Abstract

This chapter provides a conceptual analysis of Tommy J. Curry’s anti-ethical stance. In what sense is anti-ethics opposed to, or against, ethics? I argue that, despite appearances, anti-ethics is a kind of ethical theory. Close analysis reveals that the term “ethics” in the term “anti-ethics” does not refer to ethics per se, but to an idealist approach to ethics that frames white people as virtuous. I argue that Leonard Harris’ insurrectionist ethics provides a naturalistically-informed deontological framework that is useful for analyzing the normative dimensions of anti-ethics. In this way, insurrectionist ethics enables us to analyze the positive content of anti-ethics, an ethics founded on a form of ethical hope that abandons the premise of white virtue.