Moral Nihilism: What it is and What This Philosophical Position Proposes

Defining what is morally correct has been really difficult throughout history and, in fact, there are those who consider that the idea of ​​something being ethically right or wrong is false.

This is the vision of moral nihilism which considers that it cannot be stated that something is true since morality is difficult to base on morally true facts.

What is moral nihilism?

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

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

Morality is arbitrary

Defining what morality is is something that has proven to be very difficult, despite the fact that a certain consensus has been achieved among philosophers, saying that there are certain judgments that could be considered impartial and universal. Finding a solid basis for 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 human beings 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 trolley dilemma. They are issues on which people do not agree. There are defenders of women’s right to decide about their bodies and to stop the terminally ill from suffering, while others maintain that life is something sacred and taking it away is an attack on morality.

All of this would lend support to the idea that moral statements are not right or wrong, but rather 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 our moral principles, this will produce more acceptance or rejection of their behavior.

Proposals of this philosophical current

As we were already saying, 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. Considering that something is not true is not the same as considering it to be false. This may not seem like the case, that they are essentially the same and, in fact, one of the two ways of thinking within the current sees it that way. The nuance is quite minor, but it is still there.

One of the two visions considers that every moral statement, whether it specifies what is right or what is wrong, is neither true nor false That is to say, and in relation to the example of murder, the act of taking the life of another person would not be a bad thing, as it is shaped according to the moral vision of most people, but it would not be a good thing either. 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, whether it describes a morally correct or incorrect action, is necessarily false. The reason for this is that There is no way to morally justify absolutely anything Therefore, stating what is good and what is not implies lying, which is saying a falsehood.

The theory of error

John Leslie Mackie is known for being the most famous thinker on moral nihilistic ideas He is known as a proponent of error theory, a theory that combines moral nihilism with cognitivism, the idea that moral language consists of truth-falsity statements. The view of error theory is that ordinary morality and the discourse associated with it make a great and profound error, with which all moral statements are false ontological claims.

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

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

The fact that we consider murder to be wrong is not because there is an indubitable, objective truth that tells us that it is wrong. We consider it something 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, killing 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 can we explain that human beings have had the need to attribute morality to actions? As we have already mentioned, 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 there are very few who dare to question them.

Many evolutionary psychologists consider that the innate ideas of sympathy, empathy, giving and receiving and other behaviors related to reciprocity implied a great evolutionary advantage when conceiving the human being as it is today. Sharing has been linked to greater chances 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 would 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 individuals is limited, which prevents each one from doing what they want and, therefore, reduces the possibilities of vindictive behavior.

Let’s go back to the earlier idea of ​​murder. If murder is conceived in a society 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 counterresponse, a loved one of the murderer, now murdered, will try to kill the person who took revenge, and thus the murder would increase, climbing the scale and making society unviable.

On the other hand, The existence of morality implies the realization of good actions and bad actions In the same way that one could see murder as something bad, one could also see sharing and being charitable as something good. Sharing food, resources and protecting others would increase the survival of the group, having more individuals who could face various threats, from beast attacks to natural disasters.