Abstract

In 2007, Joel Marks had what he describes as an ‘anti-epiphany’. Previously committed to morality in both private and professional life, he came to see it as a sham; a harmful collective illusion. Since then Marks has become one of the staunchest and most prolific defenders of amoralism, to be understood as the conjunction of the views that (1) moral judgements presuppose objective moral values that in fact do not exist (nihilism) and (2) people have practical reasons for wanting to stop making these judgments (abolitionism). Marks's new book Reason and Ethics: The Case Against Objective Value focuses on amoralism as well. In addition, he broadens the notion of amoralism to encompass the non-existence of, and elimination of judgements about, all objective values, not only those about morality but also those about truth. This helps explain his preferred methodology. In what follows, however, I will not address this radical extension of Marks's views but focus on the traditional eponymous core of amoralism, namely the critique of morality in particular (which also makes up the bulk of the book).