Moral nihilism, also known as
ethical nihilism, is the
meta-ethicalIn philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, and ethical statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being ethical theory and applied ethics...
view that nothing is moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is not inherently right or wrong. This view can lead to amoralism.
Moral nihilism must be distinguished from
ethical subjectivismEthical subjectivism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are about the attitudes of people.This makes ethical subjectivism a form of cognitivism...
and
moral relativismIn philosophy moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect universal moral truths . Instead, Moral Relativism makes claims relative to social, cultural, or historical circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an...
, which do allow for moral statements to be true or false in a non-objective sense, but do not assign any static
truth-valuesIn logic and mathematics, a logical value, also called a truth value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth.In classical logic, the truth values are true and false...
to moral statements.
Moral nihilism, also known as
ethical nihilism, is the
meta-ethicalIn philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, and ethical statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being ethical theory and applied ethics...
view that nothing is moral or immoral. For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is not inherently right or wrong. This view can lead to amoralism.
Moral nihilism must be distinguished from
ethical subjectivismEthical subjectivism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are about the attitudes of people.This makes ethical subjectivism a form of cognitivism...
and
moral relativismIn philosophy moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect universal moral truths . Instead, Moral Relativism makes claims relative to social, cultural, or historical circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an...
, which do allow for moral statements to be true or false in a non-objective sense, but do not assign any static
truth-valuesIn logic and mathematics, a logical value, also called a truth value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth.In classical logic, the truth values are true and false...
to moral statements. Insofar as only true statements can be known, moral nihilists are
moral skeptics"Moral skepticism" denotes a class of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, modal, claim that moral knowledge is impossible...
.
Some prominent, recent moral nihilists are
J. L. MackieJohn Leslie Mackie was an Australian philosopher, originally from Sydney. He is perhaps best known for his views on meta-ethics, especially his defence of moral skepticism...
(1977) and Richard Joyce (2001).
Forms of moral nihilism
According to Sinnott-Armstrong (2006a), the basic thesis of moral nihilism is that "nothing is morally wrong" (§3.4). There are, however, several forms that this thesis can take (see Sinnott-Armstrong, 2006b, pp. 32–37 and Russ Shafer-Landau, 2003, pp.8–13).
Non-cognitivism
Non-cognitivism in ethics is the view that moral statements lack truth-value and do not assert genuine propositions. This involves a rejection of the cognitivist claim, shared by other moral philosophies, that moral statements seek to "describe some feature of the world" (Garner 1967, 219-220). This position on its own is logically compatible with realism about moral values themselves. That is, one could reasonably hold that there are objective moral values but that we cannot know them and that our moral language does not seek to refer to them. This would amount to an endorsement of a type of moral skepticism, rather than nihilism.
Typically, however, the rejection of the cognitivist thesis is combined with the thesis that there are, in fact, no moral facts (van Roojen, 2004). But if moral statements cannot be true, and if one cannot know something that is not true, non-cognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible (Garner 1967, 219-220).
Moral nihilism sounds scary, but is just a statement upon the meaning of sentences about morality, not upon the question if people should act morally or not. Many noncognitivists still believe in moral behavior, Hare has even tried to establish objectivity of moral reasoning without truth values. Amoralists can share noncognitivists views on metaethics, but make further claims against moral thinking.
Error theory
Error theorists combine the
cognitivistCognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false , which noncognitivists deny...
thesis that moral language consists of truth-apt statements with the nihilist thesis that there are no moral facts. Like moral nihilism itself, however, error theory comes in more than one form.
Global falsity
The first, which one might call the
global falsity form of moral nihilism, claims that moral beliefs and assertions are false in that they
claim that certain moral facts exist that do not exist. J. L. Mackie (1977) argues for this form of moral nihilism. Mackie, for example, argues that moral assertions are only true if there are moral properties that are intrinsically motivating, but there is good reason to believe that there are no such intrinsically motivating properties (see the
argument from queerness"The Argument from Queerness" is a term used in the philosophical study of ethics first developed by J. L. Mackie in his book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong ISBN 0-14-013558-8...
and motivational internalism).
Presupposition failure
The second form, which one might call the
presupposition failure form of moral nihilism, claims that moral beliefs and assertions are not true because they are neither true nor false. This is not a form of
non-cognitivismNon-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions and thus cannot be true or false...
, since moral assertions are still thought to be truth-apt. Rather, this form of moral nihilism claims that moral beliefs and assertions
presuppose the existence of moral facts that do not exist. This is analogous to presupposition failure in cases of non-moral assertions. Take, for example, the claim that the present king of France is bald. Some argue that this claim is truth-apt in that it has the logical form of an assertion, but it is neither true nor false because it presupposes that there is currently a king of France, but there is not. The claim suffers from "presupposition failure." Richard Joyce (2001) argues for this form of moral nihilism under the name "fictionalism."
Moral nihilists in history
The philosophy of
Niccolò MachiavelliNiccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, writer, and is considered one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, musician, and playwright, but, foremost, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...
is sometimes presented as a model of moral nihilism, but that is highly questionable. His book
Il Principe (
The PrinceIl Principe is a political treatise by the Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Originally called De Principatibus , it was originally written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death...
) was silent on moral matters, which shocked a European tradition that throughout the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
had inculcated moral lessons in its political philosophies. But silence about morality is not tantamount to outright nihilism. Machiavelli does say that the Prince must override moral reasons in favour of power-maintaining reasons of State, but he also says, particularly in his other works, that the successful ruler should be guided by
PaganPaganism is a word with several different meanings.In its broadest definition, pagan denotes all non-Abrahamic religions, that is to say it denotes all religions other than Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.Other usages are:*Paganism may mean Polytheism: The group so defined includes most of the...
, rather than
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
,
virtueVirtue is moral excellence. A virtue is a character trait or quality valued as being good.Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting individual and collective well-being, and thus good by definition. The opposite of virtue is vice.-Virtues and values:Virtues can be placed into a...
s. Hence, Machiavelli presents an alternative to the ethical theories of his day, rather than an all-out rejection of all morality. Complicating the matter is the evidence that the whole of
The Prince was written primarily to please the newly-princely Medici family and thus may have presented ideas contrary to Machiavelli's actual views, his actual opinions being represented in, among other things, the
Discourses on LivyThe Discourses on Livy is a work of political history and philosophy composed in the early 16th century by the famed Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli , best known as the author of The Prince...
.
Closer to being an example of moral nihilism is
ThrasymachusThrasymachus was a sophist of Ancient Greece best known as a character in Plato's Republic.-The Historical Thrasymachus:...
, as portrayed in
Plato'sPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
Republic. Thrasymachus can, however, be interpreted as offering a revisionary
account of justice, rather than a total rejection of morality and
normativeIn the general sense of meaning, a norm is something to help depict a phenomenon or system by means of averaging or bordering e.g. people are normally heterosexual, or good people live without sin. Comparison, classification and measurement all require some normative factor, e.g...
discourse.
Criticisms
Criticisms of moral nihilism come primarily from
moral realistsMoral realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion....
, who argue that there are positive moral truths. Criticisms do arise out of the other anti-realist camps (i.e.
subjectivistsEthical subjectivism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are about the attitudes of people.This makes ethical subjectivism a form of cognitivism...
and
relativistsIn philosophy moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect universal moral truths . Instead, Moral Relativism makes claims relative to social, cultural, or historical circumstances. Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an...
), however; and each school of moral nihilism has its own criticisms of the others (such as the non-cognitivists' critique of error theory for accepting the semantic thesis of moral realism).
Moral nihilism is also criticized by those skeptics who do not believe anything substantive can be said about morality at all, positive or negative.
A third standpoint of criticism is to deny that the basis of moral objectivity is metaphysical. It is therefore possible to agree with the moral nihilists' criticisms of moral realism whilst arguing that there is an alternative non-metaphysical basis for moral objectivity, such as the incremental integration of human experience.
http://www.moralobjectivity.net