by Rick Lewis
This seems reasonable to me...Is it true that philosophy causes nihilism?
To the extent that philosophy does prompt someone to examine what either can or cannot be pinned down as objectively applicable to all of us, what conclusions will they come to? If someone arrives at the conclusion [as I did] that objective morality itself is beyond the reach of philosophers, they might call that nihilism. Moral nihilism.
But it's not really philosophy itself that is causing nihilism, in my view...merely particular philosophers who conclude that objective value judgments are beyond the reach of mere mortals in a No God world.
As for the either/or world, nihilism comes into play here when even that is brought into question...demonic dream worlds, sim worlds, solipsism, the blue pill.
This certainly seems to be true for some of us. Still, what does not change is that in the absence of God, or "the Gods", or a No God spiritual path like Buddhism, we have no access to objective morality or immortality or salvation.It is certainly true that philosophy has helped to undermine religion; even philosophers who are Christians would surely accept that the mere act of questioning God’s existence has broken the automatic acceptance of the truth of religion which many people once had.
Good luck with that, right?
Same here though, isn't it? Science has provided us with a world bursting at the seams with dazzling engineering feats, technologies and all that can be encompassed in "the modern world". But it is no less impotent when it comes to morality, immortality and salvation.And science, philosophy’s estranged offspring, has offered convincing alternative ways of explaining the natural world. By weakening religion philosophy may have contributed to nihilism.
Indeed, many here no doubt fit themselves into this assessment. But, in my view, it doesn't make the reality of a No God world go away. It doesn't make moral nihilism any less relevant. At least until either science or philosophy are, in fact, able to concoct a secular rendition of God and religion.However, we should keep things in proportion. Some politicians and religious revivalists talk as if we are constantly teetering on the verge of a moral abyss. In fact, although society has become fairly secular, large numbers of people seems to be living purposeful lives and acting reasonably decently towards one another, with or without a formal moral code. Of course there are those who really don’t feel the pull of any values and who really are living Tarantino-style lives, only without the gangster glamour.
Alas, from my own frame of mind, "thinking harder" is what the moral objectivists among us claim to have accomplished. And, once having achieved a secular rendition of God here -- deontology, ideology, biological imperatives etc. -- they set out crush all the "idiots" or "retards" who refuse to think exactly as they do.But the problems there are probably due more to a breakdown in the mechanisms for transmitting values from one generation to the next (broken homes, crummy schools) rather than overexposure to the works of David Hume. Where there is a fundamental crisis of faith in a given set of values, philosophy may be part of the problem but must also be part of the cure. The cure for problems isn’t to stop thinking, but instead to think harder.
If only about...everything?