Moral nihilism: what it is and what this philosophical position proposes

Defining what is morally correct has been a really difficult thing throughout history and, of course, In fact, there are those who consider that the idea that something is ethically correct or incorrect is fake.

This is the view of moral nihilism, who believes that something cannot be said to be true since morality is difficult to base on morally true facts.

• Related article: "Differences between Psychology and Philosophy"

What is moral nihilism?

Moral nihilism, also called ethical nihilism, is the metaethical vision (that is, from the part of ethics in charge of studying the origin of ethical principles) that indicates that ethical principles are generally false.

It is the metaethical view that nothing is morally right or wrong. According to this vision there are no moral propositions that are true, nor is the idea that there are propositions that are morally good, bad, incorrect or correct. He believes that there are no moral truths. For example, a moral nihilist would say that murder is neither a right nor a wrong fact.

morality is arbitrary

Defining what morality is is something that has proven to be very difficult, despite the fact that some consensus among philosophers, speaking of the fact that there are certain judgments that could be considered impartial and universal. Finding a solid foundation as to whether these judgments are true or false is even more difficult., since it is difficult to use a universal aspect of ethics to create an ethical theory that can allow the human being to be certain of which moral aspects are correct and which are not.

A clear example of all this are the debates about whether abortion is acceptable, euthanasia and, experimentally investigated, the tram dilemma. These are issues on which people disagree. There are defenders of the right of women to decide about their bodies and to stop suffering from the sick terminal, while others maintain that life is something sacred and to take it away is to attempt against the moral.

All this would come to support the idea that moral statements are not right or wrong, but a matter of absolute subjectivity. It is culture that induces us to have a system of beliefs and values ​​that makes us justify our actions and the actions of others as something good or something bad. Depending on how inconsistent the actions of others are with respect to our moral principles, this will produce more acceptance or rejection of their behavior.

• You may be interested in: "Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development"

Proposals of this philosophical current

As we were already saying, the followers of this current defend that ideas such as, for example, "murder is morally wrong" are not true. However, there are differences regarding how to interpret that idea. It is not the same to consider that something is not true than to consider it false. It may seem that this is not the case, that in essence they are the same and, in fact, one of the two ways of thinking within the current sees it that way. The nuance is pretty minor, but it's still there.

one of two visions considers that every moral statement, whether it specifies what is right or what is wrong, is neither true nor false. In other words, and in relation to the example of murder, the act of taking the life of another person would not be something bad, as conformed to the moral vision of most people, but it would not be something Well. It would simply be the action of taking another person's life, objectively speaking.

On the other hand, we have the point of view that considers that any statement, describing a morally right or wrong action, is necessarily false. The reason for this is that there is no way to morally justify absolutely anythingTherefore, affirming what is correct and what is not implies being lying, with which a falsehood is said.

The bug theory

John Leslie Mackie is known to be the most famous thinker on nihilistic moral ideas.. He is known for being an advocate of error theory, a theory that combines moral nihilism with cognitivism, the idea that moral language consists of true-false statements. The view of the theory of error is that ordinary morality and the discourse associated with it they commit a great and profound mistake, with which all moral statements are ontological claims fake.

Mackie argued that moral statements could only be true if moral properties were found to give them strength, that is, to be their foundation. The problem is that these moral properties did not exist, therefore all moral statements had to be, necessarily, false. There are no pure and hard properties that allow us to determine that an action is correct or not.

In short, the error theory is based on the following:

• There are no true moral properties, nothing is right or wrong.
• Therefore, no judgment is true.
• Our moral judgments fail to describe the moral characteristics of things.

The fact that we consider murder to be wrong is not because there is an indubitable and objective truth that tells us that it is wrong. We consider it morally wrong because the culture has made us think that way., in addition to the fact that, since we would not like someone to take our lives, the fact that they kill other people awakens empathy in us. It's bad because we don't want them to do it to us.

Evolution is the origin of morality

Based on all this, how is it explained that human beings have had the need to attribute morality to actions? As we have already commented, empathy, a product of evolution, has a lot to do with morality. It is a fact that culture influences and shapes our moral principles, but it is curious how in many cultures there are ideas that are universally seen as good or bad, and very few dare to question it.

Many evolutionary psychologists believe that the innate ideas of sympathy, empathy, give and take, and other behaviors related to reciprocity implied a great evolutionary advantage when it came to conceiving the human being as it is nowadays. Sharing has been linked to a greater chance of survival.

This would also be attributable to the idea of ​​morality. would have appeared as a series of behaviors to avoid, especially those that imply great harm to everyone, such as aggression, murder, rape... That is, by establishing which aspects are correct and which are not, the freedom of expression is limited. individuals, which prevents each one from doing what he wants and, therefore, decreases the chances of behaviors occurring vengeful.

Let's go back to the earlier idea of ​​murder. If in a society murder is conceived as something neutral, neither good nor bad, it implies that there are no laws that prohibit its execution. This means that a person who has a fight with someone can commit it and, in turn, a relative of the victim kills the murderer. As a counter-response, a loved one of the murderer, now murdered, will try to kill whoever is avenged, and so the murder would increase, escalating and making society non-viable.

On the other hand, the existence of morality implies the realization of good actions and bad actions. In the same way that murder could be seen as a bad thing, sharing and being charitable would also be seen as a good thing. Sharing food, resources and protecting others would increase the survival of the group, taking more individuals who could cope with various threats, from beast attacks to disasters natural.

Bibliographic references:

• Garner, R. T.; Rosen, B. (1967). Moral Philosophy: A Systematic Introduction to Normative Ethics and Meta-ethics, New York: Macmillan.
• Shafer-Landau, R. (2003). Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?, Oxford University Press.
• Joyce, R. (2001). The Myth of Morality, Cambridge University Press.
• Mackie, J. (1977). Ethics: inventing right and wrong. London. ISBN 0140135588. OCLC 24729622.
• Krellenstein, M. (2017). Moral nihilism and its implications. Journal of Mind & Behavior. 38. 75-90.