What do we lose by giving up morality? As an amoralist, I continue to prize what is beautiful, or good, or interesting, or virtuous – in the morally neutral sense of the Greek term aretē. I daresay I care about most of the things that many moral people care about. That includes the wellbeing of others, as well as my own. What I give up is above all the convoluted process of sorting my reasons into moral and non-moral. Insofar as that process aims to provide me with fresh reasons to act, it could do so only on the basis of double counting, or by attempting to derive my existing reasons from obscure and disputed intuitions about ultimate values. I have plenty of reasons to be kind, not to cheat or lie, just as I have reasons to read some books rather than others or travel here rather than there. Why worry about which of those reasons are ‘moral’? The label adds nothing to the reasons. And if nevertheless I cheat or lie, those same reasons can lead me to regret it. The guilt I don’t need.
Ronnie de Sousa, Forget morality