This is really dense and long and convoluted so get out if you don't want to get bored
I'm writing a book where the main characters encounter a "nothing-has-any-value" villain who puts their whole society in danger.
Given that there's nothing beyond the physical world, life and morality are objectively worthless. We're just animals pretending to be different to the rest of the universe, even though we're not. Any attempts to defend the value of morality based on "it feels right", or "we all know what right looks like" are BS. Unless there is something beyond the physical realm, life has absolutely no value and saying that is does is just a big fat shameful lie.
So, this villain makes the world realize that they're living a ridiculous lie and that their care for morality is pointless. People stop giving a damn and chaos ensues. The good guys insist that pretending that life has value may be a lie, but a useful lie nonetheless
The big question comes now: could the villain build an ideological movement on this premise? Because I mean, you can't really change the world unless you got a good amount of people following you. He wouldn't be a threat and there wouldn't be any story to tell unless the bad guy actually had some people following him.
But that raises the question: can you really build a movement based on pure nihilism?
Jaxson Morgan
I'm interested. Tell me more OP.
Logan Stewart
Who cares? Nothing matters lel
Kayden Hernandez
There's no point
Justin Anderson
can certainly try
Jonathan Allen
to live is to suffer, life has no meaning
Brody Powell
The fuck would he create a movement if nothing has value.
You literally went for the "intelligent, nihilistic and with a wicked sense of humour" archetype and somehow want the main character to create something that is bigger than himself? Why the fuck does he even want a to be a villian? Anyways, I think nihilism can be refuted if you follow Nietzsche's "I decide what has value" and moral arguments aren't even inherently wrong.
Jonathan Thompson
>The fuck would he create a movement if nothing has value. plot twist: there is a nihilistic movement going on right now, but nobody cares
Daniel Lee
a pessimism with a nihilist bent might be a better bet than nihilism for the reasons anons have mentioned check out zapffe's "the last messiah" for ideas
Jordan Bell
Atheistic materialism?
Dominic Wright
Literally this.
Bentley Johnson
But it isn't *that* nihilistic, they believe in the Kantian morality after all, it's just that they don't believe in the Western values that control their lifestyle. Not that I agree with them anyways, desu
Aaron Miller
>they believe in the Kantian morality after all really? why would that be?
Henry Powell
Because they believe that people are ends in themselves and deserve to be respected above all. Their justification is not religious, but on the basis that there is an inherent rational value on all people that must be protected, and that in turns gives life to Human Rights movements and the likes. If they were really nihilistic they would know that no value is above yourself, there is nothing to respect in others.
Michael Rodriguez
OP here. This is a response to most of the previous responses (duh)
One kind of logic result of this perspective would be to claim that following "the law of nature" is the only way to go. After all, nature isn't dictated by human moral constructions, it's literally dictated by the laws of the physical world itself
If there is nothing "out there" and humans are just another breed of animals instead of the enlightened, special creatures that we think we are, the only logical response would be to act like the rest of living beings Any other way of acting would, technically, be worthless Kill your prey, eat your food, fuck your partner, kill your enemies and that's life
Obviously, this would be awful in real life. That's the reason this is what the "bad guy" defends. But he's got a point though
Nicholas Young
>Kill your prey, eat your food, fuck your partner, kill your enemies
AND HEAR THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR WOMEN
Isaac Hall
My diary DESU
Sebastian Green
>So, this villain makes the world realize that they're living a ridiculous lie and that their care for morality is pointless. Supposed your wicked " nihilistic" villain actually cared about anything as much to try to accomplish this... How would he actually do it? Regular people dont really give a fuck about any of this
Colton Hill
Well, technically one thing would be fighting for. In a world with no god, no heaven or hell, the only logical way to go would be following mother nature. So inciting humans to ditch everything and acts like beasts would make sense
Grayson Cox
tbqh OP i got all the information you need if you are ready to do a fuckload of research to make a good '''''villian'''''. But you allready present a fuckload of ignorance so i think you will only butcher all the info if i would give you any of it. Ill give you the meme version instead.
Read Demons,Fathers and Sons and watch the Dark Knight. Good Luck.
Nolan Ramirez
Good luck building an ideology on something true, lol.
Jordan Miller
>I'm writing a book where the main characters encounter a "nothing-has-any-value" villain who puts their whole society in danger. Do they interview a politician?
>they believe in the Kantian morality after all Pic related.
Landon Foster
bump
Aiden Myers
How do you relate Rawls to Nietzsche???
Noah Rogers
I don't.
The point is that when the tell you to do something, they do not believe in any of that, the Wille zur Macht is speaking, not A Theory of Justice.
>it's just that they don't believe in the Western values that control their lifestyle Here's an inexhaustive list of things Kantian and neo-Kantian ethics are concerned with, and the nihilistic movement is just as strongly opposed to: universality, the Enlightenment project, rationalism, moral absolutism, people as ends and not means...
Cameron Reyes
Considering that >this is fictional >in real life movements have formed around more silly things then it's completely possible. It seems like an interesting premise OP, just ignore the realism of such an idea and use it as a thought experiment like a lot of great thinkers did. In fact, now that I think of it, doesn't this very point tie in to your theme? CAN you start a movement around nihilism? Isn't that kind of ironic? Why don't you have them do it, and then have a character comment on it?
Isaac Hall
Interesting, tell me more?
Ryder Johnson
Pic related is a classic of moral philosophy and at the same time a very short read: 130 pages.
You will not find a single thing nihilists agree with.
Kevin Scott
I mean I've read Kant before. Who did you side with? Kant or Nietzsche and the nihilists?
Kevin Harris
First of all I'll have you know I read the Genealogy of Morals thrice.
I believe that the variety of the fields of applied ethics, neo-Kantian deontology is the ruling power. I could never envisage a foundation for, say, medical ethics based on consequentialism or virtue ethics in the present day (the keyword being "present day").
Consequentialism or virtue ethics remain fashionable ideas only in ethical theory. You only find deontological codes for the various professions, not "codes of consequences" or "virtue codes."
By Nietzschean standards, the very Kant Friedrich rants against all the time, has gotten us out of divine command theory, and into a vision centered no longer on God but on the person. The Critique of Practical Reason seems to have replaced the 10 Commandments.
The very Kant Nietzsche despises so much would appear to be the victorious, important genius of history who changes values. Of course he would hate the guy!
On a side note, Nietzsche thinks a lot like the sublime-seeking Romantics, and the Critique of Judgement was basically the manifesto of an aesthetic of the sublime, and described the mutual interaction between art and nature, indeed you need Kant to basically find beauty in nature again after centuries of Neoplatonists and whatnot. Unsurprisingly, a Goethe that wasn't particularly fond of Kant either still appreciated the Critique of Judgment for this.
You might guess I think Nietzsche has little to say to me, and you'd be right. You can get way more from people that read him, like a Heidegger.
Ryder Bell
...
Logan Watson
Thanks. I love the number of posters here that have greatly influenced my thinking given their commentaries on various primary source authors.
Jose James
I think that nihilism decays movements and you can't make a movement off of it. What you can do is use nihilistic rhetoric to 'deconstruct' someone's worldview and make them vulnerable for reprogramming. You should look into how cults brainwash people and have your antagonist use nihilism as a tool to make people vulnerable to brainwashing and focus on another base for the movement that he/she establishes.
Aaron Brooks
Interesting perspective, do you have a recommended reading list on research into cults by chance?
Ethan Parker
In response to the OP, no. I'm reading The Denial of Death right now & I think it encapsulates many of the points you're trying to get across OP so check it out if you haven't read it already.
Mason Peterson
I don't think you grasp nihilism very well.
Noah Cook
to add to that, it seems no one ITT grasps nihilism very well.
Camden Jackson
That's Monster
Dylan Rodriguez
OP here. Yes, that's pretty much what the guy does. If you start to think your decisions in life had no value, you might as well join some screwed up ideology
Hudson Ross
OP again. Also, the man behind this movement is heavily anti-industry, anti-pollution, anti-anything that doesn't respect "the path of nature". For him, if humans behave differently than other animals, that's evil