On Objectivity: A Sylvan Scenario

As a normative nihilist, I believe that all values are subjective, including moral values. I also believe that it is useful to believe this.[1] However, getting the hang of nihilism in practice is no mean feat. I have written a great deal about the difficulties and how to deal with them, most explicitly in my most recent monograph, Ethical Health (Routledge, 2025). This essay is a further exploration of that theme.

A curious feature of subjectivity is that it clothes itself in objectivity. If you are hiking with a companion in the woods in winter and are suddenly overcome by the scene, it is natural to exclaim, “This is so beautiful!” But this seemingly innocent expression is fraught with social peril. For suppose your companion says, “I don’t think so.” This comment has three aspects that could irritate you. One is that it confronts you with a judgment that may strike you as false, even absurd. Second is that it may seem to be challenging your (in this case aesthetic) judgment. Third is that it could be an emotional downer, when you are exulting in the beauty. If you were then to express your irritation on any of these points, a heretofore pleasant shared experience (of walking in the woods) could quickly turn into a heated and sour chore.

The first thing to recognize is that what set the whole sorry sequence in motion was your objectivist attitude, or at least the use of an objectivist expression. There is no such thing as objective beauty (so saith I, the normative nihilist). Therefore it cannot be correct to judge that a scene “is beautiful.” What more clearly expresses the actual state of affairs is that you found the scene to be beautiful, meaning this simply as an expression of your feelings, and even more explicitly, that viewing the scene under the circumstances filled you with joy. If you had therefore said, “I love this scene,” and meant that and only that, then there would not have been any basis for your companion to challenge you.[2]

Now, they might still have put in their own two cents: “I don’t think so.” But if you were a thoroughgoing nihilist, you would not take offense; your companion would be doing no more than you did, which is to express their feeling. Might it still depress you? Yes. Perhaps it would have been kind for your companion simply to have said nothing, so that you could maintain your high of not only enjoying the scene but (misapprehendingly) sharing that pleasure.[3] But note that your companion’s vocal contradiction might serve the valuable purpose of forestalling your misunderstanding their taste and intentionally exposing them to similar scenes in future, such as giving them a painting of such a scene for their birthday.

On further reflection I think my preference would be, after you have said “I love this scene!” (or even “This is so beautiful!”), for your companion to inquire, “Why [do you feel that way, or think that]?” This would open up the possibility of your “spreading the joy” by pointing out the aspects of the scene that so delight you. “The bare branches! The light! The arc of the hill in the distance! The white snow on the ground!” whatever. Perhaps they had not taken explicit notice of these features and, once doing so, might “come around.”[4]

This also makes me realize something that excites me (an obviously subjective reaction there, eh? So let me now tell you why it excites me). It beautifully (ha!) illustrates the threefold nature of normative judgments. First there is an objective[5] situation (object, event, state of affairs, whatever). In the example, that would be the bare branches, the light, the arc of the hill in the distance, and the white snow on the ground. Secondly there is the subjective response: in this case, your thrill of joy at the scene. Only thirdly comes the normative judgment that the scene is beautiful, this being felt as on a par of objectivity with the original objective components of the scene.

My claim is that the third item is always a mistake, in terms of both what actually exists in the (objective) universe (there is no such thing as objective beauty) and what is, in most cases, helpful to feel or express.

But why does this realization excite me? I have only partially answered the question, right? I’ve only told you about the (presumably) objective component of this experience, namely, that the example (of walking in the woods) illustrates an analysis of a certain kind of experience. Clearly its exciting me is the second item that very analysis has revealed, namely, my subjective response to recognizing (with the help of the example) that (presumably objective) analysis. Note, by the way, that I have not made the misstep (the third item) of objectifying my response; I am not claiming that “it is” exciting to recognize what I have recognized and responded to with excitement.

But why does it even excite me in the subjective way? Here I think the answer (as with any subjective response to anything) must be biographical (or historical or biological etc.). For example, having had a standard training in analytic philosophy, I learned about G. E. Moore’s Open Question Argument; and the proposed analysis above strikes me as an interesting variation on that. But why do I find that interesting? Well, as I say, ultimately the answer is biographical or biological etc. and may have to do with, for example, my generally enthusiastic nature or my penchant for the intellectual, whose explanations would simply not be worth pursuing except by someone who was fascinated by psychology, or by me in particular, or whatever.

But suppose the situation were one where a person’s subjective responses were dangerous, for example, a killer’s enthusiastic way of reacting to the idea of strangling people. Then indeed it could be keenly sought to understand why they react in that way, if only to help find a way to prevent others from developing such an attitude. So even aside from the problem of objectification and the dangers it poses, there can be much to explore about the purely subjective aspect of how we react to things. (The killer may not be making any claims at all about the objective good of strangling people.) But that is old news. What is (somewhat) novel, and has surely captured my imagination, is the further step of objectifying what is, in reality, only subjective.

Appendix

But could not an objectivist counter that there are still ways to retain objectivism that do not have the downsides I’ve attributed to it? After all, I myself have referred to objective phenomena, such as the snow on the ground or the analysis of the objectivist mistake on offer. Why, then, do I also feel the need to eliminate it entirely from the realm of the real? Is it not sufficient to separate the subjective from the objective and caution against conflating them?[6]

My answer, as always, is yes and no. As a pragmatist[7] I can accept that objectivity has its place … but only so long as it is understood in a subjectivist way.[8] So for example, a useful objectivity might attach to a collective judgment, such as that planets exist.[9] But, I maintain, it would still be the case that planets exist only under the subjective stipulation of what planets are. A stunning instance of this idea in action was the elimination of a planet from our solar system, namely Pluto, when the International Astronomical Association voted in a new definition of “planet.” The decision was deemed pragmatic; but utility is itself in the eye of the beholder, in this case, certain astronomers, which is why I label the decision subjective.[10] If planets existed in their own right, apart from human desires or purposes, it’s anybody’s guess how many there are (including none) in our solar system.

But more relevant to my main argument is that any retention of an explicit objectivism risks attaching a mischievous aura of authority to statements and attitudes whose nature or grounds are subjective.

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[1] In fact my nihilism now extends to truth itself. If instead I chose to hold onto truth, I suppose I’d be a thoroughgoing pragmatist, who holds that it is precisely utility that is the criterion of truth. But then I would be caught up in the knot of whether pragmatism itself is the case only because it is useful to believe it is … that is, if I also happened to hold that it is useful to be consistent in one’s thinking.

[2] Of course what matters are not actual words spoken but the meaning intended. But my point is that because the default in our language is objectivist, it is often useful to be verbally explicit about one’s subjectivism. This serves two purposes: to forestall miscommunication and to reinforce one’s own subjectivist attitude (by literally reminding oneself of one’s commitment to subjectivism).

[3] An interesting variation on the situation would be if your initial exclamation had been “Isn’t this beautiful?” As a question this seems explicitly to call for a vocal response. Yet you very likely would have meant it only rhetorically, since ex hypothesi you were expressing an objectivist judgment; and so, silence by your companion might have sufficed to sustain your mood.

[4] In a more vexed situation, it would also, of course, open up the possibility of your interlocutor’s turning you around.

[5] Perhaps I want to say “presumably objective”?

[6] I myself have done something of this sort in my essay “Subjective and Objective”.

[7] Now in the nontechnical sense of having a bias toward making decisions in ways that seem useful to me.

[8] I am reminded of the joke: “When I said I was being literal, I meant that only figuratively.”

[9] But by which collective and when? How about whether witches or unicorns or goblins or dragons exist?

[10] But was it not supported by empirical evidence and rational argument? Yes indeed. But so was the opposing position. In the end the vote was decided by the preferences of individual astronomers under certain conditions (including an assembly reduced by early departures) according to a procedure other astronomers had previously endorsed in similar fashion.