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Atheism isn't nihilism. Values are subjective. Morality is relative.

by mfoy_ 8y ago

jolmg 8y ago
Right, I didn't mean both types of life having no worth. Rather, I just meant to raise the possibility of the spread of belief that a human's and an AGI's life are not so different that they deserve different valuations. I was implying that in such a case, the valuation of an AGI's life might increase to something similar to that of a human's, and not that a human's would decrease to that of an AGI's.
dpark 8y ago
Moral relativism is nihilism.
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  "Nihilism is the view that there are no moral facts, that nothing is right or wrong, or morally good or bad. Relativism is the view that moral statements are true or false only relative to some standard or other, that things are right or wrong relative to Catholic morality, say, and different things are right or wrong relative to Confucian morality, but nothing is right or wrong simpliciter."[1] I am a relativist, but not a nihilist. [1]http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001.0001/acprof-9780195147797-chapter-10 http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001...
  - dpark 8y ago
    I don’t see these as meaningfully different. One says there are no moral facts. The other says there are no moral facts unless you impose an arbitrary moral system. Someone who doesn’t believe in “moral facts” can still understand that if you define a framework for evaluating moral statements, you can make a true/false call within that framework. To believe otherwise would be to literally reject logic. That doesn’t indicate that the arbitrary framework imposed has any actual meaning. It’s not coincidental that these are discussed side by side in your book, nor that some other definitions explicitly call moral relativism nihilism.
    - mfoy_ 8y ago
      I don't think you can just swoop in and say that two different schools of philosophy are really the same because you can't tell the difference.
      - dpark 8y ago
        This is fallacious. The fact that a difference is asserted does not mean one exists. Your particular flavor of moral relativism seems to be absolute relativism. A common criticism of absolute moral relativism is that it is indistinguishable from moral nihilism. Similarly, arguments for moral nihilism are made from a stance of absolute moral relativism. Now, there are forms of moral relativism, namely descriptive relativism, that are not the same as nihilism. These simply acknowledge the fact that different people hold different moral views, speaking to the reality of the world rather than the plausibility or implausibility of objective morals. (I would also personally hesitate to call descriptive moral relativism a philosophy since it doesn’t attempt to speak to any fundamental truth. Acknowledging that people hold different morals seems less of a philosophical viewpoint and more of an ability to make basic human observation.) But you don’t seem to be a descriptive moral relativist. You’ve made absolutist statements about the relativity of morals, leavings me to conclude that you’re making a distinction without a difference because you don’t want to call yourself a nihilist. If you can provide some practical difference between absolute moral relativism and moral nihilism, please do. I’ve been unable to find anything that draws a meaningful difference between the two except that the absolute moral relativist says you can evaluate moral statements in the context of an arbitrary moral framework, and the moral nihilist says, sure you can, but it’s arbitrary so it doesn’t actually mean anything. Everything else seems to involve painting nihilists as morons incapable of recognizing the reality of cultural norms (“Moral nihilists say you can eat babies for breakfast!”) in a weak attempt to draw a meaningless distinction because for some reason “nihilist” is seen as a worse label than “moral relativist”. To the extent that moral relativism is a spectrum, moral nihilism simply seems to be the stronger end. The weaker end is just observation and the middle is a lack of willingness to firmly accept or deny universal morality.
        mfoy_ 8y ago

Atheism isn't nihilism. Values are subjective. Morality is relative.

by mfoy_ 8y ago

Atheism isn't nihilism. Values are subjective. Morality is relative.

Right, I didn't mean both types of life having no worth. Rather, I just meant to raise the possibility of the spread of belief that a human's and an AGI's life are not so different that they deserve different valuations. I was implying that in such a case, the valuation of an AGI's life might increase to something similar to that of a human's, and not that a human's would decrease to that of an AGI's.

dpark 8y ago

Moral relativism is nihilism.

mfoy_ 8y ago
"Nihilism is the view that there are no moral facts, that nothing is right or wrong, or morally good or bad. Relativism is the view that moral statements are true or false only relative to some standard or other, that things are right or wrong relative to Catholic morality, say, and different things are right or wrong relative to Confucian morality, but nothing is right or wrong simpliciter."[1] I am a relativist, but not a nihilist. [1]http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001.0001/acprof-9780195147797-chapter-10 http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195147790.001...
- dpark 8y ago
  I don’t see these as meaningfully different. One says there are no moral facts. The other says there are no moral facts unless you impose an arbitrary moral system. Someone who doesn’t believe in “moral facts” can still understand that if you define a framework for evaluating moral statements, you can make a true/false call within that framework. To believe otherwise would be to literally reject logic. That doesn’t indicate that the arbitrary framework imposed has any actual meaning. It’s not coincidental that these are discussed side by side in your book, nor that some other definitions explicitly call moral relativism nihilism.
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    I don't think you can just swoop in and say that two different schools of philosophy are really the same because you can't tell the difference.
    - dpark 8y ago
      This is fallacious. The fact that a difference is asserted does not mean one exists. Your particular flavor of moral relativism seems to be absolute relativism. A common criticism of absolute moral relativism is that it is indistinguishable from moral nihilism. Similarly, arguments for moral nihilism are made from a stance of absolute moral relativism. Now, there are forms of moral relativism, namely descriptive relativism, that are not the same as nihilism. These simply acknowledge the fact that different people hold different moral views, speaking to the reality of the world rather than the plausibility or implausibility of objective morals. (I would also personally hesitate to call descriptive moral relativism a philosophy since it doesn’t attempt to speak to any fundamental truth. Acknowledging that people hold different morals seems less of a philosophical viewpoint and more of an ability to make basic human observation.) But you don’t seem to be a descriptive moral relativist. You’ve made absolutist statements about the relativity of morals, leavings me to conclude that you’re making a distinction without a difference because you don’t want to call yourself a nihilist. If you can provide some practical difference between absolute moral relativism and moral nihilism, please do. I’ve been unable to find anything that draws a meaningful difference between the two except that the absolute moral relativist says you can evaluate moral statements in the context of an arbitrary moral framework, and the moral nihilist says, sure you can, but it’s arbitrary so it doesn’t actually mean anything. Everything else seems to involve painting nihilists as morons incapable of recognizing the reality of cultural norms (“Moral nihilists say you can eat babies for breakfast!”) in a weak attempt to draw a meaningless distinction because for some reason “nihilist” is seen as a worse label than “moral relativist”. To the extent that moral relativism is a spectrum, moral nihilism simply seems to be the stronger end. The weaker end is just observation and the middle is a lack of willingness to firmly accept or deny universal morality.
      - mfoy_ 8y ago