Again, here’s the thing, Dan.
Or, rather, here’s the thing given my own subjective reaction to the points you make above.
Easy ideas, hard ideas, with you they are almost always encompassed in general description abstractions. Or psychologisms. At least with respect to the posts that I read from you.
What particular context in which what particular causal forces make what possible? Now, in the either/or world that can be something simple like how a screwdriver works. And then all the way up to Einstein’s theories of relativity. From objective science enabling us to create extraordinary engineering feats and technologies to the world of the very, very big and the very, very small. The parts where certainty gives way to all manner of fanciful theories.
Ah, but in the is/ought world?
Again: you choose the context, the behaviors and the conflicting good. We can then examine and explore each other’s distinctions between easy and hard.
As for your rendition of the “easy” idea from nihilists that “nobody/nothing matters”, I know just how futile it will be to explain [once again] the distinction between essential and existential meaning. Even after I do, tomorrow or next week you will be back claiming that all nihilists insist that nobody/nothing matters.
I agree. Moral truth – objective, even universal moral truth – is certainly possible. For example all you need do is to believe in a God/the God/your God, right? You don’t even have to demonstrate that in fact He does exist…merely have faith that He does. Same with, philosophically, deontology. Or, politically, ideology. Or wrap your self-righteous arrogance as Satyr does around genes and nature.
On the other hand, with someone like me, you are going to have to bring those dogmas down to Earth, and, given particular sets of circumstances, defend those fonts when confronted with the components of my own moral philosophy.
Which, again, Dan you won’t do.
And neither will Satyr. The only difference being that over there, Satyr has for all practical purposes banned me from the discussions.
So, if you want to construe some nihilists as insisting that nobody or nothing matters, or that there are no moral truths – or no God – then in regard to those who claim that, I’m on your side. I’m a moral nihilist only because [in a free will world] “here and now” no one has been able to demonstrate to me of late that their own objective morality or their own God is the real deal.
We’ll need a context of course.