File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9801, message 577


Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:03:16 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Making a Fetish of Individual "Moral" Choices


Hi Justin,

I am planning to continue this debate, but I don't have the time today, so
please wait until tomorrow.

Yoshie

>On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>> Judging by what people write about and how they write about it regarding
>> abortion, it seems that moralism has much to do with the conflation of
>> agency, responsibility, and making somebody (often a woman) "pay." In other
>> words, it is a punitive worldview that is akin to a notion of retribution
>> in criminal justice (and a religion that emphasizes the wrath of god).
>
>That's certainly at the back of a lot of opposition to abortion and right
>wing ideology in general.
>>
>> Another thing I was thinking of in terms of what generates moralism is that
>> by making a fetish out of individual "moral choices," it ends up glorifying
>> the existential predicament of having to choose among unattractive options,
>> therefore weakening our will and capacity to fight against the totality
>> that produces only unattractive options for the working class, especially
>> working-class women. Didn't Max Horkheimer say something like that about
>> morality?
>
>I'm not saying that you're a "Stalinist," Youshie, but this kind od talk
>makes me extremely uncomfortable. I guess the way I would characterize
>what you call making a fetish about individual moral choices is facing up
>to the fact that individuals do often have to make hard choices among
>unattractive options that require justification by moral principles. It
>can only short cuircuit our capacity for humanity to say that once we've
>decided which side we're on, the working class vs. the capitalist class,
>feminism vs. patriarchy, that everything else is simply a matter o a crude
>consequentialism taht justifies anything at all in pursuit of the Final
>Goal.
>
>Although I don't think one's moral views are decisive, I think the moral
>culture we develop in our movements matters. The Bolsheviks developed
>precisely such a crude consequentialism that lead them to commit terrible
>crimes, paved the way for Stalisnim, and left them defenseless, in terms
>of internal resources, before it. I am not saying that Bolshevik amoralism
>caused repression and led to Stalinism, but it contributed to it.
>
>I am also not saying that sometimes doing things that are terrible might
>not be justified is there is a reasonably high probability of a worse cost
>of we don't them or a far greater gain if we do. But we have to be absle
>to assess and balance the costs and gains with the quality of the things
>we do, and it's precisely that which your approach would deny us the
>ability to do. Incidentally I do not think taht abortion is a terrible
>thing. I think it's OK. What I'm objecting to is your subordination of all
>moral reasoning to the furtherance of the Final End in a rather primative
>manner.
>
>You seem to think that a developed moral capacity risks weakening our
>will, rather as Brecht suggests in "To Those Born Later." I like the poem,
>but recall that it was precisely Stalinism that Brecht was justifying when
>he asks the understanding of the later generations for thecrimes we commit
>in the struggle.
>
>In fact I don't think that a developed moral capacity weakens the will to
>struggle. It didn't Dr King's, for example.
>
>--jks
>
>
>
>
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