It's Just a Feeling: The Philosophy of Desirism - Paperback

by Joel Marks (Author)

Written in an engaging style for the general reader, It's Just a Feeling addresses the fundamental question of ethics: "How shall I live?" The answer it offers is: "In accordance with my considered desires." This is the philosophy of desirism. The book distinguishes desirism from morality on the one hand and from self-centeredness on the other. Numerous examples drawn from everyday life illustrate desirism in both theory and practice.

Author Biography

Joel Marks is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of New Haven. He has edited two books of philosophical psychology - The Ways of Desire: New Essays in Philosophical Psychology on the Concept of Wanting (Chicago: Precedent Publishing, 1986) and (with Roger T. Ames) Emotions in Asian Thought: A Dialogue in Comparative Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995) - and is the author of three books on ethics - Moral Moments: Very Short Essays on Ethics (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000), Ought Implies Kant: A Reply to the Consequentialist Critique (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), and Ethics without Morals: In Defense of Amorality (New York and Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013). Marks has also written numerous articles for professional journals and scores of op-eds and columns for newspapers and magazines. Since 2000 Marks has been a regular columnist for Philosophy Now magazine. His main areas of scholarly interest are theoretical and applied ethics, and both have come together recently in his thinking about animal ethics. Marks is currently a Bioethics Center Scholar at Yale University. His Website is www.docsoc.com.