NIHILISM: Does philosophical Naturalism rationally imply a rejection of all value-based behavior and thinking?

[GodMadeMe]

It is evident that all humans make decisions that they feel rationally correlates with their ideals and values regardless of their intellectual positions or beliefs about objective reality. But is it rational to act upon or have ideals and values in the first place if they do not correlate with objective reality?

For example if moral judgments do not reflect the true objective nature of human behavior in any particular situation, then it is my position that moral judgments are irrational and so is any value we place on them as they stem not from what reality is but rather an irrational fear of death and social rejection.

Another example would be the value we place on the family unit. Sons and daughters and the idea that we must love them as such as well as bring them up as productive members of a society is merely based upon ideologies that are rooted in instinctual unquestioned feelings which in themselves do not have an objective standard. A child is just an organism and not a son or daughter that we ought to care about much less care about society. It only makes sense if we value those biological impulses, but we have no rational basis to value those impulses accept for fear of judgment and the fear of death, both of which are irrational fears.

It seems that nihilism is logically unavoidable and attempts to combat it is irrational if one takes on a naturalistic viewpoint of reality.

**EDIT: **It is not my position that Naturalism or Nihilism is actually true. I am merely debating the logical consequences of those positions.

Please debate…

 

[Tomdstone]

It only makes sense if we value those biological impulses, but we have no rational basis to value those impulses accept for fear of judgment and the fear of death, both of which are irrational fears…

In that scenario, is fear ever rational?

 

[GodMadeMe]

In that scenario, is fear ever rational?

Fear itself is irrational in that context. Its just a meaningless biological impulse… and yet we find it to have meaning which is quite problematic to both the atheist and the nihilist.

 

[inocente]

Another example would be the value we place on the family unit. Sons and daughters and the idea that we must love them as such as well as bring them up as productive members of a society is merely based upon ideologies that are rooted in instinctual unquestioned feelings which in themselves do not have an objective standard. A child is just an organism and not a son or daughter that we ought to care about much less care about society. It only makes sense if we value those biological impulses, but we have no rational basis to value those impulses accept for fear of judgment and the fear of death, both of which are irrational fears.

Given the choice between a parent who (a) has to rationally determine whether she morally ought to love her child, and (b) a parent who loves her child because that’s what humans do, surely we’d all choose the latter.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus knows that His audience of Jews generally look up to priests and Levites but despise Samaritans. Yet He has the priest and the Levite, governed by their laws of cleanliness, walk on by. They are the ones who fear judgment or death, their religious legalism has overtaken their humanity.

Then Jesus has the Samaritan take pity, an emotional response driven not by rational arguments about objective reality, but by nothing other than being human and seeing a need. As always, Jesus turns logic on its head .

 

[Rhubarb]

When you say philosophical naturalism, I’m assuming you’re referring to ethics and morality as that’s what your post is about. You bring up complex and connected topics like value and normativity. The studying that I’ve read seems to indicate that ethical naturalism is an attempt to avoid moral nihilism. (Moral nihilism being the position that there are no moral facts I think the most well-known writer about moral nihilism is John L. Mackie who proposed an error theory regarding morality. (Expressivism is another form of moral nihilism that crops up, but it’s more complicated)

Mackie concludes that moral facts are unlikely for ontological and epistemological reasons - basically, questioning the existence of and our ability to know moral facts. (He also says that moral facts are just too weird a thing to exist) Naturalism lets us ground morality in the natural world, which lets us do two things: firstly, if moral facts are natural facts then we can be pretty sure they exist inasmuch as we can be sure the natural world exists. Secondly, we can have some certainty in how we can come to know these facts, because we have a systematic and demonstrative way to learn and know the natural world through our senses.

I like this topic but I feel like there’s more to your post than just the moral aspect. Maybe more can be said about what worries you? Phrases like “naturalist viewpoint of reality”, or, “objective human behavior”, or “objective reality” are so super broad that it’s hard to pin down what you’re concerned about.