Morality as an everyday cultural phenomenon, the stuff of common-sense and common opinion, guiding the conduct of ordinary people, is different from the more-or-less systematized, improved, and codified in some theoretical ethical framework produced by a particular philosopher. Should we be concerned with the effects of the unsystematic, uncodified, tacit moral beliefs that comprise the daily life of our liberal culture? Nietzsche, who was a critic of morality, certainly thought so. So did Marx. Both held that our ordinary morality that infuses our culture, is an obstacle to human flourishing.

Marx held that the criterion of right action and justice is the maximization of well-being; and he understood the criterion of well-being to be objective, in an Aristotlean sense in that it is based on a certain conception of human nature and the conditions for human flourishing. Capitalism, on this account, is morally objectionable because it fails to maximize well-being so understood. So we criticize the everyday morality because it thwarts well-being.