Neutral Nihilism
: Why Nihilism Is Neither Good nor Bad
James Tartaglia
Journal of Philosophy of Life Vol.15, No.1 (January 2025):1-20
Abstract
I defend an evaluatively neutral interpretation of nihilism against the negative and positive alternatives, arguing that Negative Nihilism and Sunny Nihilism fail to grasp the significance of nihilism’s claim that there is no cosmic goal to human life, and thereby misinterpret a descriptive claim about the nature of human life as if it were an evaluative claim being made within a social context. Nihilism might seem negative or positive to certain individuals, but only because of the nature of their previously held false beliefs about meaning. Through three counterfactual scenarios, I show that unless the meaning of life involves a non-manifest reward or punishment, its presence or absence is a matter for indifference.
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