Does Naturalism invite nihilism?
I noticed the following comment on YouTube from The Real Atheology and wanted to respond to it:
I don't think it's correct to say that Naturalism generally entails moral nihilism. Recent PhilPapers surveys have shown that the majority of philosophers tend to be Atheists/Naturalists and moral realists. Even Mackie's error theory did not reduce to nihilism and there is a whole section at the end of "Miracle of Theism" where he argues against the view that Atheism implicitly entails Nilhism. Interestingly enough, most Christian philosophers agree with these conclusions as well. For example, Terence Cuneo, whose book you're currently reading, has said this theory of morality is totally secular and can be accepted by a Naturalist and Atheist. He also has stated that: "When I read the most sophisticated discussions of God and morality in the work of thinkers such as Adams, Nicholas Wolterstorff, C. Stephen Layman, Mark Murphy, Linda Zagzebski, and John Hare, I find that none of them maintains that there could (in the relevant epistemic sense of "could") be no meaningful lives, value, obligations, or reasons to be moral if God were not to exist.[1] Rather, they claim that theistic views have some advantages over non-theistic views because they can better accommodate and explain certain data than these non-theistic views." - Robust Ethics NDRP Review So, I'd say the majority view of many Christian philosophers and Naturalist philosophers tend to be that moral realism is definitely compatible with Naturalism and Atheism.
So, does naturalism tend toward nihilism? I think so – yes. (Certainly, that was the direction I tended when I was a naturalist). Not only that, but I think it quite obviously does so, and that it takes a fair bit of (ad hoc) complication to steer the other direction.
Of course, we should begin with a statement of what nihilism is. Naturalist philosopher Alex Rosenberg helps us by explaining,
“Nihilism consists in the following claims: a) normative terms-good, bad, right, duty, etc - do not name real properties of events or things, either natural nor non-natural ones; b) all claims about what is good in itself, or about categorical moral rights or duties, are either false or meaningless; c) the almost universal beliefs that there are such properties and that such claims are true can be ‘‘explained away’’ by appropriate scientific theory. Nihilism takes the form of what Mackie (1977) calls an ‘‘error theory.’’ It does not deny that beliefs about norms and values can motivate people’s actions. It does not deny the felt ‘‘internalism’’ of moral claims, nor does it deny that normative beliefs confer benefits on the people who hold them. Indeed nihilism is consistent with the claim that such beliefs are necessary for human survival, welfare and flourishing. Nihilism only claims that these beliefs, where they exist, are false. It treats morality as instrumentally useful—instrumentally useful for our nonmoral ends or perhaps the nonmoral ends of some other biological systems, such as our genes for example.
Rosenberg’s paper issues a strong argument for why naturalism tends toward nihilism, but the reason is also well summarized by Mackie,
“If there were objective values, they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty or moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.”
From the naturalistic perspective, it appears needlessly complicated to posit entities of this very strange sort (strange within the inner logic of naturalism, that is; not for theism) and moreover a special faculty used to detect them. Rather, instead of explaining moral facts we can very easily explain away our common belief that there are moral facts by our subjective stances, attitudes, and responses to the world. Evolution, loosely speaking, put beliefs in us – including false beliefs (about God, or that it is always and everywhere wrong to torture puppies for fun) – that facilitates the avoidance of bears and going on dates and social harmony and whatever else. This is, again, I suggest, quite obviously the natural expectation from a worldview run by a principle of indifference and broadly scientistic epistemology and resultant ontology.
At this point, it doesn’t matter that most atheists are moral realists. While that is interesting reporting (indeed, it is something I like to point out myself in certain contexts), it is also not surprising, for many reasons; including that there are good reasons to be a moral realist. What matters is whether naturalism can adequately explain not just moral realism but moral knowledge.
Of course, one can escape the natural trajectory of the inner logic of naturalism by complicating the theory and bringing in ad hoc auxiliary hypotheses. The most interesting proposals to me, currently, are the varieties of Platonism at use among naturalists. But here’s the problem with that (apart from the other problems I pointed out in this post): by resorting to some variety of “unanchored Platonism” the naturalist has now greatly complicated their theory in what appears to be an extremely contrived way, whereas the best of what naturalistic Platonism can offer is more easily, simply, and naturally explained by theism. Worse, the posit of Plato’s heaven and the metaphysically necessary status of moral principles is not itself an explanation ender. Why? Because we still have reason to expect a deeper explanation of the necessity of these principles, and because the prior epistemic expectation of any principles (moral or reasoning) having a metaphysically necessary status is far higher if God exists.
In short, I am not impressed by suggestions that naturalism is “compatible” with moral realism. Almost anything can be made compatible with anything else if one is willing to complicate it — often hopelessly so. Thus, I maintain my analysis: naturalism tends strongly if not inevitably toward nihilism unless one is trying to have their naturalism – as J.P. Moreland once put it – “on the cheap,” by helping themselves to queer brute entities that cannot be reasonably located within the most reasonable naturalistic epistemology and resultant ontology.
- Pat
Further Reading
Philosopher Edward Feser has a good summary post on Mackie’s argument from queerness here.