Emotivism: The argument from self-consistency

I like thought which preserves a whiff of flesh and blood, and I prefer a thousand times an idea rising from sexual tension or nervous depression to an empty abstraction. Haven't people learned yet that the time of superficial intellectual games is over, that agony is infinitely more important than syllogism, that a cry of despair is more revealing than the most subtle thought, and that tears always have deeper roots than smiles?

The problem with some nihilisms, especially epistemological nihilism, is a kind of inconsistency. This kind of inconsistency is not logical inconsistency, but a kind of "personal inconsistency".

Let's see one example: epistemological nihilism.

Epistemological nihilism states that there is no way to know truths. There are various kinds of epistemological nihilism:

• Ontological: truths don't exist;
• Skeptical: there are no methods for us to know the truth;
• Meta skeptical: there are, but we can't know which methods actually work;

The common rejection is this: If you believe in epistemological nihilism, then you believe in something, but that's not justifiable, by epistemological nihilism.


More formally, this is what it looks like in symbolic logic (This is a kind of epistemic modal logic). Let "e" stand for "epistemic nihilism" and "B" stand for "I believe in".

1. $\forall p, e \to \neg B(p)$
2. $B(e)$
3. $B(B(e))$
4. $B(\neg B(e))$
5. $B(contradiction)$

Basically, any believer of epistemic nihilism would immediately believe in a contradiction.

Note that we are using an extra axiom about a good reasoner's beliefs:
$$\forall p, \text{ if }p \text{ is a propositional tautology, then }B(p)$$
$$\forall p, q, \text{ if }B(p \to q)\text{ then }B(p) \to B(q)$$
First one asserts the reasoner can do basic logical deduction (modus ponens), and second one asserts the reasoner can do propositional logic (which can be done purely thoughtlessly, with just pen and paper).

There are several possible ways to deal with this. The easiest way out is to renounce epistemic nihilism and say that every good reasoner must know some truths. That's what Descartes did ("I think, therefore I am."), as well as the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident").

But as most things in life, the easiest way out is not the right way... at least, that's how I'm going to play. Epistemic nihilism sneaks back by flipping the argument.

Consider ethical emotivism: ethical statements are not about non-personal truths, but personal feelings. Murder is not really wrong, I just hate it.

Ethical emotivism is often strengthened with a demand for people to "see ethics as it truly is: emotional statements". Purportedly, seeing clearly the emotional origins of ethics makes people more moral and less likely to do bad things based on their moral systems.

Ethical emotivism is very self-consistent. If I believe in ethical emotivism, I can feel strongly about the need for others to believe in it, and the stronger I feel it, the more justified I would be, because I can observe how people (people like me, at least) really base their morals on their feelings. This is the exact opposite of epistemic nihilism, where the stronger I believe in it, the less justified I would be.

Since ethical emotivism also purports that moral truths don't exist, this is a moral nihilism. Nicely, the stronger I believe ethical emotivism is not only true, but a morally-good belief, the stronger I believe that it is not only a morally-good belief, but also true.

In this way, ethical emotivism is a nihilism that not only is self-consistent, but actually self-strengthening.

There is another form of potential inconsistency of ethical emotivism, but not inside a single individual, but over groups of individuals. Ethical emotivism makes it unlikely for everyone to act in collaboration with each other, ever, no matter how much they talk and act with each other. This is pretty much the nightmare scenario for the rational belief in morality: by rational discussions, all conflicts can be solved.

This is not a strong problem, however. Modern psychology has shown how morality has an irrational basis. If morality is considered as a biological phenomenon, then it is folly to expect it to be simple or rational like physics. Even in particle physics, one can arguably discover some kinds of conflicts, if one anthropomorphize the particles a bit. Electrons and antielectrons are destined to kill each other. Lions and giraffes are destined too, as well as humans and some other intelligent species, or normal humans with certain abnormal humans.