Joel Marks

An autobiographical account of a philosopher's fall from innocence, Bad Faith relates the author's discovery of the God-like nature of morality and his realization that a self-styled atheist such as himself could therefore no longer believe in it. The book describes in detail what the author's life was like both immediately before and immediately after this "anti-epiphany." Proceeding from secular morality to secular amorality, the transformation was every bit as traumatic for this earnest moralist as the loss of belief in God would be for a devout theist. Yet a new basis for living finally emerges.

The Spread is a collection of very short essays first written for his blogs by philosopher Joel Marks. They perform two main functions: to isolate some points made in his earlier writings for special or clarificatory or corrective treatment, and to draw out further implications and applications from two theories he has been promoting: desirism and its even more extreme form, analetheism (or letheism). Both theories are premised on moral nihilism: the denial of objective value. Desirism offers an alternative ethics based on reason. Letheism pertains to the ultimate question(s): What is real? What is true? What is truth? Is truth real? Marks has definite answers to offer, the answers are wholly skeptical and subjective, and yet they are intended to provide concrete guidance for living.