Easy
Main reason for rejecting nihilism
1. Extreme initial implausibility
2. Too demanding
3. Morality is subjective
1. Extreme initial implausibility
Due to rejecting the most plausible statements if they include the implication of objective values.
Ex. You shouldn't torture babies for fun; would be rejected by nihilists.
Are ethical claims like, "Genocide is wrong" ever true from the nihilists perspective?
1. Yes, the nihilists condemns genocide
2. The nihilist doesn't have a position because there is no such thing as genocide
3. No, The nihilst believes all ethical claims are false
3. No, the nihilist believes that all ethical claims are false.
What categories do the two parts of the argument from queerness fall into?
1. Anti-realism & Metaphysics
2. Metaphysics & Epistemology
3. Epistemology & Universalizability
4. The harm principle & Virtue Ethics
2. Metaphysics & Epistemology
Metaphysical (Deals with abstract concepts that cannot be understood through reality): claims that the concept of objective moral facts is too SUPERNATURAL to exist.
Epistemological (Theory of Knowledge): asserts that the way in which we would come to KNOW objective moral facts would be different from the way we know anything else.
What does the nihilist believe about propositions in ethical language?
1. There are no propositions in ethical language because ethical claims can neither be true nor false.
2. Ethical arguments do possess propositions, but they are always false.
2. Ethical arguments do possess propositions, but they are always false.
Non-cognitivists believe that ethical claims are not propositions, so they can neither be true nor false.
can nihilism be refuted empirically?
This asks, can nihilism be refuted by evidence-based observation?
1. Yes, because objective values are scientifically supported.
2. No, because objective values can not be supported by empirical data.
No.
Since we can't prove there to be objective moral facts with empirical data, you can not refute the DOUBT of objective moral facts with empirical data.
What are the 2 parts of the argument from queerness?
1. There is too much moral disagreement
2. Morality is too strange of an entity
3. The is scientific data against the existence of objective morality
4. The way we would know objective moral facts would be different from the way we know anything else.
2. Morality would have to be an entity too strange and different from anything else.
4. The way in which we know morality would be different from the way in which we know anything else.
Which premise would nihilists reject:
1. You shouldn’t torture babies for fun.
2.“You shouldn’t torture babies for fun” implies that there are objective values, and there aren't.
3. If there were objective values, then beliefs about them would motivate us to act, independently of our desires.
4. Beliefs alone can never motivate action; only desires can motivate
They would reject premise 1, this is because of premises 3 and 4.
If objective values existed, then our beliefs about these objective values would motivate us independently of our desires.
Because desires are the only things that motivate us, there a no objective values.
Therefore, nihilists can not support the claim that you should not torture babies for fun.
The argument that proposes that the best explanation for disagreement about moral facts is that there is no objective fact to agree about.
1. the argument from queerness.
2. The argument from relativity.
3. The error theory.
2. The argument from relativity.
The argument from relativity claims that because of persistence in moral disagreement, there are no objective moral values to be agreed upon.
what kind of relation does J.L. Mackie think the 'because' in the moral cases signify?
Ex. Causing pointless pain is wrong "because" it is deliberate cruelty.
1. The 'because' signifies cause and effect.
2. The 'because' represents a universal moral code.
3. The 'because' represents nothing.
3. Nothing, he thinks values are too foreign and the because has no meaning.
Mackie thinks knowledge of objective values would be too different from anything we can know about the universe therefore, they do not exist.