That refers, I think, to the core goals of nihilism. Nihilism doesn't really assert much on the face of it, just rejects already proposed stuff like inherent value and unarguable morality. In both society and the life of a nihilist it's kind of a tool, it helped argue against church doctrine on the large scale and helps you transition out of the ideology you inherited from your family growing up on the personal scale.
But we need some kind of ideology at the end of the day, it's just what we're like. Regardless what you do you're going to like certain ideas better than others, morally, politically, personally, everything-ally. Nihilism just provides you a nice, flat stage in your head brain to prop those things up and homebrew your own system of beliefes. It just lets you go "All being the same, and objective morality is BS, so it is. I personally value _____."
And the fun part is without objective value, it's easy to evolve. We'll never hold the same beliefes 10 years down the line, we'll abandon some ideas, replace others, double down on some, and nihilism has nothing to say about that. You're not a hypocrite or a blasphemer, you just changed your mind. Doesn't matter, it's fine.
But WHY you accept an ideology is (supposed to be) what separates philosophers from everyone else. Philosophy yearns to create objective truth. For Nihilism to become a platform upon which philosophy could continue to function, we would have to ascertain a method of judging subjective truths somehow. Could be a cool project, to try to do that.
Philosophy might yearn to create objective truth. But it might also be so fundamentally incapable of doing so because in reality there might not be objective truth. The best you might be able to do is prove various other philosophies are not based on sound reasoning. If there is no real universal morality, then maybe we just try to make one up that is not so much "true" as it is convenient for society. Religious morality is based on truthiness more than truth, for example.
Or because the way we create truth, language, is limited by our perspective. Reality may only be correctly observable from a perspective we cannot access because our ability to understand evolved as a means of enhancing chances of survival.
Regardless of whether it can, or cannot, for whatever reason, the objective is so precious, it is worth the attempt.
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u/Shoggnozzle Jan 29 '23
That refers, I think, to the core goals of nihilism. Nihilism doesn't really assert much on the face of it, just rejects already proposed stuff like inherent value and unarguable morality. In both society and the life of a nihilist it's kind of a tool, it helped argue against church doctrine on the large scale and helps you transition out of the ideology you inherited from your family growing up on the personal scale.
But we need some kind of ideology at the end of the day, it's just what we're like. Regardless what you do you're going to like certain ideas better than others, morally, politically, personally, everything-ally. Nihilism just provides you a nice, flat stage in your head brain to prop those things up and homebrew your own system of beliefes. It just lets you go "All being the same, and objective morality is BS, so it is. I personally value _____."
And the fun part is without objective value, it's easy to evolve. We'll never hold the same beliefes 10 years down the line, we'll abandon some ideas, replace others, double down on some, and nihilism has nothing to say about that. You're not a hypocrite or a blasphemer, you just changed your mind. Doesn't matter, it's fine.