Nihilism

     Utilitarianism is for nihilists who are too cowardly to admit they are nihilists. At least, most of the time. The idea that nothing matters is scary. It follows that everything is permissible, and that there is no objective right and wrong. Living your life according to this is basically impossible (or psychopathic), and only ignorance will avoid a life full of existential dread. So, people turn to any other sort of moral system, despite any objective backing. Semantic tricks and empty ideas such as "the meaning of life is to give life meaning" and "life has no meaning, but your life is meaningful because of you" are philosophically useless. Either things matter or they don't, there is no in between. Either suffering is a bad thing (or good), or it is neutral. These things by definition have to be binary. If we are animals made of meat and bones and there is no god, do we have any moral obligations? Is killing an innocent child for no reason other than sheer amusement really, actually, truly wrong? Is it objectively morally wrong? Or is it only "wrong" because of our current culture and upbringing. Wrong only to the level where if they were releasing and hunting innocent children for fun in the Middle East we would say "well that's just their culture, we can't say for certain if what they are doing is bad." These questions matter. "Well even if everything is meaningless, we don't want to talk about it much because then people might do bad things" is a circular argument. What do you mean by "bad," and wouldn't it be useful to know where our moral obligations lie (or if there are any)?

    I have mentioned my version of Pascal's wager before. I call it Pascal's modified wager. If there is a chance that nothing matters and a chance that something matters, you should probably live your life believing that something matters. If you are wrong, it doesn't matter anyway. But if things actually matter and you ignore them, you could make some pretty sizeable moral mistakes. Proof of this wager is basically impossible, as it is prone to similar counterarguments to a religious version (well, how do you decide what matters? Says who? What if hunting young children is morally good? Prove it!). This is why it's called a "wager" and not a proof. It makes sense to me that suffering is bad. I am going to start there. The Hume is-ought problem makes it impossible for me to thoroughly prove that suffering is bad, even though some have tried ("The Moral Landscape" by Sam Harris, for example). But I am fine with that, and of all the things that could be evil in the world (saving children from burning buildings, being nice to people, refusing to partake in genocide), I am going to assume that causing immense suffering is bad. Sue me. With that as a starting point, things can get tricky. Cue the thousands of utilitarian dilemmas. But hey, at least we have a starting point. If you have that, you should have the intelligence to navigate 90% of basic moral decisions (should I push the person in front of me on the train tracks, even though no one will ever know, or should I not?). 

    I love reading about pessimism and nihilism. Cioran and Ligotti are masterful writers who bestowed upon me years worth of existential trauma. But through them I found Becker, and then Singer. And I decided to make a simple choice, to believe that suffering is bad. From that choice a million interesting and fulfilling opportunities arise. The motivation to help others and the desire to have an impact have made my life significantly better. I am still worried that the emperor has no clothes and that I should spend the next forty years at the cabaret. If on my death bed I learn that this was the case, I doubt I will look back with regret.