Nihilism and Persuasion: An open monologue (part 1)

[chaoticfutility]

albeit nearly accurate; nihilism is not a belief of nothing as much as it is a personal symbol representing a meaning assembled by a union of cartesian camcorder (drescher's dennet cartesian theatre adaptation) conceptual sets stored in binary code as memory; the union representing the unifying theme, flavour, scheme, ideal, moral, inter alia. The best joy of nihilism is geting over the constant babble of the imbecile cultures we live in and enjoy the fact we get stronger the worse things are!

[erdal0]

this is scooby doo philosophy

are you kidding no reality?? just stop talking

[dakshinamurti]

what the fuck are you talking about "no reality" ? where the fuck have I said there is NO REALITY? DID YOU EVEN LISTEN?

[erdal0]

reality is objective

[dakshinamurti]

objective reality is objective :) Nice tautology there. subjective experience is subjective. Awesome stuff! I feel we are making progress!

[erdal0]

hmmz give me example

[spawktalk]

a moral nihilist is not someone who just doesnt believe in objective morality.

[dakshinamurti]

Hi there. I have no idea what you mean. My idea of Moral Nihilism is the implication to the fact that there is no objective moral values/properties, namely, the absense of moral facts, and the inapplicability of truth-value to a moral sentence. Examples of what I call moral nihilism are Moral non-cognitivism and error theory, while there are others. That said, subjectivism is not incompatible with nihilism. It's a mere perspective, accepting moral claims are opinions or emotions/sentiments

[dakshinamurti]

I see itas a mere perspective on morality, namely moral discourse, accepting that moral claims are opinions or emotions/sentiments/statements of subjective value/motivators/desires, rather than referring to anything mind-independent. My definition of objective is "mind-independent". So I hope this makes it clearer what I'm saying. Example of a person which was both a subjectivist and a Nihilist is Mackie, which I've studied in college. Thanks 4 commenting.

[spawktalk]

Right, nihilism and subjecivism both accept the existence of subjective moral claims, its just a nihilist says such claims are false. a ubjectivist would not

[dakshinamurti]

I guess that depends on how you define subjectivism. All I can tell you is that Mackie calls himself both. Some philosophical taxonomies put emotivism/universal prescriptivism/expressivism as forms of subjectivism. I for one, also prefer to see it like that, as one expressing his subjective feelings/conative attitudes/sentiments. Nihilism is implied by this. It's just different conceptual layers of the same thing.

[spawktalk]

Moral subjectivism holds that moral claims have truth value. Where as error theory says that they are false, and nongonitivism says that they arent even truth apt.

[dakshinamurti]

Yes I know.

[Orygyn]

Interesting thoughts. Now for part 2.

[teenspirit1]

I think empathy is a common ground that we can base morality on without delving too deeply into the technical details of evolution. Because it is widely available.

It may not work for complex situations, it may not work as a common ground for brains where empathy works differently or less, or not at all, but at least it exists and helps societies survive.

[graaaaaagh]

I'm thinking more and more that ethics are contrived.

[dakshinamurti]

Yeah, totally. Once I organize my ideas better, which might take another year or so, I may be able to synthesize the truth about ethics, more on an evolutionist kind of approach. I've given up on objective ethics, unless one is considering subjects as objects, which is a valid thing to do for some reasons, just as long as one keeps in mind that traditionally, objective means, mind independent, and hence there are no objective values, only objective consequences, which can be

[dakshinamurti]

valued (values), be incompatible with what I already value (anti-values) or perfectly indifferent (mere facts that do not motivate me in any way to act).

[dakshinamurti]

You know what, I feel like resubscribing to you. Be cool.

[DealerDirekt]

Wow deep deep deep I'd like to hear more

[dakshinamurti]

part 2, my friend :) I think it gets better :) I wish I managed to be more systematic in my presentation, I'm 2 much of a freestyler for my own taste.

[theracemixer]

HUH?