The incoherence of soft nihilism

Think 16 (47):127-135 (2017)
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Abstract

As an evaluative view in the philosophy of life, nihilism maintains that no lives are, all things considered, worth living. Prominent defenders of the view hold that, even so, it can be all-things-considered better for us to continue living than for us to cease living, thus endorsing a 'soft' nihilism that appears more palatable than its 'hard' counterpart. In support of an intuitive assumption about what nihilism implies, I argue that soft nihilism is incoherent.

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David Matheson
Carleton University

References found in this work

The absurd.Thomas Nagel - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (20):716-727.
The Myth of Sisyphus.Albert Camus - 1957 - Philosophical Review 66 (1):104-107.
The World as Will and Representation.Lewis White Beck - 1959 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 20 (2):279-280.

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