What are some good reasons to not believe in existential nihilism? Reasons to believe in the existence of free will, good and evil?
I have my own reasons already, and I won’t be hindered throughout life by nihilistic despair. However, It would still ease my mind to see some legitimate reasons that I have not thought of. Logical reasons to believe in a god counts!
Some things I’ve thought of-
The main reason is that being 100% sure of existential nihilism is foolish, and there is definitely a chance of value, good and evil, etc. So even if it’s just a 0<1% chance of value existing, it is worth sticking to a moral code, and living a legitimate human life, without having to live an “Intoxicated” (Nietzsche) life.
To wholeheartedly follow nihilism is to assume that causality (desires behind human actions, etc.) is indefinitely false, as well as free will, when in fact it would be foolish to be so sure in either, as (as many of you know) it would be claiming to understand a definite truth on a matter where not enough information is present.
The existence of chaos within our minds, should it exist (unlikely), it may serve as proof of value
Life, being, conscience itself is a miracle, a mystery! (How is it that out of matter, a conscious being was created?)
-Life itself may be a tangent outside of logic, and it might even be inevitable to logically conclude that life is valueless.
I would go along with this insofar as each individual determines for him or her self what’s good. And there are as many determinations as there are individuals.
This all goes, with no small assumption that a system of cooperation overseeing the masses is in operation. But a functioning system only for the basic purpose of allowing individuals to exercise their liberty to choose what is ‘good’ within sane manners of behavioral conduct.
true … ostensible is the reality of how the choosing is allowed to be free, but, in the actual scheme of things, everyone is caught in the limits of the imposition that dictates what we must do as we live out our lives together.
Well maybe it would be interesting to discuss a little is good and evil possible? First we must define good and evil and how they differ or are the same or relate to one another. The best way to define good is to take examples of it or considered examples of it. Perhaps then we can establish a pattern between these false and true examples that if is at least not there in the case of the false examples the attempt at least is.
A man who saves a man drowning is said to do a good act and a woman who gives to the poor is also said to do a good act. Both involving helping in a way where the other is either completely incapable or someway curtailed in their ability. But a man who helps someone to murder someone is not doing a good act. So this shows whats good depends on is not just on how you do the act or the act itself but also on its consequences.
Murder has the consequences of death helping the poor has the consequences of helping them to survive. Though if you were to help someone kill someone though that sounds perrty horrible because if you didn’t they would spread a disease and kill everyone on the planet that might just be considered good.
Here again the consequences differ but the means or method is the same- killing. We could call this a “equal method consequence differer” in morale acts or we could call two good acts where both are different as an “unequal method consequence differer” morale acts or a “equal method equal consequence” morale acts. This is where the two morale acts have both the same method say giving but the same consequences too surviving( from money given). Or lastly an “unequal method equal consequence” two moral acts. These could be abbreviated as UMCD,EMCD,EMEC,UMEC, morale acts.
So good acts are defined by the right combination of method and consequence. But you could say method in itself isn’t good from the perspective of the ultimate goal such as charity. But it just so happens in our human world we have applied the word good to method too so as to encourage people to do the more important truly consequence. But sometimes the method is a consequence and itself good but that would make it a separate morale act.
For exp helping a baby eat their food is good because of its consequence. It’s allowing it to grow up healthy. But it’s also would be good a good act to feed your baby because of the consequence it makes the mother happy. But feeding the baby to encourage it to be healthy and to make the mother happy are two different morale or good acts. This is because their consequence differs. But if a method differs too that would also mean the two good acts are different.
For exp if you give charity but a person does this by giving money and another by giving food these are two different good acts. So when either the method or consequence element differs in two good acts this makes the two acts different.
So both elements “defines” a good act. We could call these two elements. The “Act Duel Elements”. So we know a good act is defined by these act duel elements. What makes a consequence good or even to be more precise a method good is up indeed to question and varies.
Maybe there are some few basic reasons here. It would be interesting to explore this. A bad or evil act is also defined by it’s act duel elements. So here I have outlined the surface appearance or line around the concept good or evil act that defines them but what of their reasons. Or the color or basic nature you could say that defines the line.
So I think what we should do next is try to determine the elements or reasons that make the consequence or method of a good or evil act “good or evil”. That is determine the reasons that make the “Act Duel Elements” good or evil.
But we should make an extra note that in an act both the consequence and method in “that” act must be good or evil together.
I’ve been deciding whether to throw a chip into the nihilist pot, but I just had a thought … so here goes. It seems to me that nihilism is the logical offshoot of a cynicism that encompasses every aspect of life and behavior. If a belief in nothing means no god and no afterlife, then what is left but basic blood and guts instinct, a love for killing and blood sports – the colosseum and the battlefield – and the will to survival at all costs even in the face of certain death, as in the case of that greatest of fictional nihilists Macbeth. It is the miles gloriosus gone feral; the king or emperor ruling in paranoid tyranny until his own bondsmen and soldiers turn against him. However, if instinct and bloodlust are not options, say in the aftermath of a war to end all wars or two, then there is always the existential vacuum and ultimately suicide, unless a damascene moment or maybe utter insanity overtakes him before he actually dies. Even with a nihilist, there is always the potential for surprise I think.
Is it not worth sticking to a moral code for even the most fundamental reasons (ex. safety, society, individual rights and liberties, persistence and advancement of humanity, etc.)?
I’m also curious as to what, exactly, you mean by a “legitimate” human life. I’d venture to say that intoxication is a part of most human life, to some degree. Under what circumstances would you say one must resort to living an “illegitimate” life in adherence of a moral code?
Why? An overly rigid, mechanistic view of determinism seems to lead many people to a conclusion of nihilism. Causality doesn’t implicate value though, perspectives do.
The conventional idea of ‘free-will’ is a farce to me. Free from what?
The ‘Id’ - the part of the psyche concerned with fundamental, primal drives - is theorized to be chaotic and utterly disorganized by Freud. How does that allude to value?
Would inherent, objective values be necessary for the “miracle” of life? I wouldn’t think so.
“Life” is a term that can only apply to a subject (who is living, or has lived). Life is valued by those who are living, but we see life as somehow advantageous over the mystery [and fear] of death or void. To say “life is valuable” universally is a bit presumptuous to me. The individual gives value to life by actively placing value on aspects of life. Every aspect of life is not logically explicable. It seems to me a weak mind requires logic to value life, whereas a strong mind looks for the logic behind its values.
No it isn’t. Read it again. It is a logical conclusion, that if you decide that good is the province of each individual’s own determination, then you have ironically determined what is good for everybody.
Culture has put the demand in you that is pushing you in the direction of wanting to change yourself into something. That is what the culture has done, put it in you. If you want to do something, they say, “Boy, look here, watch your step.” That is what they are doing.
The second movement that comes, that is the society. “Watch your step” it says. So, that has put fear in you. Then at the same time it talks of freeing yourself from fear, and courage and the whole thing – be a peerless man – that is only for the purpose of using you as a pawn in maintaining the status quo of society.
That is why it is teaching courage, it is teaching fearlessness, so that it can use you to maintain the continuity of the society. You are a part of that. That is why every time you want to act, what is there is fear and the impossibility of acting. The society is not out there, the culture is not out there, and unless you are free from that you cannot act.
It’s not. You are speaking of actions. I was speaking of judgments. What finishedman said presupposes that freedom is good. A nihilist however would care nothing for freedom, as freedom or unfreedom makes no essential difference if life is meaningless.
This is like trying to compare apples and oranges. The first argument has to do with the irony implicit in the ontological foundations of relativism… that one who preaches relativism for each individual is actually determining what is good for all. Your argument has to do with the possibilities for specific choices by individuals, but because it is predicated on relativism in some imprecise sense, you apparently think there is some logical connection when there isn’t.
