If no purpose was handed down, there is no purpose to fail

The argument

Those who see advantages in nihilism usually start from the weight of assigned purpose. People are raised to believe that a life has a point it is supposed to reach, whether set by a religion, a nation, a family or a career, and much of the unhappiness they report comes from measuring themselves against that point and falling short. Proponents argue that the suffering here is produced by the standard rather than by the life, and that the standard was never established in the first place. On this view accepting that existence carries no built-in purpose removes the measure rather than the person. If nothing was required of a life, then a life that achieved little has not gone wrong; it has simply happened, as everything else does. Proponents hold that this is why the position is experienced by many who adopt it as relief rather than as loss. The grief people feel over unrealised ambitions, missed vocations and wasted years assumes there was a correct version of their life that they failed to reach, and nihilism denies that there was ever such a version. The same reasoning is applied to misfortune. Where a person believes the world is arranged around a purpose, suffering demands an explanation, and the search for one can be more corrosive than the suffering itself. Proponents argue that if there is no plan, then illness and accident require no justification and imply nothing about the person they befall. What is left is a life that can be judged on whether it was bearable and worth having rather than on whether it discharged a duty nobody issued, and proponents regard escaping that audit as the clearest advantage the position offers.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the relief is bought by giving up more than the position admits. The same move that makes failure impossible makes achievement impossible, since an accomplishment can only count as one against some standard, and a life that cannot go wrong cannot go right either. They argue that most people who describe this relief are in fact rejecting one inherited purpose and keeping the idea of a worthwhile life, which is not nihilism but a change of commitments. Others add that the comfort is unstable: a person who genuinely held that nothing about their life mattered would have no reason to prefer a bearable life to an unbearable one, so the consolation depends on a value the position has already denied.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The unhappiness described comes from holding a particular purpose and missing it, which is an argument against that purpose rather than against purposes as such. [Rejecting P2] Removing the measure removes success along with failure, so the relief is bought by making achievement impossible too. [Rejecting P3] Explanations of suffering are also what make it bearable and actionable, and a person told their illness means nothing is not obviously better placed than one who seeks a reason for it. [Rejecting C] Preferring a life released from that audit is itself a judgment that release is better, which the position has no resources to support.