Hi Tobias, thanks for this. Iām curious: can you find āgood argumentsā against full-blown nihilism? I think nihilism is very difficult to argue against, except by pointing to the bedrock moral convictions it is incompatible with. So thatās really all Iām trying to do here. (See also my reply to Michael.)
I donāt find it obvious to say that a situation where thereās beings who are experiencing something is better than a situation where thereās no beings to experience anything at all.
Just to clarify: it depends on the experiences (and more, since Iām not a hedonist). Some lives would be worse than nothing at all. But yeah, if you just donāt share the intuition that utopia is better than a barren rock then I donāt expect anything else I have to say here will be very persuasive to you.
Reason 1) is that no one suffers from that absence of experience
But isnāt that presupposing the suffering is all that matters? Iām trying to pump the intuition that good things matter too.
2) is that at least this also guarantees that thereās no horrible suffering.
Yep, Iāll grant that: horrible suffering is really, really bad, so thereās at least that to be said for the barren rock. :-)
Hi Tobias, thanks for this. Iām curious: can you find āgood argumentsā against full-blown nihilism? I think nihilism is very difficult to argue against, except by pointing to the bedrock moral convictions it is incompatible with. So thatās really all Iām trying to do here. (See also my reply to Michael.)
Just to clarify: it depends on the experiences (and more, since Iām not a hedonist). Some lives would be worse than nothing at all. But yeah, if you just donāt share the intuition that utopia is better than a barren rock then I donāt expect anything else I have to say here will be very persuasive to you.
But isnāt that presupposing the suffering is all that matters? Iām trying to pump the intuition that good things matter too.
Yep, Iāll grant that: horrible suffering is really, really bad, so thereās at least that to be said for the barren rock. :-)