Axiological Nihilism
Intrinsic Value and The Void
axiological nihilism
noun
Pronunciation: /aksee-yo-lojee-kal • nai-uh-li-zim/
Definition: The belief that values are baseless and that nothing has intrinsic value or worth. This perspective asserts that values are not inherent in objects or actions but are subjective and created by human preferences and perceptions.
Origin: Derived from the Greek word “axios,” meaning “worth” or “value,” combined with “nihilism,” which comes from the Latin “nihil,” meaning “nothing.”
PROPOSITIONS:
- Difference → Time → Self-Other Distinction → Desire → Value
- Value only makes sense in the context of relationships. It presupposes some (minimal) selfhood that makes distinctions between things.
Professor Noah M. Lemos argues in his book Intrinsic Value: Concept and Warrant that ethical propositions are a separate from the domain of natural properties just like mathematics and psychology.
Mathematics has its basis in the real world interaction and observation of external phenomena. But it can also be used to posit complex abstract objects that probably don’t exist in our current frame of reality like in the discipline of pure mathematics. In some cases, pure mathematics can be a useful tool in imagining a specific set of affairs and considering their implications.
I don’t associate myself with ethical intuitionism as Lemos does, but I can see the validity of his arguments. Or at least interpreting his ideas through my own current philosophical commitments.
Since reality is relationships, each relationship develops and becomes more complex, it is able to stabilize then it ends up creating a new environment. One that is dependent on the smaller interactions that make it up, but can still influence it:
3. Value seen in this way is an emergent property that is birthed from prior, “lower-level” interactions.
There is an interesting philosopher, Cyril Arnaud who has written about axiology and given a unique perspective on it I haven’t seen a lot of people consider before.
Based on his line of reasoning, what is valuable is what is worthy of love.
To know if something is valuable, you must consult the “laws of love”:
a.) Love attributes value to the beloved or object of love.
He discounts desire, since you can desire something or someone without valuing them.
b.) Love defends or protects the beloved or object of love.
c.) Love sets apart and elevates the beloved or object of love to a higher status in the hierarchy of values.
These according to Arnaud are only some of the laws of love which are possibly yet to be discovered. If you violate one of these laws, you end up holding the beloved in contempt. You cease to value the object of love. You put it at the lower or opposite end of what is lovable. From this hierarchy of values he goes on to reason:
d.) What has supreme value or is ultimately lovable has an opposite.
e.) Love sees the beloved or object of love as worthy in any context. Love should be universal.
Arnaud presents a novel approach to the problem of value by mowing it away from subjectivism into a focus on love.
Problem is I have my own biases about what counts as “true love”.
I don’t entirely agree with his conception of love and I attribute that to our differences in experience and worldview.
But what this spurs me to ask is this: Can you love without lack?
Is there a situation wherein you love something without trying to fill some lack psychologically or physically?
My assumption is that: No, there is always some exchange going on.
We are always trying to fill some the void. The Void also constitutes Being.
4. Value only persists in some state of lack (actual or imagined).
We have learned that value emerges from what constitutes a self that is fundamentally lacking in something. “Intrinsic value” is a misnomer. Value only exists in relationships between different beings.
