File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9802, message 192


Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 13:52:56 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: Mores and Morality (was Essentialism, Morality....)


The word "morality" does not make it easy for us to distinguish several
areas that do not necessarily overlap: conventional morality (more often
than not) in the service of ruling class interests; philosophical theories
about moral reasoning; moral feelings that can be inferred from the working
class people's activities; moral feelings that the working class people
verbally profess without manifesting them through their activities; etc.
Throughout the threads on abortion, moraity, subjectivity, freedom, etc.,
there have been lots of confusion perhaps because of divergent areas of
lives that this word was employed to cover. I would like to see this
confusion cleared up.

Now this question is for Rob. As a marxist, is it not better to aim for
better mores than better moral attitudes or reasonings? In this manner, we
can treat the question concretely as a matter of desirable or undesirable
political culture, which may or may not be emerging from given concrete
struggles that people engage in, with or without marxists' theoretical
help.

If Rob's interest is in keeping people from acting against the Kantian
ethical principle of not treating others as means, it seems to me to be
rather more productive to try to create a desirable political culture
through practical struggles rather than have a debate about ethics. To me,
while we are saying aloud that we *ought to (or not to)* do this or that,
we remain at the level of attitudes and opinions, and whatever *ought* we
are talking about is not that deeply embedded in people's lives. On the
other hand, when some principle, ethical or political, gets deeply embedded
in people's lives, it tends to cease to be a matter of endless moral
debates (unless social and political conditions change in such a way to
transform a balance of forces).

Yoshie




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