Have We Regressed into Nietzsche’s “Moral Nihilism”?
Steven Mintz, aka Ethics Sage
These two events are seen by me in very, very different ways. The Christchurch murders – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchu … _shootings – happened as a result of a a fanatical right wing racist employing “any means neccessary” in pursuit of his own “kingdom of ends”. This end being anything but nihilistic. On the contrary, it was profoundly objectivist. Only the means might be reasonably described by some as nihilistic.
As for the cheating scandal – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_coll … ry_scandal – yes, it might be reasonably described as something a moral nihilist might rationalize. All that mattered to the parents here was getting their kids into the best universities. Conventional morality be damned.
Given the first event, the moral outrage might be shared by those opposed to attacks on Moslem mosques. But for those [religious or otherwise] who share the political convictions of Brenton Harrison Tarrant, there is nothing to be outraged regarding at all.
My point of course is that in a No God world, it’s not a question of devolving into nihilism so much as recognizing that ethics itself is merely a manifestation of the assumptions rooted in fonts such as God. Or reason. Or philosophy. Or [for some] even science itself. Human interactions require rules of behavior. Some behaviors will be rewarded, others punished. And this is rooted in historical and cultural contexts predicated in large part on the evolution of political economy.
One person’s “slippery slope” and “ground zero” is not going to be the same as another’s. Thus for some communities the slippery slope in regard to, say, gun ownership can go back and forth politically resulting in a ground zero that either prohibits private citizens from owning guns or allows them to own shotguns, machine guns, high-powered rifles, semi-automated weapons, etc.
When does all of this result in “nihilism”?