Ethics without Morals: In Defence of Amorality

Description

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 Marks advocates wiping the slate clean of outdated connotations by replacing the language of morality with a language of desire.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 addressed: 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. Cover......Page 1 Ethics without Morals......Page 2 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Table of Contents......Page 7 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction......Page 16 1 What Is Morality?......Page 19 2 Does Morality Exist?......Page 31 3 Would Amorality Be Viable?......Page 41 4 Might Amorality Be Preferable?......Page 50 5 Is Amorality Just Another Way of Being Moral?......Page 71 6 How Shall We Treat Other Animals? A Case Study in Applied Amorality......Page 82 7 What Is Ethics?......Page 97 Notes......Page 109 Bibliography......Page 136 Index......Page 142