Proving moral nihilism.

[kevkon]

People disagree radically about morality.

Different societies have endorsed slavery, human sacrifice, caste systems, democracy, monarchy, polygamy, monogamy, capital punishment, and countless other practices. Even within the same society, people often disagree on abortion, war, euthanasia, and criminal justice.

If objective moral truths existed, we might expect convergence over time, similar to what occurs in science when evidence accumulates. Instead, moral disagreements often persist indefinitely.


Suppose objective moral facts existed. What would they be?

A moral fact would have to be a very strange kind of thing. It would somehow possess a built-in “oughtness” that compels behavior. Unlike physical objects, objective moral facts would not be detectable through the senses. Unlike mathematical truths, they would supposedly tell us how we should act.

Humans evolved social instincts because cooperation increased survival and reproduction.
Empathy, guilt, outrage, loyalty, and fairness can all be understood as evolutionary adaptations.
The nihilist argues that evolution selected moral feelings because they were useful, not because they were true.
Just as evolution gave us hunger because it promotes survival, it may have given us moral intuitions because they promote cooperation.

If our moral beliefs are products of evolutionary pressures rather than access to objective moral truths, their existence provides little evidence that such truths actually exist.

The nihilist argues that the best explanation is that people are expressing preferences, emotions, traditions, or cultural conditioning rather than discovering objective truths.

The philosopher David Hume observed that descriptions of reality (“is” statements) do not logically produce moral conclusions (“ought” statements).
For example:

• Humans evolved through natural selection.
• People experience pain.
• Societies function in certain ways.

None of these facts, by themselves, prove that anyone ought to do anything.

No matter how many factual statements you list, the nihilist argues that an additional moral premise is always required before a moral conclusion follows.
Therefore morality cannot be derived purely from objective facts about reality.

 

[EmperorCaligula]

People disagree radically about morality.

Different societies have endorsed slavery, human sacrifice, caste systems, democracy, monarchy, polygamy, monogamy, capital punishment, and countless other practices. Even within the same society, people often disagree on abortion, war, euthanasia, and criminal justice.

If objective moral truths existed, we might expect convergence over time, similar to what occurs in science when evidence accumulates. Instead, moral disagreements often persist indefinitely.


Suppose objective moral facts existed. What would they be?

A moral fact would have to be a very strange kind of thing. It would somehow possess a built-in “oughtness” that compels behavior. Unlike physical objects, objective moral facts would not be detectable through the senses. Unlike mathematical truths, they would supposedly tell us how we should act.

Humans evolved social instincts because cooperation increased survival and reproduction.
Empathy, guilt, outrage, loyalty, and fairness can all be understood as evolutionary adaptations.
The nihilist argues that evolution selected moral feelings because they were useful, not because they were true.
Just as evolution gave us hunger because it promotes survival, it may have given us moral intuitions because they promote cooperation.

If our moral beliefs are products of evolutionary pressures rather than access to objective moral truths, their existence provides little evidence that such truths actually exist.

The nihilist argues that the best explanation is that people are expressing preferences, emotions, traditions, or cultural conditioning rather than discovering objective truths.

The philosopher David Hume observed that descriptions of reality (“is” statements) do not logically produce moral conclusions (“ought” statements).
For example:

• Humans evolved through natural selection.
• People experience pain.
• Societies function in certain ways.

None of these facts, by themselves, prove that anyone ought to do anything.

No matter how many factual statements you list, the nihilist argues that an additional moral premise is always required before a moral conclusion follows.
Therefore morality cannot be derived purely from objective facts about reality.

Moral disagreement across cultures doesn't prove there are no moral facts it proves there is no single universal moral framework, which is a much weaker conclusion. When a society endorses slavery or human sacrifice, its members aren't expressing meaningless noise; they are making claims that are genuinely true or false within the internal logic of their cultural framework, its goals, hierarchies, and commitments. The relativist accepts Hume's is/ought gap without panic morality doesn't need to be derived from bare physical facts, only from the facts of a given framework and the commitments its members already hold. And the evolutionary debunking argument backfires on the nihilist: if evolutionary origin strips moral intuitions of authority, it equally strips our perceptual and logical faculties of authority, undermining science itself. Most damaging of all, your own position quietly relies on normative commitments to honesty, consistency, and clear thinking that their framework cannot justify. Relativism has no such problem those values are genuinely binding within our epistemic framework, and that is all the grounding they need, I agree with u on some of the points tho