Should we all be nihilists?
I think that many people ask themselves if anything really matters. Can we really be sure of anything or are we just waiting and hoping for some arbitrary idea to hit us in the future to solve the puzzle of life? Do we have any responsibility at all and is there any objective purpose in life or are we just to arbitrarily hunt for dopamine kicks here and there?
Should the Modern Individual Accept Nihilism?
Although there are different kinds of nihilism, e.g. epistemic nihilism, existential nihilism, mereological nihilism, and moral nihilism, I believe that they are interlinked. The basic argument for nihilism reads as follows according to my understanding:
- Premise 1: We are unable to know anything for certain.
- Premise 2: If we do not know anything for certain, then we do not know if there is objective morality or any objective purpose.
- Premise 3: Absolute knowledge of objective morality and purpose is required for believing that our conduct matters.
- Conclusion: Our conduct does not matter.
Well, I do not agree with any of these premises. Also, it should be accentuated that one cannot know for sure that one cannot know anything for sure. Thus, one cannot be 100% sure that nihilism is true without running into contradictions.
Firstly, I do not believe that absolute knowledge is required to believe in objective morality or an objective purpose. One thing to note here is that there is a difference between believing that something exists and knowing that something exists. Another thing to note is that we are always forced to believe in things based on merely inductive reasoning, as we do not have the option to not make any decision in cases where we do not have absolute knowledge about the implications of either choice in our everyday lives. Everyone acts in accordance with one’s beliefs and values. It is impossible to not believe anything and at the same time eat food regularly. Incidentally, I may add that it does not matter in this context whether man has free will or if it is merely an illusion.
Secondly, I disagree with the first premise. First and foremost we have to nuance the reasoning behind it, i.e. whether the cause is that the extent of the reliability of the mechanisms of empiricism and/or rationality itself is not sufficient, or that man does not possess the ability to use rationality and empiricism to reach truth, or both. Since empiricism requires inductive reasoning one might think that we can rule it out of the equation, but one may argue that the very laws of logic and rationality, which would also include deductive reasoning, are discovered by man a posteriori. Similarly, one could argue that one needs to reason inductively in order to support the “validity” and versatility of inductive reasoning itself, so for the sake of simplicity we can rule induction out of the equation for now. Also, I will hopefully be able to reflect about how to categorize the assessment of an inductive arguments strength in the future, so please follow me here on Medium to get notified about that!
Ok, so then deductive reasoning is left and the questions that remain are whether the limitations of the mechanisms of logic and rationality alone are sufficient to establish the first premise, and whether man is unable to use logic to attain truth? Well, since I think that most of us have failed to recognize the correctness of many math equations, one can at least agree that human’s are not always able to think rationally, regardless of where one stands in the spectrum between belief in rationality alone and John Locke’s Tabula Rasa. However, even though it could be argued that convictions can be born out of mere conjectures since the human intellect is inherently flawed and unable to reason logically, I think that we are able to deduce a few facts that can be established as axioms. One example of this is Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”. Another example is that we know that 1+1=2 according to the definitions of “+” and “-”. Yet another example is that we can establish that every object whose existence one experiences through one’s senses exists at least in some regard (in spite of the possible truth of e.g. the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) albeit not necessarily physically. There is certainly some objective reality even though we experience it differently. The question is whether it is possible to create a network of deductive arguments in the form of chains of premises and conclusions based on these axioms that are sufficient to prove the existence of objective morality and purpose in life.
I have never seen anyone achieve this based on the axioms that I have mentioned above, but I have seen chains of arguments stemming from other axioms (that are somewhat controversial) that have convinced people that there is objective morality. These include e.g. the Kalam Cosmological Argument that was popularized by William Lane Craig, arguments stemming from the differences between qualitative or quantitative infinities, or elaborations of the Argument of Contingency by Thomas Aquinas. However, even if these arguments currently are seemingly able to compete with its counterarguments, and even though the axioms that they are based upon may be accepted by most people, there are four main problems:
- People who are judging these arguments are most certainly combining both empiricism and rationality in their judgement, if not only empiricism (see the quote on intellectual cost by William Lane Craig here: https://youtu.be/eOfVBqGPwi0 ). Remember that we temporarily discarded empiricism and induction for the sake of simplicity above.
- With regards to any deductive argument it is always true that it can be argued that it is only a matter of time before someone seemingly successfully attacks a premise in the argument, if not the axiom.
- Another question that arises is whether the subconscious human mind is able to reason correctly deductively. If not, it would imply that the scope of axioms that one had time to deduce consciously would be a/the limiting factor in regards to acquiring truth, since I think that it is hard to consciously deduce everything. This would introduce the problem of moral and historical luck, which in turn pertains to the second problem.
- If the laws of logic and deduction themselves are discovered a posteriori, deduction does not necessarily remain a valid tool to ascertain something as truth (maybe not induction either) as it is also itself subjective. Whether the laws of logic are a priori or a posteriori is also relevant for whether e.g the Kalam Cosmological Argument for the existance of God is a description invented to fill a void for a logical gap.
Hegelian Dialiectic & Revelation
When it comes to the second and third problem, Hegelian Dialectic supposedly provides a solution since it does not rely on arbitrary ideas to pop up in the future for us to predict the future, which in turn can be used to deduce conclusions regarding morality. This supposedly eliminates the problem of moral and historical luck. The reason behind me mentioning historical luck is, except that Hegel’s dialectic implies that certain truths cannot be obtained by some in certain historical periods as far as I understand, that the doctrines of e.g. Islam and Christianity according to some imply that after the coming of any prophet, people will naturally return to polytheism. It should be noted that ideologies, money, or feelings can be worshipped, which in turn would be included in a eventual fold of polytheism. I will hopefully be able to delve further into the subject of historical luck and religious views on biological evolution, consciousness, materialism, and idealism in an article in the future.
One thing that I have to point out is that if we want to establish objective morality, we would need an Omni-God’s existence as an established axiom. I think it is hard to reach this through Hegelian Dialectic, but I am not sure. If you want to read more about this you can visit https://www.alislam.org/library/books/RRKT.pdf, where it is argued that the mechanism of rationality is not enough to attain truth, and that one thus needs revelation. I think there are two problems with Hegelian Dialectic and reliance on revelation respectively.
In regards to the latter, I would say that believing in revelation requires a belief in God, hence the argument that revelation will lead to acquiring belief in the truth, which supposedly includes the existence of God, will become a circular argument.
In regards to the former I want to accentuate that I am not an expert, but as far as I have understood, the two opposite poles in Hegelian Dialectic, e.g. communism and liberalism, are merely areas that one has marked on an already existing big cloud of ideas. These poles are in multiple dimensions and can be likened to magnets, and one can see oneself as a metallic ball that is attracted to various magnets. I do not know whether it is the strength of the magnets or the distance to them that varies through time, or if the center is always the defintion of “right”, but probabilistically speaking it is quite unlikely that both the definition of what is correct and the “center” have been the same for all ages. On the other hand, it is quite probable that I am wrong, since it is impossible for me to identify all the “poles”, which in turn reintroduces the problem of moral and historical luck.
One thing to note is that I believe that objective morality necessitates moral absolutism, since context-specific morality does not imply moral relativism. For example, a lot of people argue that we do not have several sets of natural laws as we are unable to experience different consequences with the same conditions. On the other hand, I argue that even a plurality of natural laws could in the end be experienced or deemed as one (depending on the definition of a “set of laws” and what properties a “law” should be ascribed), because their relationship will appear as constant in a certain dimension/sense. Another thing to note is that objective morality necessitates a purpose, e.g. hedonism or to strive to feel a certain scope of feelings as long as possible. It is important to keep in mind that Hegel’s dialectic implies the correctness of idealism rather than materialism when it comes to historical advancement, which in turn pertains to the subject of purpose experienced by individuals.
Societal Equilibria, Utilitarianism, and Numbing
It is very important to observe that many arguments that we see today for the existence of God or superiority of some ideology most often imply that happiness over a long period of time is an objective purpose in life. For example, J. McKenzie Alexander agues in this book The Structural Evolution of Morality that morality is objective since only one certain set of values will lead to a maximum amount of people attaining maximal possible happiness. He refers to a computer simulation in which individuals choose to ask for 50% of a cake when the “state of equilibrium” is reached, and the premise is that no-one out of two people will get anything if their requests for the cake are not compatible, eg. 60% and 70%. Similarly, many religious people argue for the existence of God based on the notion that a belief in God is most convenient for attaining a supposedly purposeful of life. For example, one argument put forward is that peace can never be attained without morals because the state of equilibrium of society (physically, chemically, and hence socially) is not natural i.e. that our preferences are not compatible, and that morals thus have to be both objective, and absolute to some extent, which in turn requires a God. However, I do not necessarily agree that the premise that peace and maximal happiness to a maximum amount of people is ought to be attained should be established as an axiom without any dialectical argumentation.
I think the idea of drawing parallels between the concepts of chemical equilibria and societal equilibria in regards to both Hegelian Dialectic and utilitarianism is very interesting. Likewise, I think it is interesting to draw parallels between materialism and idealism in terms of societal equilibria and the question of whether our senses are the only sources of our experience, if bioinformatical tools are sufficient to monitor our health, whether supernaturalness and souls (as a nonphysical concept) exist, and how reliable supposed revelations are. I have seen channels such as Rational Religion attempt to do this to an extent, and you can take look at their work here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ASSaYNO3hdPryRFH1xlIQ.
In the context of utilitarianism, I want to touch on the concept of numbing, which I first stumbled upon in the field of Behavioural Economics. The notion that everyone can get used to anything, which implies that the only suffering that we experience is a consequence of negative change (whatever “negative” means), is currently sounding reasonable to me. Please let me now about your stance on this in the comments section! Moreover, I think there is a parallel to be drawn between the concepts of change in accordance with Hegelian Dialectic and numbing.
Can one really get used to anything? Should you stop to love the thorn bush that is your hiding place when you forget that you are chased? Does it matter? Does anything matter?
Anyhow, I do not believe that we are able to let go of ideas that have possessed us in the past, such as the utilitarian in our thinking that I addressed above. This can be compared with the islamic idea of trial and punishment, in which even if you can get another chance with the same trial and can pass it and then counteract the previous penalty, impressions and impacts have been made, which in turn have the possibility to result in increased goodness compared to if the sin had never been committed. Correspondingly, I suspect that it is impossible to deduce all of one’s values from first principles, eg. the axioms that I mentioned above. For example, if one believes in Christianity, which by the way only encompasses acting according to its teachings deliberately, one has to approach the deductions for one’s values both from the bottom up (i.e. from first principles) and vice versa (i.e. based on one’s existing faith, i.e. Christianity). Otherwise, one has to pretend that one is free from confirmation bias. Similarly, one has to acknowledge that analyzing the Hadith and Quran, and considering the truth of revelations, are necessary if one wants to examine one’s values whilst being muslim. The same applies to deists, buddhists, jews, and so on. In other words, everyone does not have the same ability to throw away all the apples from Descartes’ “bad apple analogy”. In fact, noone can throw all apples away. Therefore, we will have to acknowledge our current and former beliefs and biases and we cannot deem them as malignant alone.
Just as our actions reveal our beliefs, our actions also steer our beliefs. This pertains to the normative ethical models, especially virtue ethics which was put forward in many different ways by many different Greek Philosophers, eg. Aristotle. However, I have to say that I think that all of these ethical models are meta-ethically utilitarian. For example, Kant’s categorical imperative had the objective of reaching a societal equilibrium in which “good” is distributed as equally as possible. Please correct me if I am wrong in the comments!
Cartesianism & the Vainness in Escape Attempts from Induction
One thing that is important to consider regarding Hegel’s dialectic is that the advancement of ideas through history corresponds to the same in linguistics. Just as we as individuals cannot leave an idea without any marks, the society cannot leave or return to any idea or any language and approach it in the same way it did when it was first encountered. In this context, it is interesting to consider whether the laws of logic are merely linguistic constructions or a priori truths of some kind. Morover, it is interesting to ask oneself whether the use of conventional languages, eg. English or Spanish, are the best way for us to communicate, provided that we want the one we are communicating with to share our experience to the maximum extent possible. Furthermore, it is crucial to investigate whether the causes of our experiences consist of neurotransmitters and hormones traveling in different paths in our brains alone or whether there is something nonphysical involved, which in turn pertains to the rivalry between idealism and materialism.
Rene Descartes advocated for dualism. In the introduction, I mentioned that we can establish a few axioms without the need of explicitly establishing its premises in order to reach consensus. According to Descartes we can determine what can be believed to be true without dialectical argumentation in the same way that we can determine that the sum of the size of the three angles in a triangle are equal to the size of two right angles. Nevertheless, this itself is an inductive argument, which suggests that it is impossible to create a chain of arguments for anything based on deduction alone, which in turn is in line with Locke’s Tabula Rasa. Anyhow, my point is that even though objective morality may necessitate moral absolutism, it does not necessitate epistemic absolutism because morality is based on belief rather than knowledge. Thus, we cannot discard induction. Furthermore, it seems to me that the very laws of logic and dedution cannot be verified without circular arguments or endless chains of inductive arguments.
None could succeed in matching the intricacies of the Sufi’s ethereal logic. At this point, the king was struck with a brilliant idea and ordered the warden of the elephants’ house to have the most ferocious of his elephants brought to the palace grounds […] From the one end the Sufi was pushed into the open and from the other the elephant was let loose. The Sufi without losing his breath, ran for his life forthwith. Observing this, the king shouted from the balcony of his palace, ‘Don’t run away O Sufi, from this phantom elephant. He is only a figment of your imagination!’ ‘Who is running away?’ shouted back the Sufi. ‘It is only a figment of your imagination.’ Thus ended the predicament of the Sufi but not the debate itself. It still rages on.
— from Revelation, Rationality and Truth by Mirza Tahir Ahmad
Ending Questions & Conclusions
Does it even matter to be logically correct? How do we know what to believe? Well, everyone acts in accordance with their beliefs. So let people act and see what they want to do subsequently, i.e. where the societal equilibrium ends up (that is to say if we ever reach it…). In the end, belief is based on conflict between different inductive arguments of which the seemingly strongest has the biggest impact. Ergo it would be interesting to further examine the concept of moral and historical luck in regards to belief through the lens of biological evolution with a focus on our senses and emotions, which in turn pertains to the conflict between materialism and idealism. On the other hand, maybe we are ment to just wait for the right idea to eventually pop up in our head to reach truth. After all, religious people usually say that God gives one’s faith. And if the right idea does not pop up, maybe it is our own fault.
