Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:27:36 PST
Subject: M-I: Re:  Marx as Moralist 
From: farmelantj-AT-juno.com (James Farmelant)


Louis G is quite correct in characterizing Marx as rejecting morality as
a form of ideology and hence embracing a position of anti-moralism. 
Nevertheless,  I cannot help finding this position to be unpersuasive. 
Despite Marx's formal disavowals of morality his writings are full of
normative and indeed moral judgements.  Not only his early writings like
the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts but his most mature writings
such as Capital including sections like "Machinery and Modern Industry,"
 "The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation," or "Historical Tendency od
Capitalist Accumulation" are full of moral condemnations of the treatment
of the working class under capitalism.  Marx wrote of the "degradation,"
the "misery," and the "enslavement" of the working class.  Nevertheless,
despite the many example of normative and moral judgements in Marx's
writing Louis defends
Marx's declared position of anti-moralism.

Louis advances two arguments on behalf of Marxist anti-moralism: (1)
morality is ultimately a form of ideology hence can never be more than
the expression of particular class interests and so can never be
universally valid. (2) a scientific materialist world view excludes the
real existence of morality just as scientific materialism excludes theism or any other form of metaphysics.

(My reply draws upon Rodney Peffer's Marxism, Morality, and Social
Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)  chp. 6.)

  For Louis apparently the ideological character of morality lies in its
appeal to allegedly eternal principles that cannot in fact exist.  Moral
principles cannot do more than express the interests of a particular social at a given moment of history.  However, this view can be seen as
representing a somewhat muddled conception of morality.  That Marx
should have had a somewhat muddled conception of morality should not be
surprising since he lived before the development of twentieth century
analytic moral philosophy had unveiled the nature and function of moral
discourse and the logic of moral arguments.  

Marx mistakenly believed that  using moral discourse committed one to
untenable ontological and epistemological positions incompatible with a
scientific materialist
worldview.  And that use of moral discourse committed one to the view
that propagating moral theories is a primary technique for improving the
human condition.
Therefore,  he believed that to accept morality would be equivalent to
accepting systematically misleading views, thus engaging in ideology.

The mistake here is to treat evaluative discourses as having the same
structure and function as descriptive or explanatory discourses.  But a
linguistic analysis of  statements of the form "X is good" shows that
the real function of such  statements is not to describe but to commend or describe.  If one draws a distinction between evaluation and
description as two separate forms of discourse and if one rejects the
view that making statements of the form of "X is good" commits one to believing in "eternal verities" then we have no reason to suppose that
morality as a whole must be metaphysically dubious and hence
ideological.

The view that using moral discourse presupposes that propagating  moral
principles is an effective way for improving the human condition
illicitly presupposes that the concept of morality necessarily
encompasses what may be called moralism.  However, logically one can
accept and make use of moral discourse without  supposing that one can
effectively improve things through moral preaching. (Marx quite rightly
criticized utopian socialists and other reformers for believing they
could change society through moral preaching rather than doing hard
analysis and developing strategies for political struggle on that
basis.)  Therefore, while the doctrine of moralism can from a Marxist
perspective be quite accurately  characterized as ideological one cannot
similarly characterize morality.
This should not be taken as implying that probably the great majority of
moral theories will still turn out to be ideological in the sense that
most such theories function to maintain the status quo and/or defend the
interests of the ruling class.

In addition to the previous points I would also argue that the
repudiation of morality  undercuts any rational basis for revolutionary
motivation.  If moral considerations are to be excluded then the  only
rational basis for any oppressed worker to support a revolutionary movement is  self-interest.  But any such worker upon reflection will perceive
that it is in his best interest not to get involved  rather than risk his
neck in a revolution whose success (or lack thereof) will be unaffected
by his participation in it.  The motivation for workers to become
revolutionaries must therefore be based on moral considerations and not just on material self-interest.  

                                                                       
James F.



: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena) on
 Mon, 9 Dec 1996 08:39:17 -0500 (EST) wrote:

    [snip]

>Marxism is an *engaged science*,  a theoretical construction that 
>invites
>political practice.    This is not to say -- as you seem to think -- 
>that
>Marxism begins with a moral rejection of capitalism and then fashions 
>it own
>body of theory to support it.     Marx rejected the notion that 
>capitalism
>is unjust and Marxism itself,  accordingly,  lacks a developed theory 
>of
>rights,  indispensable to any moral critique of human society.    For
>successive generations of Marxists,  Marx's writings were not a *plea* 
>for
>revolution -- this they did not need -- but a prediction about the way 
>in
>which the revolution would inevitably happen combined with a 
>prescription
>for the action required of revolutionaries to make it happen.    
>
>While it is true that Marx from time to time couched his language in 
>moral
>terms (a practice also employed by most of his disciples and 
>imitators),  he
>would in all probability have recoiled from any scheme evincing  
>"eternal
>moral truths" as irretrievably unscientific.    Morality,  for Marx,  
>was
>another form of ideology,  arising as it were out of a particular 
>stage of
>the development of productive relations and subject always to a 
>particular
>mode of production and its concomitant class interests.    Indeed,
>morality,  as well as its nicknames "freedom" and "justice" cannot
>"completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class 
>antagonisms"
>,  in the immortal words of the *Manifesto*.
>
>For me personally,  morality exists on a plane similar to that of 
>religion.
>Once we accept its initial premise,  we are led,  logically,  to 
>conclusions
>we know are absurd.    We are,  all of us,  transient products of an 
>amoral
>universe.     There is no "morality",  just as there is no  "God".    
>All we
>have is an times hellish struggle over the division of goods and 
>services,
>which is after all the salient feature of human existence. 
>
>And which,  when all is said and done,  is quite enough.
>
>Louis Godena
>
>
>
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