Without inherent value, moral objection comes down to preference

The argument

A second disadvantage concerns what nihilism leaves of ethics. If nothing possesses value in itself, critics argue, then a judgment that cruelty is wrong cannot be more than a report of distaste, in the way that disliking a flavour is. The person who causes suffering has not made an error, because there was nothing to be mistaken about; they have simply done what they preferred. Critics hold that this is not a technical consequence to be absorbed, since it removes the standing to say that anything anyone does is wrong, which is the thing ethics was for. The practical difficulty follows. Moral argument works by appealing to something the other party must acknowledge: a harm done, an interest disregarded, a commitment broken. Critics argue that a consistent nihilist has nothing of this kind to appeal to and nothing to be held to in turn. Told that their conduct is unjust, they may agree that it is and deny that this counts against it, and no further move is available. What settles disputes in such a world, critics argue, is not reasoning but whichever party has more power, since nothing else remains to decide the matter. Critics also argue that obligations to other people are hit hardest. Duties to strangers, to the vulnerable and to future generations are not conclusions people arrive at by calculating their own advantage; they rest on the thought that other lives matter whether or not anyone finds them useful. Removing inherent value removes that thought, leaving concern for others as an optional taste some happen to have. On this view the position threatens the grounds of solidarity itself, and the cost falls first on those with least power to insist on their own importance.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Defenders argue that the objection assumes what it needs to prove, namely that morality requires inherent value. On their account moral claims can rest on the interests of beings who actually have them: suffering is bad for the one who suffers whether or not the universe registers it, and that is enough to ground an objection to cruelty. They add that the slide to power is not entailed, since people with no belief in built-in value still have overwhelming reason to build enforceable rules protecting them from each other. Finally they argue the complaint is about consequences rather than truth: that a conclusion would be inconvenient for ethics is not a reason to think the world contains inherent meaning after all.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Suffering is bad for the one who suffers whether or not the universe registers it, so an objection to cruelty can rest on the interests of beings who have them rather than on inherent value. [Rejecting P2] People with no belief in built-in value still have overwhelming reason to build enforceable rules protecting them from each other, so the slide to power is not entailed. [Rejecting P3] Duties to strangers and future generations can be grounded in the same way, by appeal to interests those parties will actually have. [Rejecting C] The argument shows that a conclusion would be inconvenient for ethics, which is not a reason to think the world contains inherent meaning after all.