This book defends the theoretical claim that all values are subjective and the practical claim that human affairs can be conducted fruitfully in full awareness of this. Marks offers a positive account of how life may be lived productively without recourse to assertions of right and wrong, good and bad, and even truth and falsity.
"If morality is a myth or an illusion, why persevere with moral judgments, moral language, and moralistic ways of thinking? Joel Marks offers a plausible alternative: desirism. This means thinking, speaking, and acting in accordance with our rationally scrutinized desires, rather than claiming the support of a mysterious, always-elusive, indefinable source of moral authority. Marks is now the foremost advocate for doing away with morality and replacing it with something more defensible, and—by most people’s lights—better." – Russell Blackford, University of Newcastle, Australia
Joel Marks is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven and a Bioethics Center Scholar at Yale University. Among his many professional and popular publications are two previous monographs defending amorality, Ethics without Morals and Hard Atheism and the Ethics of Desire. His Website is www.docsoc.com.