Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 8:36 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:14 am
I have seen no one in this thread who qualifies as a pure nihilist. Such a person would not mount arguments. They would not differentiate between is and ought issues, since nihilism sees objectivity as a whole, not just moral objectivity, as an impossible enterprise.
For some here, it's ever and always up in the "intellectual contraption" clouds.
I'm always using intellectual contraptions? Nah. Sometimes, in a philosophy forums...yeah, just like you. Here's a question...how could my post have served a purpose different from the one you might have wanted it to. It is often amazing how someone skeptical of objective morals judges immediately when others have different values for posting here. Irony, yes. And that you see a post describing nihilism in a thread entitled nihilism as an intellectual contraption (which seems to be perjorative term for you)...that's kinda funny. Further it smacks of objectivism. Did I do something wrong daddy? I know, implying your sense of objective morals is not the same as being direct about them.
Above, I encompassed my own understanding of moral nihilism given the existential trajectory of my life in regard to abortion. As I did in the OP here:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
Now, either you will encompass your own take on nihilism in the same manner or you won't.
A pure nihilist?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 8:36 pmYes. Did you not understand the concept? This would be someone who is an anti-realist and radically skeptical about our ability to know anything and does not think any authorities have validity as authorities and thinks life has no meaning. Oh, wait. I explained that already.
Over and again I note that my own intertest here is less in exchanging concepts of nihilism and more in integrating those concepts out in the world of actual human interactions that come into conflict. If not in regard to abortion then an issue which is of particular importance to you.
Given what context?
Again, my own favorite: Mary has an abortion.
Okay, how would a "pure nihilist" react to that?
Pure nihilists while sharing the above traits could still have a range of reactions. Maybe Mary was their girlfriend and they are relieved or disappointed. etc.
Exactly. How we react to abortion is predicated in large part on how
existentially we have come to acquire a particular subjective understanding of it. And, of course, the actual circumstances involved. How then can there even be a "pure nihilism" here?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 8:36 pmOr do you mean what would a pure nihilists stance on Mary's abortion be?
Well, they obviously could not view it, or Mary, as immoral. They would consider it impossible to know if the fetus was a living entity in the sense some anti-abortionists do. Since they would tend to have a negative view of life, they might view it as a saving the potential child from a hellish existence. They would also think that it was not any church's, government agency's right or authority to have the slightest control over Mary's choice, since they don't have any authority. Though at the same time they would not think Mary, however much they loved or hated her, had a right to choose...though until recently, she certainly had the power, unless she was a minor in some place or late along.
To me this all smacks of a collection of political prejudices. While those on the other end of the specturm have their own collection of assumptions. To me, a pure nihilist would just abandon all such moral and political prejudices. He or she might take a position analogous to Wittgenstein's suggestion that, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". It's futile to discuss and debate the morality of abortion because language in a No God world [philosophical or otherwise] is not able resolve anything. I merely suggest that language employed here is the embodiment of dasein.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:14 am A nihilist can, it seems, only find meaning in reacting to non-nihilists. They have little to say to each other. Even moral anti-realists have little to say to each other.
And what on Earth does this mean? It's not what moral nihilists say to each other...it's what they either can or cannot demonstrate that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to say to each other. It's about the limitations of language here.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:14 am You ask what it means, then disagree with it. And it seems then universalize your values by saying what 'it' is. What you want to focus on is THE issue, period. Implying being morally superior somehow avoids being an objectivist.
My aim here is to take what we think something means in regard to nihilism and, to the best of our ability, attempt to demonstrate why we believe that other rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to believe the same. Given a particular set of circumstances in the is/ought world where conflicts over meaning precipitate conflicting behaviors in turn.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:14 amIf you look at the two main promoters of this position, Iambiguous and Peter Holmes, they have little to say to each other. But Peter Holmes is not a nihilist, since he certainly believes in objectivity. Iambiguous is more mixed, but does make the is ought distinction so he is a not a full blown nihilist. But there is a great deal of skepticism and more focus on the meaninglessness of life.
Unless of course he's wrong.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:14 am Obviously; one could write that after every sentence anyone writes.
Yes, but in the either/or world, we can generally determine if in fact someone is right or wrong. The distinction I make is between nihilism/meaning there and nihilism/meaning in the is/ought world.
I know! How about a context!! Of his own choosing.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:14 am I responded to your context on abortion with what the pure nihilist position would be on an abortion. And it's a negative position, not surprisingly. It doesn't argue that Mary was right to have an abortion or that she has a right to choose or that she isn't bad, since all that would be gibberish to a pure nihilist. And in some sense whatever the outcome - abortion, miscarriage, adoption, acceptance of being a mother.....whatever happens to Mary and the fetus...doesn't really matter since it's all meaningless to the pure nihilist. I think, I've met one of these and they sure as shit don't hang out in philosophy forums.
Your pure nihilist. Mine assumes that even that is but an existential contraption rooted subjectively in dasein. I just construe the "self" here as considerably more "fractured and fragmented" than others.
And to the extent that the pure nihilist chooses to interact with others...whether in philosophy forums or out in the world socially, politically and economically...he or she will be reacted to and judged by others. Sure, you can dismiss these reactions and judgments as no less essentially meaningless, but others will react to that too.
As, for example, you making this all about me here:
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:14 am Did he disagree with my description of a pure nihilist, iow one who has the range of beliefs attributed to nihilists and not just, for example, moral nihilism`? We don't know. Did he have a specific criticism of any point made in my post? No, just implicit judgment and yes, moral judgment.
The moreno/karpel tunnel syndrome, I call it.
And, over at ILP, he was one of my own "Three Stooges".
