[keane]

No, AnimalMuppet is correct. We are unable to value the survival of mankind as objectively good, as we have no empirical evidence to do so (more accurately: we cannot infer an Ought from an Is).

See this for more on why: http://liamk.org/is-love-real/

Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism. And if the former is true, it doesn't matter if we hold the latter. As CS Lewis put it, if the Theists are wrong after all they would have merely paid the universe a compliment it would not have deserved.

[dragonwriter]

> Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism.

Utilitarianism -- and many others -- are equally possible. You can assume any set of moral axioms (including those of utilitarianism) without assuming God (the defining assumption of Theism) -- and, in fact, Theism in and of itself gets you nothing, except that it usually is coupled with assumptions about what God wills and the moral axiom that what God wills is what we ought to seek.

[keane]

> Utilitarianism -- and many others -- are equally possible.

You misunderstand the dichotomy. This is not about what we can do, humans can delude themselves all the time. The question is about what is logically consistent.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence" applies in a purely natural universe, which means that if there is no God, we can dismiss Utilitarianism (and all the others) as there is no evidence for it. Only if the universe is supernatural (if God exists) do things change.

[locopati]

Zen is not nihilism (unless you're bandying about the word in a way that has nothing to do with the actual practice of Zen)

[keane]

The goal of Zen and all Buddhism is to achieve "Enlightenment", a state of mind where one fully internalises the rather Daoist idea (remember the Yin Yang) that God does not exist and due to this Good and Evil are not different at all (an illusion) but are one and the same. Believing that Right and Wrong are equivalent is the same as denying they exist at all, hence Nihilism.

All of the practices done before this (meditation, compassion, tantra, etc) are--as in other branches of Hindu and Dharmic faiths--understood to be merely optional "yogas" or activities to fill the time and enjoy oneself in a Nihilistic world.

[locopati]

This is a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Buddhism, which is the Middle Path between nihilism (a denial of existence) and eternalism (a belief in permanence or independence). Among the foundational beliefs are impermanence, interdependence, and the emptiness of self-existence all phenomena; or from another angle, suffering, the cause of suffering, that suffering can cease, the means of achieving that cessation. The practices are not meant to "fill the time" but are the means of seeing reality clearly.

[keane]

Not really. First off, Nihilism does not deny that we or the universe exist but instead "Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless". In Buddhism, both good and evil has no real existence, being part of the illusory world of phenomena. As I said before, believing that Right and Wrong are equivalent is the same as denying they exist at all and this is what I meant by Nihilism.

Additionally, the practices of Buddhism are said to lead to Enlightenment, but even for the Buddhist, wanting Enlightenment is a huge mistake as Moksha/Nirvana is available at all times, without the practices, as our default status. As Jed McKenna notes: Why does Buddhism rarely produce Buddhas? It is because Buddhist practices ("yogas") are not able to transmit the realization that Self is Illusion and All is Nothingness. If you read the Anathapindika you'll see that Siddhartha denied that the Creator God (issara-karaṇa-vāda) existed, that he claimed there was no free will, but even though every thing is deterministic we should practice good anyway.

  Let us, then, abandon the heresy of worshipping the Creator God and of praying to him;
  let us no longer lose ourselves in vain speculations of profitless subtleties;
  let us surrender self and all selfishness,
  and as all things are fixed by causation,
  let us practise good so that good may result from our actions.

Rather than attempt to understand Buddhism as if it exists in a vacuum, studying the wider Hindu philosophy that it developed from and especially Nondualism and Vedanta will likely help you understand what Siddhartha was trying to convey. It is absolutely Nihilistic.

[eli_gottlieb]

>(more accurately: we cannot infer an Ought from an Is).

Oughts cannot mean anything in the first place unless they ultimately reduce to some kind of is-checkable fact.

[keane]

This would give you Nihilism. Theism disagrees.

[eli_gottlieb]

>This would give you Nihilism.

The Is-Ought Problem and the Open Question Argument are not so conclusive as to justify nihilism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_naturalism

[keane]

If the world is material (natural) only, then the maxim of Hitchens and Sagan applies: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". You assert humans have value. There is no empirical evidence of this claim. This leaves you with Moral Nonrealism.

Only if the world is posited to be something beyond material (supernatural), can we suggest values are Real and hold to Moral Realism. Anytime we suggest that humans have value or that moral statements correspond to real truths, we have abandoned empiricism and have entered the realm of faith.

[eli_gottlieb]

>You assert humans have value. There is no empirical evidence of this claim.

But of course there is. Humans have value to humans. You are assuming that "have value" requires a supernatural grounding.

[keane]

This is where the Is-Ought problem comes in. We are unable to make an observation about the empirical universe ("Humans have value to humans") and then conclude an objective value statement from it ("Therefore humans should value other humans"). You either misunderstand the Is-Ought problem or you deny it (without explaining why you are able to deny it).