Deterministic Nihilism

I was going to write a post discussing this term, but I found a great definition of it on the web that I will post here.

Determinism is the belief that everything in the universe is made up of matter which follows fixed universal laws. This means that literally every thing that occurs is a link in a universal causal chain which cannot be changed. Every event was "determined" by what happened before it...Free will is not only lacking in humans, but it is impossible.

Nihilism is a belief that there are no values. Nihilists do not say that there is no truth, but rather that it is impossible to comprehend what is true. Nihilists do not contend that there is no meaning, but that such constructs as human life, morality, and purpose do not have meaning.

Deterministic Nihilists are of the belief that determinism is true (as defined above) and because determinism is true, it follows from that that nihilism is the correct philosophy. There is no meaning to human life or value in the universe, because Life, the Universe, and Everything are all simply links in the material, causal chain.

If that is the case, then why not satisfy every appetite as whim strikes you? Going back to a quote from Theodore Dalrymple in a previous post:

Let me speculate briefly on the implications of these startling facts. They mean that children never learn, from a sense of social obligation, to eat when not hungry, or not to eat when they are. Appetite is all they need consult in deciding whether to eat—a purely egotistical outlook. Hence anything that interferes with the satisfaction of appetite will seem oppressive.

Hypothesis: You don't need an explicit embrace of deterministic nihilism to get its effects. Secular humanism and moral relativism will do just fine. In the end, we derive our basic moral foundations from first principles. That is, if we believe in hell and a concrete set of rules, we are more likely to avoid what we consider to be sinful. If we believe that everything is relative and morality is determined by the individual, we end up with a watered-down version of nihilism because in the end, almost every moral decision can be rationalized.