Every single one of those is an assertion without logical basis, no different from each other. I am fine with that being the state of affairs, but I do not see why one can call out another one's inherent starting assumptions to be illogical, while affirming another's starting assumptions.
Because one is:
Truth matters
and the other is:
Truth matters and also Christ and God and stuff.
We all agree on "truth matters". It would be different if one set of assumptions was X and the other was Y, we might have no reason to pick one over the other. But we instead have X or X+Y. As long as we don't like arbitrary assumptions, we should go with the one that has the least, which is just X and try to get to Y from there. Alternatively, we could conclude that we have no problem with arbitrary assumptions, and simply dictate our own personal fantasy world without caring one iota what the real world is like. Make everything an arbitrary assumption - any proposition we wish to be true is an axiom.
Christ has value because he is the Christ, the savior of the world.
Why is your assumption of inherency better than mine?
Except, you've missed the point.
When you make the claim "Christ has value because he is the Christ, the savior of the world," you are asserting that statement has truth. The value of that statement, in turn, stems from whether or not that statement is true.
You think you are claiming something contrary to what I am claiming, when in fact the value of your claim hinges on the value of my claim.
And, for the record, you might be frustrated that you can't prove the existence of God to someone, but throwing your arms up in the air and saying, "Fine, then who cares about truth anyway?" is not the most productive reaction you can have to this.
Quote from TomCat26 »
Sigh...atheists always get so bent out of shape whenever I use the term "worship" anywhere near them.
>When you make the claim "Christ has value because he is the Christ, the savior of the world," you are asserting that statement has truth. The value of >that statement, in turn, stems from whether or not that statement is true.
>You think you are claiming something contrary to what I am claiming, when in fact the value of your claim hinges on the value of my claim.
>And, for the record, you might be frustrated that you can't prove the existence of God to someone, but throwing your arms up in the air and >saying, "Fine, then who cares about truth anyway?" is not the most productive reaction you can have to this.
Highroller always making assumptions outside the ambit of the discussion. Do you want to argue about why you think I'm frustrated and whether my reaction is productive? That discussion is all yours to argue and win. I never raised that issue. You can even go all ad hominem on me. Once again, outside the ambit of the question and based totally on your speculation of my motives.
But yes, absolutely believing in Christ assumes adopting his doctrinal system. Within that doctrinal system one should believe that truth is good. I am fine with that.
I can take it on faith that truth is good. I can also take it on faith that Christ is Lord. I have no logical justification for either, which is really my point, but since faith is the system we're abiding by here, then sure. I accept both. And the acceptance of both is necessary if I am to call myself a Christian adherent faithful to the doctrinal principles of Christianity.
I've come out and stated my views are nihilistic. I have not studied philosophy, but I believed nihilism to be a branch of philosophy, and I anticipated strong rebuttals from counter-schools of thought to it. I was and still am open to these schools of thought.
It seems many people here on debate have studied philosophy and I honestly hoped that those knowledgeable in philosophy would speak up advocating the counterarguments to nihilism found in counter schools to it. I have no personal counter to nihilism except for bald faith or arbitrary declaration that some things in life have value. My personal beliefs, even emotions, tend to trend nihilistic--according to Crashing00, stronger than mere Moral Nihilism.
But certainly there must be counter arguments to schools of nihilism found in philosophy. Can those who have studied philosophy direct me to links, or argue on behalf of those schools? For now, I thank Crashing00 for his input, and I will look more into where he has directed me.
If you're cool with accepting things on faith, why stop there? Accept on faith that you have a million dollars. Accept on faith that you're master of the universe. Accept on faith that your every whim is granted.
We have to accept that truth is better than falsehood, or else we can't believe or know anything. We don't really have the tools to justify the choice to accept that truth has value before we accept that it has value. So perhaps the best we can do is to just accept it so that we don't have to live in complete darkness. So we reluctantly accept it. But that doesn't mean we now have a blank check to accept anything. In almost all other cases we have tools at our disposal to justify what we should and shouldn't believe. We shouldn't just ditch those tools and start accepting as "true" whatever we want willy-nilly. If you actually value truth, then you have to use those tools to discover it, not make up truths as you go.
Again, I have not studied philosophy and am open to further characterization to what my set of beliefs appears like. You said my beliefs appear closer to epistemological nihilism; I am open to more discussion on what that means.
Epistemological nihilism is the position that there is no way to conduct one's reason, seek truth, or obtain knowledge that is anything more than arbitrary. (Moral nihilism follows a fortiori.)
As for what you wrote regarding the anticipation of metaphysical reality, obviously I would have to read more to get the full ambit of his school of thought, but for now I inquisitively counter---wouldn't mere suspicion also allow one to anticipate metaphysical reality? I tend to imagine a world based on suspicions of people acting for their own benefit. Truth is unnecessary. In fact seeing as how all of us may be limited in our ability to establish truth, i see this as being closer to reality--people acting on suspicions.
I don't know what you mean by suspicion here. The dictionary says "the feeling that something bad is likely or true." If that's what you mean, then it's defined in terms of truth; you must know something about truth or likelihood in order to know suspicion. Thus, when you talk about forming your beliefs about metaphysics based on suspicion, you're really just talking about truth filtered through one level of abstraction.
Sigh...atheists always get so bent out of shape whenever I use the term "worship" anywhere near them. it's like it's some kind of loaded term to them.
Yes, people tend to get "bent out of shape" when you lie about them. And it is a loaded term.
Very well, I retract my previous qualification that atheists appear to "worship" truth and instead replace it with the characterization that many appear to impute great value to truth. I have no interest in a semantic war.
Semantic war? Are you kidding? Suppose I said that your position sounds to me (an objective observer, of course) like "killing babies." You'd say I was flagrantly misrepresenting you, that none of your words can rightly be construed in that way, and you'd be perfectly correct. It's not mere semantics when you wildly misrepresent a position like that. The word "worship" simply doesn't apply to the quest for truth in general.
Don't lie about the opposing position.
My question is, how do they assume value for truth? America is a nation where Christians hold a good deal of political power and influence. From my observations atheists experience greater social friction (perhaps even borderline persecution). They are willing to maintain that social friction because they place value in truth. (they believe Christianity is untrue and therefore must maintain their stance in spite of the social friction) They do this because there is value in holding to the truth---that christianity is untrue. Why? What makes them impute so much value to truth that they would accede to social friction?
I've already given one reason for imputing value to truth, and that is because truth and only truth can be "cashed out" metaphysically. For example, if I am the only round-earther in a world of flat-earthers, then despite any "social friction" I may encounter for my beliefs, I'm the only guy that's going to be willing to get in a ship and keep sailing West, and consequently, I'd be the sole beneficiary of whatever I find out there. Everyone else is going to be scared of falling off the edge. It's the truth of my beliefs that lets me "cash them in" in reality, and that's why I value truth.
Any why is the worship or the imputation of value to truth more reasonable than the imputation of value to random object designated God.
Because the random object designated God only cashes out metaphysically if some of the claims about him turn out to be true! It always comes full circle back to truth. Truth is what you've got to peg your beliefs to if you want them to have value. There is no other way of valuing them.
Also, please stop conflating worship with value. They're not the same things.
Addenda: if you want to suggest links to schools of thought that rebut epistemological nihilism, I am also open to that as well.
You could start, I suppose, with the fathers of Western philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant. Descartes, specifically, gives what is probably the most famous argument against total nihilism.
Now Christianity to me is fine because it is a system which states to believe it based on arbitrary declaration or "faith" Simply believe. In some sense, i tried it and stuck with it.
Well, this is certainly one of the most interesting interpretations of Christianity I've yet seen! Have you even read any of the Bible? Because throughout the New Testament is the constant refrain that people ought to accept the gospel because it is true. For example,
"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4)
or
"And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation." (Ephesians 1:13)
Now of course faith plays a critical role in Christianity; but faith is not the opposite or the enemy of truth. Generally it's more like an extrapolation from truth. For example, when Paul claims that we are all "sinners" (which is a metaphysical proposition that must be accepted on faith), he first spends a good while arguing and illustrating that we all acknowledge some sort of moral law and that we all keep it imperfectly, such that the leap of faith can be made from a place of firm footing.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
My question is, how do they assume value for truth? America is a nation where Christians hold a good deal of political power and influence. From my observations atheists experience greater social friction (perhaps even borderline persecution). They are willing to maintain that social friction because they place value in truth. (they believe Christianity is untrue and therefore must maintain their stance in spite of the social friction) They do this because there is value in holding to the truth---that christianity is untrue. Why? What makes them impute so much value to truth that they would accede to social friction?
I've already given one reason for imputing value to truth, and that is because truth and only truth can be "cashed out" metaphysically. For example, if I am the only round-earther in a world of flat-earthers, then despite any "social friction" I may encounter for my beliefs, I'm the only guy that's going to be willing to get in a ship and keep sailing West, and consequently, I'd be the sole beneficiary of whatever I find out there. Everyone else is going to be scared of falling off the edge. It's the truth of my beliefs that lets me "cash them in" in reality, and that's why I value truth.
Moral nihilism does not have a problem with the statement "truth can be cashed out metaphysically." A moral nihilist has a problem with the statement "truth can be cashed out metaphysically, therefore one ought to value truth." A moral nihilist wants to know where the "ought" comes from. Why is it "good," "right," or "moral" that truth can be cashed out metaphysically?
So, as I understand TomCat's position, he accepts instrumental (or pragmatic) "ought" statements, but not prescriptive "ought" statement. He would presumably agree that all of the following statements are instrumentally true:
(1) If one wants to live, one ought to breathe.
(2) If one wants to cash out statements metaphysically, one ought to value true statements.
(3) If one wants to be a christian, one ought to follow christian doctrine.
The problem is that none of these instrumental statements translate into prescriptive statements. There is no underlying reason one should care about breathing or truth or christianity. One can only justify instrumental "if you want X then you ought to do Y" statements. One can't justify an ultimate "you ought to [prescriptively] do Y" statement.
Personally, I'm not aware of any convincing counterarguments to this position, but maybe I just haven't encountered them yet.
So, as I understand TomCat's position, he accepts instrumental (or pragmatic) "ought" statements, but not prescriptive "ought" statement. He would presumably agree that all of the following statements are instrumentally true:
(1) If one wants to live, one ought to breathe.
(2) If one wants to cash out statements metaphysically, one ought to value true statements.
(3) If one wants to be a christian, one ought to follow christian doctrine.
The problem is that none of these instrumental statements translate into prescriptive statements. There is no underlying reason one should care about breathing or truth or christianity. One can only justify instrumental "if you want X then you ought to do Y" statements. One can't justify an ultimate "you ought to prescriptively do Y" statement.
Personally, I'm not aware of any convincing counterarguments to this position, but maybe I just haven't encountered them yet.
For starters, it seems to me your hypothetical nihilist (I'll leave Tomcat's name out of it, since I'm not sure this is an accurate representation of his view) is no kind of nihilist at all. You say that he can engage in means-end reasoning; presumably you mean sound means-end reasoning -- as in he didn't just arbitrarily land on those three statements by chance. Well, that being the case, how is he able to do that? Why does he accept "If one wants to live, one ought to breathe" while (ostensibly) denying "If one wants to live, one ought to jump off a cliff?"
If his beliefs in this regard are anything other than arbitrary, it seems to me that it can only be because of some mental process that is functionally equivalent to an imperative of some sort: he believes that he ought to endorse certain means-end statements and not others, regardless of whether or not he labels that belief with the word "ought."
For starters, it seems to me your hypothetical nihilist (I'll leave Tomcat's name out of it, since I'm not sure this is an accurate representation of his view) is no kind of nihilist at all.
You're right, let's leave Tomcat out of this. Let's call this "my position" for the purposes of the debate (though I don't necessarily embrace these ideas on a personal level, I'll support these arguments because I find them interesting/persuasive). To the extend TomCat finds any of this valuable, he can chime in.
You say that he can engage in means-end reasoning; presumably you mean sound means-end reasoning -- as in he didn't just arbitrarily land on those three statements by chance. Well, that being the case, how is he able to do that? Why does he accept "If one wants to live, one ought to breathe" while (ostensibly) denying "If one wants to live, one ought to jump off a cliff?"
I'm not advancing a hard across-the-board nihilist position. I accept that truth exists, and that some statements can be accurately labeled true or false. I also accept that truth is sometimes (or even often) useful to attaining certain real world goals.
My objections here are twofold: (1) why should I accept that truth has some kind of ultimate importance such that it needs to be prioritized above other things? i.e. if I will be a happier person as a christian than as an atheist, yet I know christianity is made-up while atheism is true, why should I follow truth instead of happiness?; (2) I don't see how to get from instrumental statements ("if you want x, do y") to prescriptive moral imperatives ("one should want x, one should do y"). Moreover, I'm not sure how to accurately asses the truth value of non-instrumental moral statements, or whether it's even possible to do so.
If his beliefs in this regard are anything other than arbitrary, it seems to me that it can only be because of some mental process that is functionally equivalent to an imperative of some sort: he believes that he ought to endorse certain means-end statements and not others, regardless of whether or not he labels that belief with the word "ought."
My nihilist understands the concept of truth, and understands that those statements are true. I don't think he assigns an imperative to these statements. He is not compelled to endorse them or follow them simply because they are true. He only recognizes that accepting true statements and rejecting false ones will help him accomplish certain goals ("if I want to accomplish my goal of staying alive, I should breathe"). But there is no imperative that he accomplish those goals, or that he even care about those goals.
Incidentally, I agree that we can formulate imperative statements without using the word "ought", and vice-versa. My examples above used the word "ought," yet were purely instrumental statements about how things are, not how they should be.
My objections here are twofold: (1) why should I accept that truth has some kind of ultimate importance such that it needs to be prioritized above other things? i.e. if I will be a happier person as a christian than as an atheist, yet I know christianity is made-up while atheism is true, why should I follow truth instead of happiness?;
What does it mean to be a christian while knowing that Christianity is made up? That you go through the motions even though you think it's all false?
Fundamentally, Christianity is a collection of statements of fact. If you don't believe those statements, it seems to me that you aren't a Christian. The bible doesn't say "you will be happy if you pretend Jesus died for your sins" it says "Jesus died for your sins".
My objections here are twofold: (1) why should I accept that truth has some kind of ultimate importance such that it needs to be prioritized above other things? i.e. if I will be a happier person as a christian than as an atheist, yet I know christianity is made-up while atheism is true, why should I follow truth instead of happiness?;
What does it mean to be a christian while knowing that Christianity is made up? That you go through the motions even though you think it's all false?
Fundamentally, Christianity is a collection of statements of fact. If you don't believe those statements, it seems to me that you aren't a Christian. The bible doesn't say "you will be happy if you pretend Jesus died for your sins" it says "Jesus died for your sins".
None of this is really a rebuttal to moral nihilism. Also both of your quoted statements are irrelevant if I'm ambivalent about the inherent value of truth. I'm not sure it's really "pretending" if I simply don't care about the truth value of the statement. Why can't I genuinely buy into an idea even if I know it's false? Why can't I simply choose not to care that it's false?
To put it another way, if "acting like a Christian" or "embracing Christianity despite knowing it's false" is more in line with my goals (personal happiness, social cohesion) than atheism, then why should I be an atheist? Why should I prioritize the "truth" of atheism over the other benefits I've determined I get from Christianity?
I'm not trying to rebut moral nihilism - I'm just trying to understand what you mean.
You cannot buy into Christianity even if you know it's false, because a core requirement of Christianity is that you believe it's true and care that it's true. If you are ambivalent about the value of truth, then you are not a Christian, or a follower of any other ideology which values truth.
I'm not trying to rebut moral nihilism - I'm just trying to understand what you mean.
You cannot buy into Christianity even if you know it's false, because a core requirement of Christianity is that you believe it's true and care that it's true. If you are ambivalent about the value of truth, then you are not a Christian, or a follower of any other ideology which values truth.
Maybe I wouldn't be a "true" Christian or a "genuine" Christian. But if I don't ascribe any special importance to "truth" or "genuineness" what difference does it make? If I hold the beliefs in my mind, attend church, practice the behaviors and thoughts that define a christian, who cares if I get some kind of ethereal stamp of "genuineness."
You can't practice the thoughts that define a Christian if you don't ascribe any special importance to truth, because ascribing importance to truth is one of the thoughts that defines a Christian.
Simply going through the motions of the rituals is hardly what makes on a Christian. If someone goes to mass because they like the hymns, is that person a Christian? Surely not.
If you don't ascribe any special importance to genuineness, why bother with any of it? Spend your time hopping on one foot and worshiping a tube of toothpaste and call yourself a Chrisitan. If being a "genuine" Christian doesn't matter to you, it seems an awfully convenient coincidence that you'd end up doing so much genuine Christian stuff, minus the actual belief part.
You can't practice the thoughts that define a Christian if you don't ascribe any special importance to truth, because ascribing importance to truth is one of the thoughts that defines a Christian.
Simply going through the motions of the rituals is hardly what makes on a Christian. If someone goes to mass because they like the hymns, is that person a Christian? Surely not.
If you don't ascribe any special importance to genuineness, why bother with any of it? Spend your time hopping on one foot and worshiping a tube of toothpaste and call yourself a Chrisitan. If being a "genuine" Christian doesn't matter to you, it seems an awfully convenient coincidence that you'd end up doing so much genuine Christian stuff, minus the actual belief part.
First of all, to be clear, I don't actually do this stuff in real life. I'm posing a hypothetical.
But yeah, I agree in my hypothetical I'm a fake christian. If Christianity is in fact false, then everyone is a fake christian in some sense, because none of it is real. It's not a coincidence I would behave exactly like a real Christian. By behaving that way, I would convince others (and maybe myself) that I am a genuine Christian, and therefore attain the social and psychological goals that I'm after. And sure, I could hop on one foot and worship toothpaste instead. But maybe I've determine that won't be as instrumental in attaining my goals.
But go ahead, replace "Christianity" with whatever false beliefs and behaviors you want: toothpaste-hopping, worshiping Zeus, inventing my own religion, etc. The point is, if the false belief suits me better than a real one (atheism, let's say), why does it matter that atheism is true? If I determine that being a [insert BS belief here] suits my personal goals better (I am happier, I make more friends, whatever my goals are), then why should I be an atheist? Is there anything about the fact that atheism is "true" that compels me to accept it?
If you convince yourself that you actually believe Christianity, then you are no longer a nihilist. This puts you back to square one, because you no longer have the freedom to "accept" things that you believe are false. Once you are a Christian, you're back to wanting to believe things because they are actually true, and have to find a new justification for accepting Christianity. You can't leapfrog from nihilism to Christianity to get yourself out of the fact that Christianity demands you believe it to be true.
Now, the question of whether you want to be a stealth atheist who everyone thinks is a Christian strikes me as a bit different. There you're not talking about whether you actually accept any particular beliefs, just whether you put on a facade for some social benefit. I don't think that has anything to do with nihilism.
I'm not advancing a hard across-the-board nihilist position. I accept that truth exists, and that some statements can be accurately labeled true or false. I also accept that truth is sometimes (or even often) useful to attaining certain real world goals.
My objections here are twofold: (1) why should I accept that truth has some kind of ultimate importance such that it needs to be prioritized above other things? i.e. if I will be a happier person as a christian than as an atheist, yet I know christianity is made-up while atheism is true, why should I follow truth instead of happiness?; (2) I don't see how to get from instrumental statements ("if you want x, do y") to prescriptive moral imperatives ("one should want x, one should do y"). Moreover, I'm not sure how to accurately asses the truth value of non-instrumental moral statements, or whether it's even possible to do so.
We have to do some epistemological close reasoning here, so if it seems I'm not directly addressing your objections, bear with me for the moment -- I'll get there, but I need to make sure we both agree on the fundamentals.
I asked a specific question in the previous post for dialectical reasons, and I was hoping for an answer. I asked that question because I believe it demonstrates that you must accept at least one prescriptive behavioral imperative in order to arrive at your hypothesized ability to perform means-end reasoning. This time I'm going to ask and try to answer as well.
Define O(X,Y) to mean "If one wants X, one ought to Y." The question is: why do you believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)?
The answer, as I see it, must fall into one of two broad classes.
1) Your belief formation is a random or arbitrary process, and it just happened to produce O(live,breathe) and ~O(live,suffocate). It could just as easily have produced O(live,suffocate) but it just happened not to. This would be actual nihilism, but it seems as though you're ruling this out. Fair enough, but if it's not that, then...
2) Your belief formation is governed by something. It produced O(live,breathe) and ~O(live,suffocate) because those are made inevitable by an imperative of some form which says that one of those is to be believed and the other is not. In fact, if you accept voluntarism of belief, this seems to be an ethical imperative in that it labels certain choices you could make as wrong and others as right.
2a) As a sub-case of (2), you might say it's because O(live,breathe) is true that you believe it, and because O(live,suffocate) is false that you disbelieve it. Well, if you say that, then not only do you have an ethical imperative, you have an ethical imperative that values truth!
And carefully note here that, pace your response, it's not enough for you just to understand the idea of "truth" or to label statements as true or false, because absent an imperative, those are just arbitrary labels. If you were really a nihilist you could perfectly well label O(live,suffocate) as "false" while simultaneously believing O(live,suffocate), there being no imperative pinning your belief to truth.
So, before we move on, what do you think so far? Are you actually a nihilist, or is your behavior governed by at least one nontrivial imperative?
My nihilist understands the concept of truth, and understands that those statements are true. I don't think he assigns an imperative to these statements. He is not compelled to endorse them or follow them simply because they are true. He only recognizes that accepting true statements and rejecting false ones will help him accomplish certain goals ("if I want to accomplish my goal of staying alive, I should breathe"). But there is no imperative that he accomplish those goals, or that he even care about those goals.
But in the course of your making a discernment between whatever truths about, say, survival that you are examining and their opposites, you operate in accordance with an imperative that allows you to insist on a particular side and dismiss the other.
I'm not advancing a hard across-the-board nihilist position. I accept that truth exists, and that some statements can be accurately labeled true or false. I also accept that truth is sometimes (or even often) useful to attaining certain real world goals.
My objections here are twofold: (1) why should I accept that truth has some kind of ultimate importance such that it needs to be prioritized above other things? i.e. if I will be a happier person as a christian than as an atheist, yet I know christianity is made-up while atheism is true, why should I follow truth instead of happiness?; (2) I don't see how to get from instrumental statements ("if you want x, do y") to prescriptive moral imperatives ("one should want x, one should do y"). Moreover, I'm not sure how to accurately asses the truth value of non-instrumental moral statements, or whether it's even possible to do so.
We have to do some epistemological close reasoning here, so if it seems I'm not directly addressing your objections, bear with me for the moment -- I'll get there, but I need to make sure we both agree on the fundamentals.
I asked a specific question in the previous post for dialectical reasons, and I was hoping for an answer. I asked that question because I believe it demonstrates that you must accept at least one prescriptive behavioral imperative in order to arrive at your hypothesized ability to perform means-end reasoning. This time I'm going to ask and try to answer as well.
Define O(X,Y) to mean "If one wants X, one ought to Y." The question is: why do you believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)?
The answer, as I see it, must fall into one of two broad classes.
1) Your belief formation is a random or arbitrary process, and it just happened to produce O(live,breathe) and ~O(live,suffocate). It could just as easily have produced O(live,suffocate) but it just happened not to. This would be actual nihilism, but it seems as though you're ruling this out. Fair enough, but if it's not that, then...
2) Your belief formation is governed by something. It produced O(live,breathe) and ~O(live,suffocate) because those are made inevitable by an imperative of some form which says that one of those is to be believed and the other is not. In fact, if you accept voluntarism of belief, this seems to be an ethical imperative in that it labels certain choices you could make as wrong and others as right.
2a) As a sub-case of (2), you might say it's because O(live,breathe) is true that you believe it, and because O(live,suffocate) is false that you disbelieve it. Well, if you say that, then not only do you have an ethical imperative, you have an ethical imperative that values truth!
And carefully note here that, pace your response, it's not enough for you just to understand the idea of "truth" or to label statements as true or false, because absent an imperative, those are just arbitrary labels. If you were really a nihilist you could perfectly well label O(live,suffocate) as "false" while simultaneously believing O(live,suffocate), there being no imperative pinning your belief to truth.
So, before we move on, what do you think so far? Are you actually a nihilist, or is your behavior governed by at least one nontrivial imperative?
My nihilist understands the concept of truth, and understands that those statements are true. I don't think he assigns an imperative to these statements. He is not compelled to endorse them or follow them simply because they are true. He only recognizes that accepting true statements and rejecting false ones will help him accomplish certain goals ("if I want to accomplish my goal of staying alive, I should breathe"). But there is no imperative that he accomplish those goals, or that he even care about those goals.
But in the course of your making a discernment between whatever truths about, say, survival that you are examining and their opposites, you operate in accordance with an imperative that allows you to insist on a particular side and dismiss the other.
I appreciate your thorough response. I'll try to answer as completely as possible. I am not particularly well-versed in this area of philosophy, so I am sure that I'll be regurgitating arguments of others that have come before. My response to your question comes in two parts:
Part 1: Belief
You say that I "believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)." I never said I beleived O(live,breathe), I said I thought O(live,breathe) to be true. I'm not trying to be cute or evasive here, I think this is an important distinction. The meaning of "beleive" as I'm using it is, roughly, "accept," "embrace," or "follow." We all have experiences with people who believe something false or disbelieve something true. Clearly these cofigurations are possible.
Thus, it's not clear to me why I am required to believe only true statements, or why it's categorically "good" "right" or "correct" to do so. It's also unclear to me why believing false statements is categorically "wrong" "bad" or "incorrect."
Part 2: Truth
So now let's talk about how I'm assigning truth values. As I said before, I think truth exists and that it has certain useful properties. Thus I think I fall somewhere between your options (1) and (2). I don't assign truth values arbitrarily, but I also don't think that my assignment of truth values are compelled by any imperative, ethical or otherwise.
I would analogize truth to the physical mass of an object. Both are labels that have useful properties under certain circumstances. I can define "mass" in one of several ways (coefficient of inertia with respect to velocity, or coefficient of gravitational acceleration) and if I select one of these definitions, I get to measure a property of an object that can allow me to calculate other useful results. The fact that mass is useful, does not morally compel me to care about it. I am likewise not morally compelled to measure mass, or to calculate anything from those measurements. These are merely options or tools at my disposal, and there is nothing "good" or "bad" about using these tools. Similarly, objects with greater mass are not inherently "better" or "superior" to objects with lesser mass.
Likewise, I can define truth in one of several ways (maybe something like the following: a statement is true if it can be derived from other true statements via deductive reasoning, or; a statement is true if it tends to follow from induction, e.g. empirical measurements). This definition allows me to assign the label "true" or "false" to certain statements. Under certain circumstances, I can choose to "cash in" the true statements metaphysically, and thus get a useful result.
But truth, like a hammer, is just a tool. And because not everything is a nail, I am not required to always use my hammer. If I determine, for example, that disbelieving a true statement better furthers my goals or desires, I can choose to do that. There is no imperative that I put truth on a pedestal or ascribe special transcendent meaning to truth (roughly what I think Tomcat meant by "worship").
And carefully note here that, pace your response, it's not enough for you just to understand the idea of "truth" or to label statements as true or false, because absent an imperative, those are just arbitrary labels. If you were really a nihilist you could perfectly well label O(live,suffocate) as "false" while simultaneously believing O(live,suffocate), there being no imperative pinning your belief to truth
I want to respond specifically to this point, because I think you're drawing a false dichotomy between "arbitrary" and "imperative." I can recognize that truth is non-arbitrary in that it yields predictable results, and these results are useful under certain circumstances. Thus, like mass, truth is non-arbitrary. But also like mass, there is no imperative that I care about it.
You say that I "believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)." I never said I beleived O(live,breathe), I said I thought O(live,breathe) to be true. I'm not trying to be cute or evasive here, I think this is an important distinction. The meaning of "beleive" as I'm using it is, roughly, "accept," "embrace," or "follow." We all have experiences with people who believe something false or disbelieve something true. Clearly these cofigurations are possible.
I think you're mixing up "is true" and "I think is true" here. If you think something is true, you believe it, and if you believe it, you think it's true. You can certainly be wrong, and that thing might not be true, but that's not the same as you thinking it's not true.
But yes, absolutely believing in Christ assumes adopting his doctrinal system. Within that doctrinal system one should believe that truth is good. I am fine with that.
I can take it on faith that truth is good. I can also take it on faith that Christ is Lord. I have no logical justification for either, which is really my point, but since faith is the system we're abiding by here, then sure. I accept both. And the acceptance of both is necessary if I am to call myself a Christian adherent faithful to the doctrinal principles of Christianity.
To clarify, I didn't say that the truth is "good," I said that the truth has inherent value. The value of truth comes by virtue of it being true and not false.
And you have it reversed. You must accept the value of truth prior to accepting Christian doctrine, because you must accept the value of truth and logic in order to make any statement at all. To say that any statement is true or false requires an affirmation of both truth and logic.
But yeah, I agree in my hypothetical I'm a fake christian. If Christianity is in fact false, then everyone is a fake christian in some sense, because none of it is real.
No, because the word Christian means a person who adheres to a set of beliefs and practices. Therefore, there could certainly be genuine Christians even if those beliefs were demonstrated to be false.
Moreover, there are numerous people who are not Christians, fake or genuine.
The point is, if the false belief suits me better than a real one (atheism, let's say), why does it matter that atheism is true?
You can't hold a false belief if you know it to be false. The fact that you know it to be false means you don't believe it's true, because you know it's not true. Thus, by definition, it is not a belief you have.
It's not a coincidence I would behave exactly like a real Christian.
But you wouldn't, because you would not believe in Christianity.
Is there anything about the fact that atheism is "true" that compels me to accept it?
You misunderstand. When you know something is true, you have already accepted that thing to be true.
It sounds like you're saying, in a nutshell, that a moral nihilist only cares about truth when it is to his advantage to do so.
But in that case he must have some convictions -- must hold certain beliefs as true -- about what constitutes his advantage. So he actually cares about truth pretty much all the time, just like the rest of us.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
You say that I "believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)." I never said I beleived O(live,breathe), I said I thought O(live,breathe) to be true. I'm not trying to be cute or evasive here, I think this is an important distinction. The meaning of "beleive" as I'm using it is, roughly, "accept," "embrace," or "follow." We all have experiences with people who believe something false or disbelieve something true. Clearly these cofigurations are possible.
Thus, it's not clear to me why I am required to believe only true statements, or why it's categorically "good" "right" or "correct" to do so. It's also unclear to me why believing false statements is categorically "wrong" "bad" or "incorrect."
I'm sure you're not trying to be evasive, but I nevertheless think you might be splitting hairs too finely here on the word "belief." Without going too deeply into the rabbit hole that is the philosophy of belief, I'll say that my argument is using an intentional account of belief a la Daniel Dennett. Beliefs are just the things that rationally explain your behavior. In other words, suppose we knew that your hypothetical nihilist wanted to live. Would he as a result behave so as to keep breathing? Then he believes O(live,breathe). Would he as a result behave so as to suffocate himself? Then he believes O(live,suffocate).
So the question at hand here is actually rather simple: Suppose your hypothetical nihilist wants to live. Is there a fact of the matter as to how he conducts himself as a result? If so, that fact of the matter reflects his beliefs. If you tell me that your nihilist would keep breathing if he wants to live, the he does, in fact, believe O(live,breathe) -- and that is all I need for this particular argument. If, on the other hand, you tell me that your nihilist would choke himself, then I can only /slowclap and stand in awe of his commitment to true nihilism.
I interpreted your initial hypothesis as one where your nihilist would, in fact, act to preserve his own life by breathing as a result of his means-end reasoning. You contradict that here by saying he doesn't believe this. I don't know which statement you intend to govern our hypothetical. So, which is it? If it's the former, I think that nullifies this particular objection to my argument.
As for why you are required to believe only true statements, I don't, for the moment, assert that you are so required. Only that if your selection of beliefs is governed by something, then that something has the functional form of an imperative, even if you don't call it one. In other words, if you agree with me that your nihilist believes O(live, breathe) and disbelieves O(live,suffocate) and that he does so for a reason, then he operates in accordance with an actual imperative and is not in fact a nihilist.
Part 2: Truth
So now let's talk about how I'm assigning truth values. As I said before, I think truth exists and that it has certain useful properties. Thus I think I fall somewhere between your options (1) and (2). I don't assign truth values arbitrarily, but I also don't think that my assignment of truth values are compelled by any imperative, ethical or otherwise.
I would analogize truth to the physical mass of an object. Both are labels that have useful properties under certain circumstances. I can define "mass" in one of several ways (coefficient of inertia with respect to velocity, or coefficient of gravitational acceleration) and if I select one of these definitions, I get to measure a property of an object that can allow me to calculate other useful results. The fact that mass is useful, does not morally compel me to care about it. I am likewise not morally compelled to measure mass, or to calculate anything from those measurements. These are merely options or tools at my disposal, and there is nothing "good" or "bad" about using these tools. Similarly, objects with greater mass are not inherently "better" or "superior" to objects with lesser mass.
I don't want to move into this area yet, but I will point out that it is trivial to imagine a scenario in which you are in fact morally compelled to measure mass. Suppose you are making a decision as to whether to lift an object. The chance of, say, your back being broken is related to the mass of the object, and so, assuming you're morally compelled to care about whether or not you break your own back, you are morally compelled to care about the mass. I would argue that you are in fact morally compelled to care about whether or not you break your own back, and so the rest follows. That being said, I'm not going to be able to approach that argument until we get this one resolved, so I say we table it for the moment.
Likewise, I can define truth in one of several ways (maybe something like the following: a statement is true if it can be derived from other true statements via deductive reasoning, or; a statement is true if it tends to follow from induction, e.g. empirical measurements). This definition allows me to assign the label "true" or "false" to certain statements. Under certain circumstances, I can choose to "cash in" the true statements metaphysically, and thus get a useful result.
Under all circumstances. Truth is defined as that which can be cashed in for metaphysical value. The logician Tarski famously defined truth in precisely that way: The sentence "T" is true if and only if T obtains metaphysically.
But truth, like a hammer, is just a tool. And because not everything is a nail, I am not required to always use my hammer.
When truth is your hammer, everything is, in fact, a nail. That's the essence of truth.
If I determine, for example, that disbelieving a true statement better furthers my goals or desires, I can choose to do that. There is no imperative that I put truth on a pedestal or ascribe special transcendent meaning to truth (roughly what I think Tomcat meant by "worship").
Certainly I would agree that there is no imperative to worship truth; as I said before, the application of that word here is utterly nonsensical. And in fact, the argument I am presently making doesn't claim to derive an imperative toward truth from nothing. Rather, the argument I'm making here addresses the case of your hypothetical nihilist specifically: it says that if he engages in reasoning, even of the means-end variety, his reasoning is in fact based on an imperative and he is not in fact a nihilist. You can't conduct reasoning without an imperative.
I want to respond specifically to this point, because I think you're drawing a false dichotomy between "arbitrary" and "imperative." I can recognize that truth is non-arbitrary in that it yields predictable results, and these results are useful under certain circumstances. Thus, like mass, truth is non-arbitrary. But also like mass, there is no imperative that I care about it.
You're right about what an actual nihilist would think. Even if he could assign the label "true" to statements in just the same way a right-thinking person can, that label would have no more significance than the label "poetic" or "alliterative" or "has an even number of vowels." The thing is, your hypothetical nihilist does assign a special meaning to the "true" label -- if he wants to live, he does the true thing: he keeps breathing! He doesn't suffocate, even though suffocate has an even number of vowels, which is just as good of a label to a nihilist as being true. And so forth for any other labeling scheme.
You hypothesise the imperative into existence by assigning your guy, who is emphatically not a nihilist, the propensity to act specifically on true statements. That's an ethical imperative. It's an unqualified statement that makes certain of his potential choices right and others wrong. And he's no longer a nihilist once you give him that. Once he's got that imperative, for him to say he doesn't care is merely a semantic game; his assertion that he doesn't care is belied by the fact that he acts in precisely the same way as would a person who does care. (The intentional account of belief is again important here.)
You say that I "believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)." I never said I beleived O(live,breathe), I said I thought O(live,breathe) to be true. I'm not trying to be cute or evasive here, I think this is an important distinction. The meaning of "beleive" as I'm using it is, roughly, "accept," "embrace," or "follow." We all have experiences with people who believe something false or disbelieve something true. Clearly these cofigurations are possible.
Thus, it's not clear to me why I am required to believe only true statements, or why it's categorically "good" "right" or "correct" to do so. It's also unclear to me why believing false statements is categorically "wrong" "bad" or "incorrect."
I'm sure you're not trying to be evasive, but I nevertheless think you might be splitting hairs too finely here on the word "belief." Without going too deeply into the rabbit hole that is the philosophy of belief, I'll say that my argument is using an intentional account of belief a la Daniel Dennett. Beliefs are just the things that rationally explain your behavior. In other words, suppose we knew that your hypothetical nihilist wanted to live. Would he as a result behave so as to keep breathing? Then he believes O(live,breathe). Would he as a result behave so as to suffocate himself? Then he believes O(live,suffocate).
So the question at hand here is actually rather simple: Suppose your hypothetical nihilist wants to live. Is there a fact of the matter as to how he conducts himself as a result? If so, that fact of the matter reflects his beliefs. If you tell me that your nihilist would keep breathing if he wants to live, the he does, in fact, believe O(live,breathe) -- and that is all I need for this particular argument. If, on the other hand, you tell me that your nihilist would choke himself, then I can only /slowclap and stand in awe of his commitment to true nihilism.
I interpreted your initial hypothesis as one where your nihilist would, in fact, act to preserve his own life by breathing as a result of his means-end reasoning. You contradict that here by saying he doesn't believe this. I don't know which statement you intend to govern our hypothetical. So, which is it? If it's the former, I think that nullifies this particular objection to my argument.
As for why you are required to believe only true statements, I don't, for the moment, assert that you are so required. Only that if your selection of beliefs is governed by something, then that something has the functional form of an imperative, even if you don't call it one. In other words, if you agree with me that your nihilist believes O(live, breathe) and disbelieves O(live,suffocate) and that he does so for a reason, then he operates in accordance with an actual imperative and is not in fact a nihilist.
I like your formulation of "belief." Roughly, I believe a statement if I allow that statement to determine my behavior.
1. My nihilist wants to live (that's the premise you posited)
2. My nihilist understands that O(live, breathe) is true and O(live, suffocate) is false.
3. My nihilist understands that true statements obtain metaphysically (ie he understands the metaphysical consequences of believing O versus ~O)
4. My nihilist may choose to believe either O or ~O. Hey may choose to believe O in order to obtain his goal of living. He may choose to believe ~O because he considers defeating his own goals to be "poetic" (to borrow your example), or for some other reason.
You hypothesise the imperative into existence by assigning your guy, who is emphatically not a nihilist, the propensity to act specifically on true statements. That's an ethical imperative. It's an unqualified statement that makes certain of his potential choices right and others wrong. And he's no longer a nihilist once you give him that. Once he's got that imperative, for him to say he doesn't care is merely a semantic game; his assertion that he doesn't care is belied by the fact that he acts in precisely the same way as would a person who does care. (The intentional account of belief is again important here.)
I never said he had the propensity to act on true statements. He has the ability to do so. He understands what it means to do so. But no imperative compels him to do so.
For fun, I might spot you that he always tries to act to further his goals. But I don't see why he's even compelled to do that. And he certainly is not compelled to select his goals in any particular way.
4. My nihilist may choose to believe either O or ~O. Hey may choose to believe O in order to obtain his goal of living. He may choose to believe ~O because he considers defeating his own goals to be "poetic" (to borrow your example), or for some other reason.
If he believes ~O, then why would he think he's defeating his own goals? If he believes ~O, and does ~O, then by the very definition of ~O he expects to live. If he strangles himself to defeat his own goals, then that means he must believe O, because he expects not living to be the result of strangling himself. The statement that is "governing his behavior" is O. Otherwise he'd attempt to be poetic by breathing expecting to die.
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Are you now backing away from that?
Because one is:
Truth matters
and the other is:
Truth matters and also Christ and God and stuff.
We all agree on "truth matters". It would be different if one set of assumptions was X and the other was Y, we might have no reason to pick one over the other. But we instead have X or X+Y. As long as we don't like arbitrary assumptions, we should go with the one that has the least, which is just X and try to get to Y from there. Alternatively, we could conclude that we have no problem with arbitrary assumptions, and simply dictate our own personal fantasy world without caring one iota what the real world is like. Make everything an arbitrary assumption - any proposition we wish to be true is an axiom.
When you make the claim "Christ has value because he is the Christ, the savior of the world," you are asserting that statement has truth. The value of that statement, in turn, stems from whether or not that statement is true.
You think you are claiming something contrary to what I am claiming, when in fact the value of your claim hinges on the value of my claim.
And, for the record, you might be frustrated that you can't prove the existence of God to someone, but throwing your arms up in the air and saying, "Fine, then who cares about truth anyway?" is not the most productive reaction you can have to this.
They will if you use it in an incorrect way.
>When you make the claim "Christ has value because he is the Christ, the savior of the world," you are asserting that statement has truth. The value of >that statement, in turn, stems from whether or not that statement is true.
>You think you are claiming something contrary to what I am claiming, when in fact the value of your claim hinges on the value of my claim.
>And, for the record, you might be frustrated that you can't prove the existence of God to someone, but throwing your arms up in the air and >saying, "Fine, then who cares about truth anyway?" is not the most productive reaction you can have to this.
Highroller always making assumptions outside the ambit of the discussion. Do you want to argue about why you think I'm frustrated and whether my reaction is productive? That discussion is all yours to argue and win. I never raised that issue. You can even go all ad hominem on me. Once again, outside the ambit of the question and based totally on your speculation of my motives.
But yes, absolutely believing in Christ assumes adopting his doctrinal system. Within that doctrinal system one should believe that truth is good. I am fine with that.
I can take it on faith that truth is good. I can also take it on faith that Christ is Lord. I have no logical justification for either, which is really my point, but since faith is the system we're abiding by here, then sure. I accept both. And the acceptance of both is necessary if I am to call myself a Christian adherent faithful to the doctrinal principles of Christianity.
It seems many people here on debate have studied philosophy and I honestly hoped that those knowledgeable in philosophy would speak up advocating the counterarguments to nihilism found in counter schools to it. I have no personal counter to nihilism except for bald faith or arbitrary declaration that some things in life have value. My personal beliefs, even emotions, tend to trend nihilistic--according to Crashing00, stronger than mere Moral Nihilism.
But certainly there must be counter arguments to schools of nihilism found in philosophy. Can those who have studied philosophy direct me to links, or argue on behalf of those schools? For now, I thank Crashing00 for his input, and I will look more into where he has directed me.
We have to accept that truth is better than falsehood, or else we can't believe or know anything. We don't really have the tools to justify the choice to accept that truth has value before we accept that it has value. So perhaps the best we can do is to just accept it so that we don't have to live in complete darkness. So we reluctantly accept it. But that doesn't mean we now have a blank check to accept anything. In almost all other cases we have tools at our disposal to justify what we should and shouldn't believe. We shouldn't just ditch those tools and start accepting as "true" whatever we want willy-nilly. If you actually value truth, then you have to use those tools to discover it, not make up truths as you go.
Epistemological nihilism is the position that there is no way to conduct one's reason, seek truth, or obtain knowledge that is anything more than arbitrary. (Moral nihilism follows a fortiori.)
I don't know what you mean by suspicion here. The dictionary says "the feeling that something bad is likely or true." If that's what you mean, then it's defined in terms of truth; you must know something about truth or likelihood in order to know suspicion. Thus, when you talk about forming your beliefs about metaphysics based on suspicion, you're really just talking about truth filtered through one level of abstraction.
Yes, people tend to get "bent out of shape" when you lie about them. And it is a loaded term.
Semantic war? Are you kidding? Suppose I said that your position sounds to me (an objective observer, of course) like "killing babies." You'd say I was flagrantly misrepresenting you, that none of your words can rightly be construed in that way, and you'd be perfectly correct. It's not mere semantics when you wildly misrepresent a position like that. The word "worship" simply doesn't apply to the quest for truth in general.
Don't lie about the opposing position.
I've already given one reason for imputing value to truth, and that is because truth and only truth can be "cashed out" metaphysically. For example, if I am the only round-earther in a world of flat-earthers, then despite any "social friction" I may encounter for my beliefs, I'm the only guy that's going to be willing to get in a ship and keep sailing West, and consequently, I'd be the sole beneficiary of whatever I find out there. Everyone else is going to be scared of falling off the edge. It's the truth of my beliefs that lets me "cash them in" in reality, and that's why I value truth.
Because the random object designated God only cashes out metaphysically if some of the claims about him turn out to be true! It always comes full circle back to truth. Truth is what you've got to peg your beliefs to if you want them to have value. There is no other way of valuing them.
Also, please stop conflating worship with value. They're not the same things.
You could start, I suppose, with the fathers of Western philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant. Descartes, specifically, gives what is probably the most famous argument against total nihilism.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4)
or
"And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation." (Ephesians 1:13)
Now of course faith plays a critical role in Christianity; but faith is not the opposite or the enemy of truth. Generally it's more like an extrapolation from truth. For example, when Paul claims that we are all "sinners" (which is a metaphysical proposition that must be accepted on faith), he first spends a good while arguing and illustrating that we all acknowledge some sort of moral law and that we all keep it imperfectly, such that the leap of faith can be made from a place of firm footing.
Moral nihilism does not have a problem with the statement "truth can be cashed out metaphysically." A moral nihilist has a problem with the statement "truth can be cashed out metaphysically, therefore one ought to value truth." A moral nihilist wants to know where the "ought" comes from. Why is it "good," "right," or "moral" that truth can be cashed out metaphysically?
So, as I understand TomCat's position, he accepts instrumental (or pragmatic) "ought" statements, but not prescriptive "ought" statement. He would presumably agree that all of the following statements are instrumentally true:
(1) If one wants to live, one ought to breathe.
(2) If one wants to cash out statements metaphysically, one ought to value true statements.
(3) If one wants to be a christian, one ought to follow christian doctrine.
The problem is that none of these instrumental statements translate into prescriptive statements. There is no underlying reason one should care about breathing or truth or christianity. One can only justify instrumental "if you want X then you ought to do Y" statements. One can't justify an ultimate "you ought to [prescriptively] do Y" statement.
Personally, I'm not aware of any convincing counterarguments to this position, but maybe I just haven't encountered them yet.
For starters, it seems to me your hypothetical nihilist (I'll leave Tomcat's name out of it, since I'm not sure this is an accurate representation of his view) is no kind of nihilist at all. You say that he can engage in means-end reasoning; presumably you mean sound means-end reasoning -- as in he didn't just arbitrarily land on those three statements by chance. Well, that being the case, how is he able to do that? Why does he accept "If one wants to live, one ought to breathe" while (ostensibly) denying "If one wants to live, one ought to jump off a cliff?"
If his beliefs in this regard are anything other than arbitrary, it seems to me that it can only be because of some mental process that is functionally equivalent to an imperative of some sort: he believes that he ought to endorse certain means-end statements and not others, regardless of whether or not he labels that belief with the word "ought."
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
You're right, let's leave Tomcat out of this. Let's call this "my position" for the purposes of the debate (though I don't necessarily embrace these ideas on a personal level, I'll support these arguments because I find them interesting/persuasive). To the extend TomCat finds any of this valuable, he can chime in.
I'm not advancing a hard across-the-board nihilist position. I accept that truth exists, and that some statements can be accurately labeled true or false. I also accept that truth is sometimes (or even often) useful to attaining certain real world goals.
My objections here are twofold: (1) why should I accept that truth has some kind of ultimate importance such that it needs to be prioritized above other things? i.e. if I will be a happier person as a christian than as an atheist, yet I know christianity is made-up while atheism is true, why should I follow truth instead of happiness?; (2) I don't see how to get from instrumental statements ("if you want x, do y") to prescriptive moral imperatives ("one should want x, one should do y"). Moreover, I'm not sure how to accurately asses the truth value of non-instrumental moral statements, or whether it's even possible to do so.
My nihilist understands the concept of truth, and understands that those statements are true. I don't think he assigns an imperative to these statements. He is not compelled to endorse them or follow them simply because they are true. He only recognizes that accepting true statements and rejecting false ones will help him accomplish certain goals ("if I want to accomplish my goal of staying alive, I should breathe"). But there is no imperative that he accomplish those goals, or that he even care about those goals.
Incidentally, I agree that we can formulate imperative statements without using the word "ought", and vice-versa. My examples above used the word "ought," yet were purely instrumental statements about how things are, not how they should be.
What does it mean to be a christian while knowing that Christianity is made up? That you go through the motions even though you think it's all false?
Fundamentally, Christianity is a collection of statements of fact. If you don't believe those statements, it seems to me that you aren't a Christian. The bible doesn't say "you will be happy if you pretend Jesus died for your sins" it says "Jesus died for your sins".
None of this is really a rebuttal to moral nihilism. Also both of your quoted statements are irrelevant if I'm ambivalent about the inherent value of truth. I'm not sure it's really "pretending" if I simply don't care about the truth value of the statement. Why can't I genuinely buy into an idea even if I know it's false? Why can't I simply choose not to care that it's false?
To put it another way, if "acting like a Christian" or "embracing Christianity despite knowing it's false" is more in line with my goals (personal happiness, social cohesion) than atheism, then why should I be an atheist? Why should I prioritize the "truth" of atheism over the other benefits I've determined I get from Christianity?
You cannot buy into Christianity even if you know it's false, because a core requirement of Christianity is that you believe it's true and care that it's true. If you are ambivalent about the value of truth, then you are not a Christian, or a follower of any other ideology which values truth.
Maybe I wouldn't be a "true" Christian or a "genuine" Christian. But if I don't ascribe any special importance to "truth" or "genuineness" what difference does it make? If I hold the beliefs in my mind, attend church, practice the behaviors and thoughts that define a christian, who cares if I get some kind of ethereal stamp of "genuineness."
Simply going through the motions of the rituals is hardly what makes on a Christian. If someone goes to mass because they like the hymns, is that person a Christian? Surely not.
If you don't ascribe any special importance to genuineness, why bother with any of it? Spend your time hopping on one foot and worshiping a tube of toothpaste and call yourself a Chrisitan. If being a "genuine" Christian doesn't matter to you, it seems an awfully convenient coincidence that you'd end up doing so much genuine Christian stuff, minus the actual belief part.
First of all, to be clear, I don't actually do this stuff in real life. I'm posing a hypothetical.
But yeah, I agree in my hypothetical I'm a fake christian. If Christianity is in fact false, then everyone is a fake christian in some sense, because none of it is real. It's not a coincidence I would behave exactly like a real Christian. By behaving that way, I would convince others (and maybe myself) that I am a genuine Christian, and therefore attain the social and psychological goals that I'm after. And sure, I could hop on one foot and worship toothpaste instead. But maybe I've determine that won't be as instrumental in attaining my goals.
But go ahead, replace "Christianity" with whatever false beliefs and behaviors you want: toothpaste-hopping, worshiping Zeus, inventing my own religion, etc. The point is, if the false belief suits me better than a real one (atheism, let's say), why does it matter that atheism is true? If I determine that being a [insert BS belief here] suits my personal goals better (I am happier, I make more friends, whatever my goals are), then why should I be an atheist? Is there anything about the fact that atheism is "true" that compels me to accept it?
If you convince yourself that you actually believe Christianity, then you are no longer a nihilist. This puts you back to square one, because you no longer have the freedom to "accept" things that you believe are false. Once you are a Christian, you're back to wanting to believe things because they are actually true, and have to find a new justification for accepting Christianity. You can't leapfrog from nihilism to Christianity to get yourself out of the fact that Christianity demands you believe it to be true.
Now, the question of whether you want to be a stealth atheist who everyone thinks is a Christian strikes me as a bit different. There you're not talking about whether you actually accept any particular beliefs, just whether you put on a facade for some social benefit. I don't think that has anything to do with nihilism.
We have to do some epistemological close reasoning here, so if it seems I'm not directly addressing your objections, bear with me for the moment -- I'll get there, but I need to make sure we both agree on the fundamentals.
I asked a specific question in the previous post for dialectical reasons, and I was hoping for an answer. I asked that question because I believe it demonstrates that you must accept at least one prescriptive behavioral imperative in order to arrive at your hypothesized ability to perform means-end reasoning. This time I'm going to ask and try to answer as well.
Define O(X,Y) to mean "If one wants X, one ought to Y." The question is: why do you believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)?
The answer, as I see it, must fall into one of two broad classes.
1) Your belief formation is a random or arbitrary process, and it just happened to produce O(live,breathe) and ~O(live,suffocate). It could just as easily have produced O(live,suffocate) but it just happened not to. This would be actual nihilism, but it seems as though you're ruling this out. Fair enough, but if it's not that, then...
2) Your belief formation is governed by something. It produced O(live,breathe) and ~O(live,suffocate) because those are made inevitable by an imperative of some form which says that one of those is to be believed and the other is not. In fact, if you accept voluntarism of belief, this seems to be an ethical imperative in that it labels certain choices you could make as wrong and others as right.
2a) As a sub-case of (2), you might say it's because O(live,breathe) is true that you believe it, and because O(live,suffocate) is false that you disbelieve it. Well, if you say that, then not only do you have an ethical imperative, you have an ethical imperative that values truth!
And carefully note here that, pace your response, it's not enough for you just to understand the idea of "truth" or to label statements as true or false, because absent an imperative, those are just arbitrary labels. If you were really a nihilist you could perfectly well label O(live,suffocate) as "false" while simultaneously believing O(live,suffocate), there being no imperative pinning your belief to truth.
So, before we move on, what do you think so far? Are you actually a nihilist, or is your behavior governed by at least one nontrivial imperative?
But in the course of your making a discernment between whatever truths about, say, survival that you are examining and their opposites, you operate in accordance with an imperative that allows you to insist on a particular side and dismiss the other.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I appreciate your thorough response. I'll try to answer as completely as possible. I am not particularly well-versed in this area of philosophy, so I am sure that I'll be regurgitating arguments of others that have come before. My response to your question comes in two parts:
Part 1: Belief
You say that I "believe O(live,breathe) but disbelieve, say, O(live,suffocate)." I never said I beleived O(live,breathe), I said I thought O(live,breathe) to be true. I'm not trying to be cute or evasive here, I think this is an important distinction. The meaning of "beleive" as I'm using it is, roughly, "accept," "embrace," or "follow." We all have experiences with people who believe something false or disbelieve something true. Clearly these cofigurations are possible.
Thus, it's not clear to me why I am required to believe only true statements, or why it's categorically "good" "right" or "correct" to do so. It's also unclear to me why believing false statements is categorically "wrong" "bad" or "incorrect."
Part 2: Truth
So now let's talk about how I'm assigning truth values. As I said before, I think truth exists and that it has certain useful properties. Thus I think I fall somewhere between your options (1) and (2). I don't assign truth values arbitrarily, but I also don't think that my assignment of truth values are compelled by any imperative, ethical or otherwise.
I would analogize truth to the physical mass of an object. Both are labels that have useful properties under certain circumstances. I can define "mass" in one of several ways (coefficient of inertia with respect to velocity, or coefficient of gravitational acceleration) and if I select one of these definitions, I get to measure a property of an object that can allow me to calculate other useful results. The fact that mass is useful, does not morally compel me to care about it. I am likewise not morally compelled to measure mass, or to calculate anything from those measurements. These are merely options or tools at my disposal, and there is nothing "good" or "bad" about using these tools. Similarly, objects with greater mass are not inherently "better" or "superior" to objects with lesser mass.
Likewise, I can define truth in one of several ways (maybe something like the following: a statement is true if it can be derived from other true statements via deductive reasoning, or; a statement is true if it tends to follow from induction, e.g. empirical measurements). This definition allows me to assign the label "true" or "false" to certain statements. Under certain circumstances, I can choose to "cash in" the true statements metaphysically, and thus get a useful result.
But truth, like a hammer, is just a tool. And because not everything is a nail, I am not required to always use my hammer. If I determine, for example, that disbelieving a true statement better furthers my goals or desires, I can choose to do that. There is no imperative that I put truth on a pedestal or ascribe special transcendent meaning to truth (roughly what I think Tomcat meant by "worship").
I want to respond specifically to this point, because I think you're drawing a false dichotomy between "arbitrary" and "imperative." I can recognize that truth is non-arbitrary in that it yields predictable results, and these results are useful under certain circumstances. Thus, like mass, truth is non-arbitrary. But also like mass, there is no imperative that I care about it.
I think you're mixing up "is true" and "I think is true" here. If you think something is true, you believe it, and if you believe it, you think it's true. You can certainly be wrong, and that thing might not be true, but that's not the same as you thinking it's not true.
And you have it reversed. You must accept the value of truth prior to accepting Christian doctrine, because you must accept the value of truth and logic in order to make any statement at all. To say that any statement is true or false requires an affirmation of both truth and logic.
No, because the word Christian means a person who adheres to a set of beliefs and practices. Therefore, there could certainly be genuine Christians even if those beliefs were demonstrated to be false.
Moreover, there are numerous people who are not Christians, fake or genuine.
You can't hold a false belief if you know it to be false. The fact that you know it to be false means you don't believe it's true, because you know it's not true. Thus, by definition, it is not a belief you have.
But you wouldn't, because you would not believe in Christianity.
You misunderstand. When you know something is true, you have already accepted that thing to be true.
It sounds like you're saying, in a nutshell, that a moral nihilist only cares about truth when it is to his advantage to do so.
But in that case he must have some convictions -- must hold certain beliefs as true -- about what constitutes his advantage. So he actually cares about truth pretty much all the time, just like the rest of us.
I'm sure you're not trying to be evasive, but I nevertheless think you might be splitting hairs too finely here on the word "belief." Without going too deeply into the rabbit hole that is the philosophy of belief, I'll say that my argument is using an intentional account of belief a la Daniel Dennett. Beliefs are just the things that rationally explain your behavior. In other words, suppose we knew that your hypothetical nihilist wanted to live. Would he as a result behave so as to keep breathing? Then he believes O(live,breathe). Would he as a result behave so as to suffocate himself? Then he believes O(live,suffocate).
So the question at hand here is actually rather simple: Suppose your hypothetical nihilist wants to live. Is there a fact of the matter as to how he conducts himself as a result? If so, that fact of the matter reflects his beliefs. If you tell me that your nihilist would keep breathing if he wants to live, the he does, in fact, believe O(live,breathe) -- and that is all I need for this particular argument. If, on the other hand, you tell me that your nihilist would choke himself, then I can only /slowclap and stand in awe of his commitment to true nihilism.
I interpreted your initial hypothesis as one where your nihilist would, in fact, act to preserve his own life by breathing as a result of his means-end reasoning. You contradict that here by saying he doesn't believe this. I don't know which statement you intend to govern our hypothetical. So, which is it? If it's the former, I think that nullifies this particular objection to my argument.
As for why you are required to believe only true statements, I don't, for the moment, assert that you are so required. Only that if your selection of beliefs is governed by something, then that something has the functional form of an imperative, even if you don't call it one. In other words, if you agree with me that your nihilist believes O(live, breathe) and disbelieves O(live,suffocate) and that he does so for a reason, then he operates in accordance with an actual imperative and is not in fact a nihilist.
I don't want to move into this area yet, but I will point out that it is trivial to imagine a scenario in which you are in fact morally compelled to measure mass. Suppose you are making a decision as to whether to lift an object. The chance of, say, your back being broken is related to the mass of the object, and so, assuming you're morally compelled to care about whether or not you break your own back, you are morally compelled to care about the mass. I would argue that you are in fact morally compelled to care about whether or not you break your own back, and so the rest follows. That being said, I'm not going to be able to approach that argument until we get this one resolved, so I say we table it for the moment.
Under all circumstances. Truth is defined as that which can be cashed in for metaphysical value. The logician Tarski famously defined truth in precisely that way: The sentence "T" is true if and only if T obtains metaphysically.
When truth is your hammer, everything is, in fact, a nail. That's the essence of truth.
Certainly I would agree that there is no imperative to worship truth; as I said before, the application of that word here is utterly nonsensical. And in fact, the argument I am presently making doesn't claim to derive an imperative toward truth from nothing. Rather, the argument I'm making here addresses the case of your hypothetical nihilist specifically: it says that if he engages in reasoning, even of the means-end variety, his reasoning is in fact based on an imperative and he is not in fact a nihilist. You can't conduct reasoning without an imperative.
You're right about what an actual nihilist would think. Even if he could assign the label "true" to statements in just the same way a right-thinking person can, that label would have no more significance than the label "poetic" or "alliterative" or "has an even number of vowels." The thing is, your hypothetical nihilist does assign a special meaning to the "true" label -- if he wants to live, he does the true thing: he keeps breathing! He doesn't suffocate, even though suffocate has an even number of vowels, which is just as good of a label to a nihilist as being true. And so forth for any other labeling scheme.
You hypothesise the imperative into existence by assigning your guy, who is emphatically not a nihilist, the propensity to act specifically on true statements. That's an ethical imperative. It's an unqualified statement that makes certain of his potential choices right and others wrong. And he's no longer a nihilist once you give him that. Once he's got that imperative, for him to say he doesn't care is merely a semantic game; his assertion that he doesn't care is belied by the fact that he acts in precisely the same way as would a person who does care. (The intentional account of belief is again important here.)
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I like your formulation of "belief." Roughly, I believe a statement if I allow that statement to determine my behavior.
1. My nihilist wants to live (that's the premise you posited)
2. My nihilist understands that O(live, breathe) is true and O(live, suffocate) is false.
3. My nihilist understands that true statements obtain metaphysically (ie he understands the metaphysical consequences of believing O versus ~O)
4. My nihilist may choose to believe either O or ~O. Hey may choose to believe O in order to obtain his goal of living. He may choose to believe ~O because he considers defeating his own goals to be "poetic" (to borrow your example), or for some other reason.
I never said he had the propensity to act on true statements. He has the ability to do so. He understands what it means to do so. But no imperative compels him to do so.
For fun, I might spot you that he always tries to act to further his goals. But I don't see why he's even compelled to do that. And he certainly is not compelled to select his goals in any particular way.
If he believes ~O, then why would he think he's defeating his own goals? If he believes ~O, and does ~O, then by the very definition of ~O he expects to live. If he strangles himself to defeat his own goals, then that means he must believe O, because he expects not living to be the result of strangling himself. The statement that is "governing his behavior" is O. Otherwise he'd attempt to be poetic by breathing expecting to die.