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This chapter discusses the usual formulations of the three standard positions concerning the intrinsic issue: autonomism, moralism, and immoralism. It argues that some of these formulations are unsatisfactory, and that the best formulation of the more plausible positions in the debate is in terms of autonomism, ethicism, and contextualism. Ethicism holds that a work is always aesthetically flawed in so far as it possesses an aesthetically relevant ethical flaw. Contextualism holds that a work is sometimes aesthetically flawed in so far as it possesses an aesthetically relevant ethical flaw, and is sometimes aesthetically meritorious in so far as it possesses an aesthetically relevant ethical flaw. The chapter also argues that these positions are best stated using pro tanto principles, rather than overall principles.

This chapter presents evidence (historical, textual, and philosophical) for thinking that the Pyrrhonian skeptics' attitude toward morality (really, toward moralizing) is echoed in Nietzsche's thought and provides for us the best possible model on which to understand his critique of morality. Thus, it argues against the view, current in the literature, that Nietzsche is a moral skeptic in the contemporary sense (that is to say, that he is a moral anti-realist). In doing so, it demonstrates how Pyrrhonian skepticism could be construed as dangerous—so dangerous, in fact, as to merit the ominous title of “immoralism”—and how the charges leveled against it even in antiquity reveal in its opponents precisely the symptoms of decadence and sickness that Nietzsche aligns himself against, from the beginning of his career to its end.

This chapter discusses Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. Each essay is based on an encounter with a different aspect of Kant's moral philosophy — rational reconstruction of moral institutions, the analysis of agency, and the practical postulates. It demonstrates that Nietzsche's ‘immoralism’ is best understood as a rejection of the agent-neutral dimension of Kant's evaluation of rule-governed action. However, this chapter shows that Nietzsche's relationship to Kant is ambivalent — Nietzsche is drawn to Kantian ideas of freedom and autonomy, and attempts an alternative account that is compatible with his rejection of noumenal agency and a morality of generalizable rules.

Nietzsche is often considered “the great destroyer,” a harsh critic with nothing positive to put in the place of what he tries to destroy (morality, Christianity). In other words, he is considered a “nihilist.” I suggest that he is not this at all but rather an affirmative philosopher who, like the ancients, takes living well as the highest value. I suggest that Nietzsche resembles Aristotle in many important respects, especially his emphasis on character and the virtues. I discuss the various meanings of morality (and thus the different meanings of Nietzsche's attack on morality and insistence that he is an “immoralist”).

It is of the highest importance to Plato to refute Callicles’ hedonist thesis, and for the purposes of such a refutation, he gives two arguments, which I call the argument from opposites (495e–497d) and the argument from pleased cowards (497d–499a). I give a new interpretation of these arguments and show that both arguments are defensible.

An in‐depth assessment of Nietzsche's attack on morality. Foot takes up the challenge by asking the fundamental question, ‘Can morality be discredited?’ Historically, Anglo‐American analytic philosophy has overlooked the significance of Nietzsche's views on morality by dismissing or ignoring his arguments. The central thrust of Nietzsche's attack is, according to Foot, that no kinds of action are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in themselves, whoever does them. This Nietzschean idea, Foot contends, puts us in a dangerous position. It cannot give a proper account of injustice and therefore seems tacitly to license it. By examining the central thesis of Nietzsche's immoralism and elucidating many of his key ideas, e.g. ‘the will to power’, ‘master–slave morality’ and the ‘overman’ (superman), Foot argues that although Nietzsche's immoralism should be given serious consideration, the emphatic conclusion is that, in the last analysis, no part of his attack on morality is convincing.

How does one make sense of an antimoralist or immoralist who professes to be against what is right? Is this person not contradicting herself? As is detailed in this chapter, there are many ways of making sense of this person’s stance. In particular, the chapter focuses on “subtle antinormativism,” which makes sense of this stance without embracing any traditional form of antirealism, and without relying on a distinction between what one morally ought to do and what one all things considered ought to do, and adopting a critical stance only toward the former. A number of the views considered earlier in the book serve to make good sense of subtle antinormativism.

A first part of this chapter examines Beckett’s inaugural poem “Whoroscope,” which is devoted to the life and death of Descartes, by examining a new source, Leroy’s 1929 book on the philosopher. Leroy is remembered today for having asked Freud to analyse Descartes’s dream. Leroy then insisted on the contradictions of his doctrine. Similarly, Beckett presents a very irrational Descartes, a philosopher who relished an omelette of brooded eggs in which little chicks would appear, and that could be seen as so many “abortions.” In fact, it is the whole notion of rationality or of rationalism that is made to abort in this poem as well as in the early work. There is no solid foundation for philosophy or for knowledge. This global debunking leads once more to Geulincx’s motto of “Where you are worth nothing, you will want nothing,” a maxim to which Beckett adhered all his life and that even now has not lost its sharpness and its relevance. Proust agreed with Beckett that the foundation of values is irrational and thus placed beyond any common sense theory of values.

This essay is a response to Anne Eaton’s case for the position in the ethics of narrative fiction known as “immoralism,” or as she calls it “Robust Immoralism.” Her examples in behalf of immoralism include the cultivation of positive attitudes on the part of the audience toward characters like Tony Soprano in the television series The Sopranos. In contrast to Eaton, the author argues that the case for “rough heroes” is based on what he calls “the narrative fallacy” and that currying sympathy for rough heroes is not, pace Eaton, a very challenging artistic feat.

This chapter shows that Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality is an account not only of the history of morality, but of what morality is. And when we pay attention to the latter account, it becomes plausible that Nietzsche’s immoralism is not directed against a concern for justice and the common good, or universal values or various other elements that we may associate with morality, but only against a particular historically conditioned understanding of these elements, one that is due to their mutual entanglement in what is now call “morality.” In other words, “non-moral” versions of justice, universal values, freedom, guilt, duty, and obligation, are possible, and a major point of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality is to bring such possibilities to light.

According to some approaches to the ethical criticism of art, the moral flaws of an artwork can also be aesthetic defects of that work. Might something similar be true of the moral flaws of artists themselves? If something you’ve learned about an artist’s behavior leads you to question or reject their work, then you’ll likely agree that there are times when you just can’t separate the art from the artist. Turning away from an artwork in disgust is both a moral and aesthetic response: you’re not just making a moral judgment about the artist—that judgment is shaping your reception of their artwork as well. This chapter argues that under certain circumstances an artist’s immorality can alter the meaning of their work, sometimes affecting its aesthetic success.