Introduction: Opening Statements

In this introductory chapter, I state my case for why individuals ought to strive to eliminate all vestiges of moral considerations from their lives and from the societies in which they live. This position, known as moral abolitionism, is based on two primary claims. The first of these, known as error theory, holds that all moral statements are false insofar as they entail properties (e.g., moral wrongness) that do not exist. The second claim, and the one that this book will mostly focus on, is that the belief in morality does humanity more harm than good and should, therefore, be eradicated. In the first part of the chapter, I aim to motivate the case for moral abolitionism by offering a few contemporary examples of how morality exacerbates, rather than alleviates, many of the ills confronting humanity. The end of the chapter provides a synopsis of the book’s structure.