Ethics without Morals: In Defence of Amorality

by Joel Marks

In this volume, Marks offers a defense of amorality as both philosophically justified and practicably livable. In so doing, the book marks a radical departure from both the new atheism and the mainstream of modern ethical philosophy. While in synch with their underlying aim of grounding human existence in a naturalistic metaphysics, the book takes both to task for maintaining a complacent embrace of morality. Marks advocates wiping the slate clean of outdated connotations by replacing the language of morality with a language of desire. The book begins with an analysis of what morality is and then argues that the concept is not instantiated in reality. Following this, the question of belief in morality is How would human life be affected if we accepted that morality does not exist? Marks argues that at the very least, a moralist would have little to complain about in an amoral world, and at best we might hope for a world that was more to our liking overall. An extended look at the human encounter with nonhuman animals serves as an illustration of amorality’s potential to make both theoretical and practical headway in resolving heretofore intractable ethical problems.

Genres: Philosophy

150 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Joel Marks is a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven and a scholar at the Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics at Yale University. He is the regular ethics columnist for Philosophy Now magazine.

Reviews

[Alexandru Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

a 60 years old analytic philosopher, with kantian sympathies, becoming convinced morality is a myth :) and a useless one.

i like this kind of conversions.

basically, what stirner said in 1844: "our atheists are pious people".

marks argues that belief in God is indispensable for morality. so, theists got this right. but he is a commited atheist - so his whole edifice started to fall.

marks' alternative to morality is, basically, to be attentive to one's own desires - to prioritize them - and to act accordingly. and for him stuff like compassion, empathy, etc. has nothing to do with morality - morality being just a set of rules (and rules, so say the Christians too, are by themselves powerless). we act moved by our desires.

so, marks is justified in speaking about an amoral ethics. 'how to live?' 'follow your heart and your head' :)

one of the nicest things in this book is an almost phenomenological passage where he tries to prove that anger is, basically, a moral judgement - and without morality we have no basis for anger. 'cause 'there's no right and wrong, you know?'

[houndini · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reads as if it were the combined effort of William Blake, Lawrence Krauss, and an analytic philosopher who revels in not having seriously studied metaethics or epistemology before coming to accept and defend his chosen view. In order to have any weight, Marks' view requires a commitment by the reader to empiricism and naturalism. If you're already there, then Marks' conclusion may comfortably follow from your views. Otherwise, his hard-line, ill-defended, and ever-present empiricism and naturalism will fail to convince careful readers of his metaethical view. Additionally, his Kraussian rhetoric concerning non-naturalism in philosophy borders on the embarrassing. Again, it comes back to preaching to the choir in order to have any weight for readers.

Marks ends up advocating for a view where we look at sadistic acts and think about all of the psychological or sociological causes behind them but always stop short of moral condemnation. He finds moral condemnation of even the most sadistic acts as highly distasteful, but less so than the sadistic acts themselves. Since he can offer no "shoulds" or "oughts," Marks must be content with the mere descriptive fact that he finds both sadistic acts and their condemnation as greatly distasteful.

Marks think the dogmatism of moral judgments supposedly supported by moral realism is some great sin against the view, even though Marks' metaethical theory, since it reduces moral judgments to mere whims or desires, entails that individuals are easily infallible concerning ethical judgments. If Marks desires that non-human animals to not be treated as property (Marks, a vegan, does discuss animal ethics briefly in this book), while Krauss desires that non-human animals to be treated as property, then, according to Marks' view (and not moral realism), both are correct in their assessments of the issue, or, rather, neither one is wrong. Simply put, if one has the desire, one is "morally right" for Marks.

While reducing moral philosophy to empirical concerns like psychology, Marks' view of morality also, at bottom, devolves moral discussions into mere persuasion or rhetoric. There is, after all, no moral truth of the matter beyond what desires one presently holds, and one is free to persuade others into holding a view by any means. There's no independent truth to pursue. There are no oughts to constrain how we are to reach moral conclusions.

[?0?0?0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to a-morality that is easy for those not into philosophy.