On Ethics and Morality

[Action Johnny]

I apologize in advance if this has already been a topic of discussion.

I was curious as if there are any general moral and ehtical theories that Marxists adhere to?

I feel like utilitarianism in theory fits in nicely with collectivism, but it leaves a somewhat sour taste in my mouth.

Cultural Relativism? I don't believe strongly in it; rendering morality in some circumstances as arbitrary.

Or perhaps ethical noncognitivism?

There are slews of moral theories, which always leads me in circles.

[core_1]

I apologize in advance if this has already been a topic of discussion.

I was curious as if there are any general moral and ehtical theories that Marxists adhere to?

I feel like utilitarianism in theory fits in nicely with collectivism, but it leaves a somewhat sour taste in my mouth.

Cultural Relativism? I don't believe strongly in it; rendering morality in some circumstances as arbitrary.

Or perhaps ethical noncognitivism?

There are slews of moral theories, which always leads me in circles.
I could be wrong here, but I think the strand of Marxist-Humanism emphasizes these ideas or at least focuses on a moralistic interperetation of Marx. You should look up a guy called Antonio Gramsci, who basically thought that ideas such as cultural relativism sought to justify the existence of 'the dominant ideology' in society. He thought that this justified class dictatorship and taught the masses to readily accept the existing social order as normal. Anyway to relate it back to your question, this is why he was suspicious of 'Morals' as he thought that they were the ideas of the ruling class which were manipulated everyone into serving them. E.g. "Oh but in a free society, everyone should be free to make as much money as they want'' has been perpetuated by the ruling class for centuries and influenced culture to the point where this is accepted as human nature. This is an extremely general overview of it, but long story short: Marxists are generally suspicious of 'morals' yet it's fair to say that they have deep principals relating to justice. Which is always good :). Anarchists like to use ethics and morals as a way of arguing against the state so in this respect they're a bit different.

[spaßmaschine]

I've found the critique of 'morality' by the French ultra-left group La Banquise to be quite interesting (see, for example 'For A World Without Moral Order' libcom.org/library/moral-disorder-gilles-dauvé) which says we shouldn't be trying to come up with new kinds of 'morality' under capitalism, but rather look at the causes of present 'moralities' and how adequate they are. It basically rejects all attempts to come up with a set of rules or a single morality under capitalism as these will inherently be inadequate to our needs, and that it's fairly pointless to speculate on what communist 'morality' will be as it's something that is created by billions living in an unalienated society.

[syndicat]

There has been a long debate among a variety of authors on this subject. There are two different lines of thought. One is that there can't be such a thing as an objective morality because of the dominant influence in ideas by the prevailing mode of production. On the other hand, Marx uses moral language, such as "exploitation", and clearly thought capitalism unjust. Yet he says it is "just" because it conforms to the legal principles of capitalist society. I think it would be fair to conclude that Marx was hopelessly confused.

That said, in his earlier Philosophical Manuscripts, there is a kind of moral philosophy that can be extracted, which looks to human nature, or what Marx calls "species being" as the basis of this. From this basis, some Marxists infer an ethics of solidarity and support for human flourishing, based on our social nature. This approach fits in with the tradition of what isi called "naturalistic ethics" which goes back to Aristotle. It seems to me that support for workers struggles, struggles for social justice, presuppose that there is just a thing as justice and injustice, and that presupposes a kind of ethical realism.

[YKTMX]

On the other hand, Marx uses moral language, such as "exploitation", and clearly thought capitalism unjust. Yet he says it is "just" because it conforms to the legal principles of capitalist society. I think it would be fair to conclude that Marx was hopelessly confused.


Well, this only holds true if one accepts that 'exploitation' is only a moral term. The view that exploitation is exclusively a moral term is a product, in fact, of the nature of bourgeois ideology, which attempts to distinguish between "just" and "exploitative" prices for labour-power. Marx uses the term as a scientific term for the relationship between all workers and all capitalists.

Now, I think the confusion arises from the fact that in the course of socialist struggle it is neccessary to use these terms morally and ethically, in order to break the hegemony of bourgeois ideas over the working class and the oppressed.

It is similar, if one thinks about it, to the ways in which Darwin's ideas are appropriated by the Right. The way in which, for instance, the process of evolution by natural selection is inflated into a moral discourse where the 'strong survive'. In Darwin's theory, the organisms naturally selected are not 'morally' superior, neither do they 'deserve' to truimph, their success is a product of an advantageous outcome to a process that is a more or less random.

In the same sense, 'exploitation' designates an objective process of bourgeois society, but the term itself is appropriated, becomes part, of the ethical and moral discourse that is central to counter-hegemonic ideological projects.

[Bolshevism1917]

The most important debate in this area between Marxist theorists is whether Marx had a concept of justice, that is, whether he oppossed capitalism on the grounds that human individuals have certain moral claims (rights, if you prefer) and that these claims are violated as a result of the exploitation which occurs under capitalism. To summarize a long and complicated debate, the viewpoint of those such as myself who believe that Marx did not have a concept of justice and that his ethical critique of capitalism is rooted in other philosophical traditions is that, consistent with the materialist conception of history, Marx saw justice as historically conditioned, such that each mode of production has its own understanding of the requirements of justice, and sees its own structures as being just - in the context of capitalism this holds true because the ethics of capitalist societies accept that economic transactions in a market setting are fundamentally about transfers of moral claims, as when we say that an actor has received a good or that there has been a transfer of ownership what we mean is that someone has given up their previously-held right to determine the ways in which a commodity is used, and that this right has been gained by someone else, that is, the recipient. Or, as Marx put it, in Das Kapital, volume one:

"To the purchaser of a commodity [i..e the capitalist, in the case of labour-power] belongs its use, and the seller of labour-power, by giving his labour, does no more in reality than part with the use-value he has sold"

This basically means that, from Marx's viewpoint, exploitation is not unjust, by capitalist standards of justice, because by selling their labour power a worker has given the capitalist the right to do whatever they want with the worker's labour power during the period it is under their control, that is, the length of the working day, subject to the conditions of the transaction. Marx's ethics, in my view, have a lot more in common with the Aristotelian tradition, in that Marx begins with a conception of human flourishing (i.e. an understanding of what humans need in order to develop as individuals and become the best that they can possibly be - for Marx this means being able to engage in unalienated labour and enjoy mutually fulfilling relationships with other members of our community, as the ability to consciously interact with the natural world as well as the necessity of living socially comprise man's "species being") and roots his critique of capitalism and other forms of class society in the inability of these societies to realize human flourishing, and not in any belief in transhistorical requirements of justice, much less in the validity of utilitarian ethics. Again, to quote Marx, from The German Ideology:

“Free activity for the Communists is the creative manifestation of life arising from the free development of all abilities of the whole person”

[YKTMX]

^what the comrade said.