Ethical Nihilism

Ethical nihilism is the position that any philosophical discussion of ethics and values is meaningless because of the observable fact of moral diversity and disagreements. Thus, ethical nihilism is a theory about the philosophical treatment of values, while nihilism is about knowledge and values themselves. What can often be observed is that the same actions that some people perceive as ethical are perceived by others as unethical, and by still others as morally neutral (e.g., abortion, the death penalty, stem cell research). From that evidence, ethical nihilism takes a more radical step than ethical relativism, which only goes as far as postulating that ethics is ultimately relative to the moral agent, the observer, or a particular culture. Ethical nihilism argues that, in the end, nothing ...