Beyond Amorality

Desirism is a form of amoralism, but goes beyond it in certain ways. I first proposed desirism as a way to make amorality a viable ethics and alternative to morality. For it is one thing to show how morality or moralism[1] is baneful, quite another to show that we may safely dispense with it. It could be that morality, like any human institution, has its bad parts and its good parts, but is nevertheless good on balance, or even if bad on balance, is unavoidable. Life itself is both good and bad, but the alternative – death -- may simply be off the table as a “policy recommendation,” not to mention a requirement of ethics. So morality could be a necessary evil, or not even an evil, but just not an unalloyed good. 

            My purpose in crafting desirism has therefore been to demonstrate that one (and society) can indeed “abolish” morality and still not only function but do better than if one had retained morality. I think this effort has been largely successful, although there have been hiccups along the way calling for clarifications, refinements, and supplements. In this essay I will summarize the ways in which desirism has, as it were, gone beyond amorality,[2] and also the ways that the ethics I now recommend has gone even beyond desirism. 

Desirism includes rational vetting: It is surely possible that simply eliminating moralism could make us worse off if, say, we were left with only wantonness – an existentialist anarchy of the soul and society. Desirism recognizes that the human soul has the potential to motivate and sustain a world more to our collective liking than a moralist world … provided we reflect before acting. Therefore an essential component of desirism is that, to a reasonable degree under given circumstances, we rationally vet our desires before acting on them. Here rationally means simply that we reflect under conditions conducive to logical and informed reflection. And here desire is to be understood in the sense of motivation, such that it may include (or perhaps even at times consist exclusively in) belief. Thus for example: The belief that one ought to enlist can motivate one to enlist, whether or not one desires to be involved in fighting. I used to think that the belief in this case could not motivate unless there were also the desire to do what one ought; but now I think the desire just is the motivation. Meanwhile the desire not to be involved in fighting is not a motivation to do or not doing anything but just a psychological attitude.[3] Without those provisos, I would hesitate to take an amorality pill or hand one to someone else. 

Desirism includes likism: I counsel rationally vetting not only one’s desires (and aversions) but also one’s likes (and dislikes). This also inclines me (and in the spirit of J. L. Mackie) to speak of amoralism more comprehensively as the rejection of objective value, not just of (objective) morality. 

Desirism has broad application beyond the traditional concerns of ethics or morality: Taking Mackiean anti-objectivism to its extreme (and far beyond where Mackie himself took it), I now believe we must take seriously the idea that genuine amoralism would encompass all objective values (I call this “the spread”), including (among countless others) aesthetic, humorous, prudential, and even rational and lethic value (i.e., there is no such thing as objective beauty, funniness, self-interest, rationality, or even truth). Here again in the end there is a kind of desirism, meaning simply that I recommend abolishing from our psychological responses to the world the element of objectifying what is actually subjective (a preference making us think something is objectively good, a belief making us think something is objectively true, an aesthetic or humorous response making us think something is objectively beautiful or funny, etc. ad inf.) and then vetting (rationally reflecting on) those de-objectified (which for me is an extended sense of de-moralized) attitudes; and then whatever remains will be (by my definition) one’s rational (or “desirist”) belief, desire, motivation, appreciation of art or humor, etc.

 Desirism has morphed into marksism: Finally (to date!) I have amplified desirism into what I call, somewhat flippantly, marksism, which adds to the basic rational vetting of desires the recommendation to cultivate compassion (for no further reason than that I happen to favor this in an ethics and the kind of world I think I would like to live in).[4]

[1] Morality is a presumed set of categorical imperatives or truths about how we ought to live. Moralism is the embodiment of a morality in one’s psyche or in society. My position as a so-called moral abolitionist is that morality is a myth and moralism is noxious.

[2] A seminal book of amoralism in the sense I have embraced is called Beyond Morality, by Richard Garner.

[3] One problem with this apples and oranges approach to desire is how the two senses of desire can interact: Can a motivational desire be stronger than, and hence prevail over, an attitudinal desire by a common, i.e,, shared, measure or standard of strength?

[4] See “Two Ways of being Nice” for further discussion of the inculcation of compassion.

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