming that objective morality is irrelevant in order to establish that objective morality is irrelevant, when in reality, those who argue for objective morality do so precisely because of its relevance.
Seventhly, the standard that the author requires for objective morality to be worthwhile, would completely destroy the whole concept of morality. The author's observation that convinces him that objective morality is worthless, is that "we still have people who would twist the facts and interpret those values in light of their own subjective desires, abilities and dispositions." However, if this were not the case, we would have no way of discussing what was moral and what was immoral, because everything would be moral by definition. The author refuses to believe that moral facts exist because if they do, they haven't stopped every single act of immorality. But if they did stop every single act of immorality, then moral and immoral would be meaningless categories - every single act would be moral, there would be nothing in the known universe that was immoral.
Eighthly, during the podcast it was pointed out that the reasoning of this thesis is akin to saying: "there's no such thing as speed limits because people speed" (TVT episode 4, from 28:35). Indeed, it’s hard to see how this thesis is anything other than the same logical fallacy (a non-sequitur). If the breaking of speeding laws doesn't disprove their existence, then why does the breaking of objective moral laws disprove their existence? Further, it’s not as if the author is unaware of the danger in jumping to conclusions that aren't warranted. Later in the podcast he demonstrates that one of his observations "is proof of nothing but just that... to go beyond this... is an abrupt demand of reality to conform to or match up to my personal predilections" (TVT episode 4, from 37:29). One wonders why he doesn't apply the same critical thinking to his own thesis. Couldn't we turn the same scalpel that he applies to other views, onto his own and say that the existence of human cruelty is proof of nothing but just that, to go beyond this is an abrupt demand of reality to conform to or match up to your personal predilections, in this case, your commitment to philosophical nihilism?
Ninthly, this position fails to "comprehend the data of reality", namely the ubiquitous pursuit of justice among humans. All over the world, across all human cultures and right throughout human history, people have demanded justice and created laws to maintain it. The pursuit of justice begins at a very early age, small children are almost always aware of when "it isn't fair" towards them. This is not an appeal to transcendent truth or human emotion, but an observation of the fact that people pursue justice. Where moral realism has enormous explanatory power for this phenomenon, moral relativism fails to explain this universal fact. Generally, people understand that there is something wrong with the morality (or lack thereof) of sociopaths. However, this position demands that there isn't: sociopaths simply have a different value set than we do, and their value set cannot be judged as right or wrong, it simply is.
Tenthly, this position lacks "inner intellectual coherence". As Sam Harris puts it: "Relativists may say that moral truths exist only relative to a specific cultural framework - but this claim about the status of moral truth purports to be true across all possible frameworks" (Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape, p66). The very statement that objective morals are obviously worthless is an objective claim about morality that demands that no one can make any objective claims about morality.
After asserting that objective morals are obviously worthless, the author goes on to defend philosophical nihilism against the charge that even nihilists genuinely feel or speak as if something is objectively wrong. The argument is one of analogy: just as astronomers can use the English word “sunset” to describe a specific case of the earth's rotation rather than an actual setting of the sun, so too nihilists can use the English expression "that's horrible" when they really mean "that feels horrible". Unfortunately this analogy breaks down at a critical point that it needs to stand for the argument to hold any water. When the analogy was explored, the author clarified that when the astronomer used the language of sunset "what he [the astronomer] meant was not wrong" (TVT episode 4, from 40:53). The difference here is one of language not meaning, the astronomer uses different language to express the same meaning. However, what nihilists genuinely mean is precisely what's being debated, not their language. When people get angry they tend to drop their speech guards and say what they really mean. And so, to argue that when people are most likely to say what they really mean, nihilists are actually saying something very different to what they mean (and in fact, contradictory to what they believe), is not only a failure to explain the evidence, but an attempt to explain the evidence away. The argument is strictly irrefutable, like the argument that we were all created five minutes ago with all the memories that we currently have, but it’s an argument that's critical of everyone who works under the assumption that things are as they appear.
There were a few other contradictions in the author's position, for example, at one point he says "I don't deny that it’s within human nature to want causes and reasons for action and not just sit there. I only ask that people own where those causes and reasons for actions come from" (TVT episode 4, from 45:02), but then when asked about his own causes and reasons he said "when you come to things like values, 'why?' is a fundamentally inappropriate question, there's no factor in the process for me of willing to power one's values on the world" (TVT episode 4, from 23:37). While Nietzsche (the father of nihilism) would push him much harder on this contradiction (arguing that he's borrowing Christian moral capital which he should rid himself of in order to embrace his human nature to step on others in the pursuit of power), I'm actually quite glad that he sees human cruelty as cruelty, and I certainly wouldn't want to talk him out of that (even if it's inconsistent with his worldview).
However, these contradictions and the need to explain away evidence rather than the ability to provide an explanation for it, is precisely what convinces me that philosophical nihilism fails as a worldview. According to Sire, the two tests for worldviews are “inner intellectual coherence” and the ability to “comprehend the data of reality” (James Sire, The Universe Next Door, p246). But philosophical nihilism demands that we accept the objective moral truth that there is no objective moral truth, and it argues from observing human cruelty - which it demands isn’t actually cruelty at all (and so it fails to have inner intellectual coherence). It not only fails to explain the ubiquitous pursuit of justice, but explains it away when we gather such evidence from nihilists themselves (and so it fails to comprehend the data of reality).
Having dismissed nihilism as false and then taken a bit more time to carefully consider it, I’m not only convinced that it’s false, but that it’s obviously worthless. Towards the end of the podcast the position of the author was summarised by an observer as: “we could functionally live as though objective morals don’t exist, by being nihilists who functionally speak and feel as if objective moral values do exist” (TVT episode 4, from 41:56). Even if nihilism was true, you have to speak and operate as if it’s false. Whatever truth there is in nihilism, it’s obviously worthless to everyone, including avowed nihilists.
