Marxist Ethics: A Short Exposition

128 Pages·2005·7.151 MB·English

by  Willis H. Truitt

A Short
Exposition
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ETHICS
A Short
Exposition
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CONTENTS
Introduction vii
1 l\tlarExa'rl\sl1 yo ralism 3
2 ThDee baatbeoM uatr x�'Iso Srtaaln dpoint
antdh Qeu esotfDi eotne rminism 14
3 ValIunet,e arneIdsd te,o logy 41
4 NeeRdisg,ah nttdsh Ien dividual 59
5 ThIen tersoefMc otriaolni ty,
Poliatntidch Aser ts
76
6 \Vhl\,yl ainsAtnrgelaom- AmPehriilcoasno phy
FaitlDose awli tMha rxaissa m
SigniMfoircPaaelnr ts pective
87
EthAifctsCe orn 1munism
7 98
EnNdo tes 110
Introduction
It has often been thought that Marxists shouldn't dabble in ethics.
This attitude apparently arrives from three sources. The first is the
widespread anticommunist belief that Marxism, itself, is deeply
immoral, even wicked. Secondly, and this is a rather old piece of
thinking, it has been suggested that for materialists, and Marxists are
materialists, any discussion of values presents insurmountable diffi­
culties because values are not material things and that any under­
standing of values requires the aid of idealist philosophers. The third
source is the venerable old value/fact dichotomy (not unrelated to
the idealist premise noted above). Here it has been, and still is, pro­
posed that Marxism confines its attention to material facts, mostly
economic in nature, and does not and cannot venture into the realm
of values and the making of value judgments. Interestingly, this last
opinion is, and has been, held by Marxists and non-Marxists
alike-as we shall discover in the second chapter. To this end I
address the seeming paradox of Marxism and moral philosophy. It
can be stated as follows. Morality for Marx and many Marxists is
understood to be ideological, i.e., a reflection of the interests of rul­
ing classes and therefore, when accepted and internalized by people
who are not members of the ruling class functions as a kind of false
consciousness (e xactly what kind of false consciousness will be dis­
cussed in Chapter Three). Yet, it is well known that Marx and most,
if not all, Marxists condemn the injustices of capitalism in moral lan­
guage. Indeed, the claims about the value neutrality of Marxism
must be in error because a chief, if not the singular, object of Marxism,
in philosophy and in practice, is the systematic critique of a particu­
lar ethical outlook and its replacement by a radically different one.
How this problem is to be resolved will be an important part of my
argument.
Let me initiate this task with a preliminary review of what is to
follow. In the first chapter we will identify the kinds of ethical con­
cerns that were deemed important by the young Karl Marx. Here we
will find that he begins in his writings with a critique of religion and
then proceeds chronologically to a rejection of ethical egoisms. Next
he issues an indictment of the alienation of labor in capitalism by
means of which the worker had become no longer a self, a person,
but a mere commodity. It becomes obvious at this point that we can
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discover no ethical theory in these early writings, but there does
emerge a framework for one. That framework is Marx's consistency
in talcing sides with the working class in its every clash with capital­
ist employers. In his later writings, and those of other Marxists, this
working class partisanship will become a foundational element upon
which an ethical theory will be erected.
The second chapter addresses problems in the debate about
Marx's moral standpoint and the question of determinism in his
philosophical, political and economic writings. It is pointed out that
Marx's dismissal of bourgeois morality, as rubbish, has been mistak­
enly interpreted by many students of Marx, both hostile and friendly,
as a wholesale rejection of all morality-which seems strange given
Marx's fr uent expression of indignation and his attacks upon what
eq
he sees to be morally appalling. Furthermore, it is shown that Marx
clearly and unswervingly believed that supporting the interests of
the working class was, itself, morally praiseworthy. Also discussed in
this context is Marx's refusal of a rights-based ethic and how Marxist
ethics can be best conceived as historically situational.
The consideration of determinism in this chapter is concerned with
Marx's theory of history, i.e., historical materialism, and has obvious
and serious implications regarding moral choice and the efficacy of
human intervention in the historical process. The main point of the
argument against the determinist interpretation of Marx is simply that
his theory of history does not adopt the assumptions of Hobbsianism,
Newtonianism and the Lockean epistemology of the political lib­
eralism of the eighteenth century French materialists. Marx, and
Plekhanov after� argued against that tradition. Marx's materialism,
in other words, was not mechanistic. In fact, it explicitly rejects the
mechanical model. Rather it is dialectical, Le., indebted to Hegel, but
without Hegel's Absolute, an Absolute that made Hegel's system
deterministic because God ultimately controls everything. In the
materialist dialectics of Marx there is no Absolute and therefore no
determinism. By disposing of the canard of determinism it is possible
to proceed to the construction of a Marxist ethics. This is accom­
plished by historical critique coupled with an analysis of the interac­
tion of value, interest, and ideology in Chapter Three.
In the third chapter it is suggested that ethical theories are, in gen­
eral, ideological, i.e., they embody the values of ruling classes. The
argument in summary form is that value systems are class-relative.
viii
Several examples are given from the works of Aristotle, Bentham,
and J.S. Mill. Next, the question is raised, which of the great ethical
traditions does a Marxist ethic most resemble. The answer to this
question seems to be none and all, perhaps in accordance with a
dialectical principle. What it is possible to show is that Marxist
ethics at times, depending on historical circumstances, shares some
characteristics with the major ethical traditions-teleological, con­
sequentialist and deontological. At this stage of the narrative it is
possible to begin a discussion of the union, indeed, the identity, of
value and interest. The aim here is to show that in Marxism, class
interest is substituted for self-interest. We note that when self-interest
is canceled in the interests of collective interest, an affinity between
Kantianism and Marxism emerges. But Kantianism turns out to be
an abstraction. In contrast, what Marx wishes to undertake is a con­
crete analysis of the ways in which the state serves and facilitates the
interests of the ruling class; in Rawlsian language, how the state serves
the interests of the advantaged at the expense of the disadvantaged
and how this is made to look natural and desirable for everybody;
e.g., in the notorious case of "right to work" legislation. This is
seemingly a noble ideal but, in fact, it is a smoke screen for a scan­
dalous policy that inhibits the rights of workers to organize to protect
and defend their interests.
Worker's interests, in turn, demand a reconstruction of traditional
ideas and institutions of justice, purging justice of the false ideal of
disinterested, dispassionate deliberation and connecting it with real
life. Accordingly, if all value is created by labor, as Marx and clas­
sical political economy maintain, then, for Marx, all value should
be returned to labor. Even though Marx was critical of the Gotha
Programme's proposals for distributing the national product on the
basis of vague phrases about equality and the "proceeds of labor," his
overall critique of political economy yields only one conclusion, i.e.,
that justice requires that value created by labor bere turned to labor.
Part of his rejection of the Gotha Programme's proposals is that in a
revolutionary transition from capitalist to communist society, the
revolutionary government of the proletariat will disallow any reward
to previously parasitic bourgeois elements-· t· hose who have been
dispossessed of their powers to exploit the labor of workers.
Chapter Four is concerned with how to integrate the needs and
rights of the individual with that of the whole society. This consists
ix
of a critique of "rights-based" societies and the inconsistencies and
contradictions inherent in such societies. The Marxist rejection of a
rights-based morality would seem to imply that the welfare of the
group takes precedence over individual rights. This formulation is
one-sided. A proper integration of the individual and the collective
is supported by insistence on maximizing individuality within a
communist context, what Marx termed "the free development of
individuals." Individual development is possible only in a society
free from exploitation, unemployment and poverty.
In relation to this issue we next turn to Marx's analysis of freedom
in the Grundrisse. Marx argues that freedom in capitalism is severely
limited. Capitalist society, he says, reduces human freedom to a
material condition, i.e., the freedom to compete for subsistence for
many if not for the majority. Marx never really speculated about the
precise nature of freedom in socialism. This is because, as John Cas­
sidy has pointed out, "In many ways, Marx's legacy has been
obscured by the failure of communism, which wasn't his primary
interest. In fact, he had little to say about how a socialist society
should operate, and what he did write, about the withering away of
the state and so on, wasn't very helpful-something Lenin and his
1
comrades quickly discovered after seizing power."
The conclusion of this chapter is taken up by a discussion of the
unity of the tactical and the ethical in the class struggle to overthrow
capitalism and the temporal transition to an ethic of duty in the con­
struction of a socialist society. This discussion is designed to
emphasize the historically situational character of the Marxist
moral point of view.
In Chapter Five we elucidate the intersection of morality and the
arts in Marxist theory. Of principle interest here is how Marxism uses
the arts and how the arts use Marxism as moral and political instru­
ments in the class struggle. Again these activities fall into two histori­
cal phases. The first encompasses the class war against bourgeois
culture prior to a successful revolution. The second involves the task
of building socialism after the revolution. There are an abundance of
historical examples that serve as reference points for this discussion.
But most noteworthy is the recognition that the forms and contents of
the arts, in the two phases noted above, are clearly distinguishable.
Throughout this Chapter, leading Marxist expositors on these issues
are examined and their differences and disagreements assessed.
X
Chapter Six deals with the question: why do mainstream Anglo­
American ethics and Marxist ethics have very little common ground
for discussion even though Marxism has had a world-wide influence
greater than any other body of political or religious thought? The
argument put forward here is that the adoption by the majority of.
Anglo-American ethicists, following much of the tradition, includ­
ing Kant, of the proposition that the moral point of view be a kind of
disinterested, neutral universalism that favors no person or group, or
a Rawlsian, neutral ignorance that fulfills the same function, is, at
best, amoral, and at worst, deeply immoral. By contrast, Marxism
offers an ethical theory which is partisan to, and in the service of, the
exploited and oppressed. Because of the chasm between these differ­
ent, and perhaps even antagonistic approaches, there has been very
little space for mutual dialogue and an exchange of ideas.
In Chapter Seven "Ethics After Communism," I review develop­
ments in ethical thought in post-Soviet Russia. This encompasses an
attack on and a rejection of Marxism and its replacement with a
morality based on egoism, market principles of economic efficiency,
nationalism and religion.
Finally, it should be understood that Marx " ... wrote riveting pas­
sages about globalization, inequality, political corruption, monopo­
lization, technical progress, the decline of high culture, and the
enervating nature of modern existence-issues that economists ( and
ethicists) are now confronting anew, sometimes without realizing
that they are walking in Marx's footsteps."2
Willis H. Truitt
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