You say what you do not mean by ‘morality,’ but not what you do mean.
If you mean that you have a verbal, propositional sort of normative ethical theory that you have ‘developed mostly for fun and the violation of which has no perceivable impact on your emotional state,’ then that does not mean that you are lacking in morality, it just means that your verbal normative theory is not in line with your wordless one. I do not believe that there is an arbitrary thing that you currently truly consider horrifying that you could stop experiencing as horrifying by the force of your will; or that there is an arbitrary horrible thing that you could prevent that would currently cause you to feel guilty for not preventing, and that you could not-prevent that horrible thing and stop experiencing the subsequent guilt by the force of your will. I do not believe that your utility function is open season.
I mean that what I call my ‘morality’ isn’t intended to be a map of my utility function, imperfect or otherwise. Along the same lines, you’re objecting that self-proclaimed moral nihilists have an inaccurate notion of their own utility function, when it’s quite possible that they don’t consider their ‘moral nihilism’ to be a statement about their utility function at all. I called myself a moral nihilist for quite a while without meaning anything like what you’re talking about here. I knew that I had preferences, I knew (roughly) what those preferences were, I would knowingly act on those preferences, and I didn’t consider my nihilism to be in conflict with that at all. I still wouldn’t. As for what I do mean by morality, it’s kinda hard to put into words, but if I had to try I’d probably go with something like ‘the set of rules of social function and personal behavior which result in as desirable a world as possible the more closely they are followed by the general population, given that one doesn’t get to choose what one’s position in that world is’.
EDIT: But that probably still doesn’t capture my true meaning, because my real motive was closer to something like ‘society’s full of people coming up with ideas of right and wrong the adherence to which wouldn’t create societies that would actually be particularly great to live in, so, being a rather competitive person, I want to see if I can do better’, nothing more.
It sounds like you agree with me, but are just using the words morality and nihilism differently, and are particularly using nihilism in a way that I don’t understand or that you have yet to explicate.
It also seems to me that you’re already talking about what you value when you talk about desirable worlds.
That’s my point. You’re saying the ‘nihilists’ are wrong, when you may in fact be disagreeing with a viewpoint that most nihilists don’t actually hold on account of them using the words ‘nihilism’ and/or ‘morality’ differently to you. And yeah, I suppose in that sense my ‘morality’ does tie into my actual values, but only my values as applied to an unrealistic thought experiment, and then again a world in which everyone but me adhered to my notions of morality (and I wasn’t penalized for not doing so) would still be preferable to me than a world in which everyone including me did.
But you still have yet to explicitly describe what you mean by nihilism. Could you? How have I misrepresented whom you believe to be the average self-identifying nihilist?
And yeah, I suppose in that sense my ‘morality’ does tie into my actual values, but only my values as applied to an unrealistic thought experiment, and then again a world in which everyone but me adhered to my notions of morality (and I wasn’t penalized for not doing so) would still be preferable to me than a world in which everyone including me did.
Can you explain how the statement ‘A world in which everyone but me does not murder is preferable to a world in which everyone including me does not murder’ is a misinterpretation of this quotation?
What I meant when I called myself a nihilist was essentially that there was no such thing as an objective, mind-independent morality. Nothing more. I would still consider myself a nihilist in that sense (and I expect most on this site would), but I don’t call myself that because it could cause confusion.
Can you explain how the statement ‘A world in which everyone but me does not murder is preferable to a world in which everyone including me does not murder’ is a misinterpretation of this quotation?
It isn’t, although that doesn’t mean I would necessarily murder in such a world.
EDIT: Well, my nihilism was also a justification for the belief that it’s silly to care about morality, and in that sense at least I’m no longer a nihilist in the sense that I was. That was just one aspect of my ‘my eccentricities make me superior, everyone else’s eccentricities are silly’ phase, which I think I moved beyond around the time I stopped being a teenager.
What I meant when I called myself a nihilist was essentially that there was no such thing as an objective, mind-independent morality. Nothing more. I would still consider myself a nihilist in that sense (and I expect most on this site would), but I don’t call myself that because it could cause confusion.
What bullet is that? I implicitly agreed that murder is wrong (as per the way I use the word ‘wrong’) when I said that your statement wasn’t a misinterpretation. It’s just that as I mentioned before, I don’t care a whole lot about the thing that I call ‘morality’.
You say what you do not mean by ‘morality,’ but not what you do mean.
If you mean that you have a verbal, propositional sort of normative ethical theory that you have ‘developed mostly for fun and the violation of which has no perceivable impact on your emotional state,’ then that does not mean that you are lacking in morality, it just means that your verbal normative theory is not in line with your wordless one. I do not believe that there is an arbitrary thing that you currently truly consider horrifying that you could stop experiencing as horrifying by the force of your will; or that there is an arbitrary horrible thing that you could prevent that would currently cause you to feel guilty for not preventing, and that you could not-prevent that horrible thing and stop experiencing the subsequent guilt by the force of your will. I do not believe that your utility function is open season.
I mean that what I call my ‘morality’ isn’t intended to be a map of my utility function, imperfect or otherwise. Along the same lines, you’re objecting that self-proclaimed moral nihilists have an inaccurate notion of their own utility function, when it’s quite possible that they don’t consider their ‘moral nihilism’ to be a statement about their utility function at all. I called myself a moral nihilist for quite a while without meaning anything like what you’re talking about here. I knew that I had preferences, I knew (roughly) what those preferences were, I would knowingly act on those preferences, and I didn’t consider my nihilism to be in conflict with that at all. I still wouldn’t. As for what I do mean by morality, it’s kinda hard to put into words, but if I had to try I’d probably go with something like ‘the set of rules of social function and personal behavior which result in as desirable a world as possible the more closely they are followed by the general population, given that one doesn’t get to choose what one’s position in that world is’.
EDIT: But that probably still doesn’t capture my true meaning, because my real motive was closer to something like ‘society’s full of people coming up with ideas of right and wrong the adherence to which wouldn’t create societies that would actually be particularly great to live in, so, being a rather competitive person, I want to see if I can do better’, nothing more.
It sounds like you agree with me, but are just using the words morality and nihilism differently, and are particularly using nihilism in a way that I don’t understand or that you have yet to explicate.
It also seems to me that you’re already talking about what you value when you talk about desirable worlds.
That’s my point. You’re saying the ‘nihilists’ are wrong, when you may in fact be disagreeing with a viewpoint that most nihilists don’t actually hold on account of them using the words ‘nihilism’ and/or ‘morality’ differently to you. And yeah, I suppose in that sense my ‘morality’ does tie into my actual values, but only my values as applied to an unrealistic thought experiment, and then again a world in which everyone but me adhered to my notions of morality (and I wasn’t penalized for not doing so) would still be preferable to me than a world in which everyone including me did.
But you still have yet to explicitly describe what you mean by nihilism. Could you? How have I misrepresented whom you believe to be the average self-identifying nihilist?
Can you explain how the statement ‘A world in which everyone but me does not murder is preferable to a world in which everyone including me does not murder’ is a misinterpretation of this quotation?
What I meant when I called myself a nihilist was essentially that there was no such thing as an objective, mind-independent morality. Nothing more. I would still consider myself a nihilist in that sense (and I expect most on this site would), but I don’t call myself that because it could cause confusion.
It isn’t, although that doesn’t mean I would necessarily murder in such a world.
EDIT: Well, my nihilism was also a justification for the belief that it’s silly to care about morality, and in that sense at least I’m no longer a nihilist in the sense that I was. That was just one aspect of my ‘my eccentricities make me superior, everyone else’s eccentricities are silly’ phase, which I think I moved beyond around the time I stopped being a teenager.
I agree that morality is not in the quarks.
That doesn’t seem like a huge bullet to bite?
What bullet is that? I implicitly agreed that murder is wrong (as per the way I use the word ‘wrong’) when I said that your statement wasn’t a misinterpretation. It’s just that as I mentioned before, I don’t care a whole lot about the thing that I call ‘morality’.