But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, &c. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.
The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property – historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production – this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.
....
“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.
But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.--K. Marx & F. Engels (1848) Communist Manifesto, Chapter 2. Translated by Samuel Moore
It is often asked to what degree Marxism has a "moral foundation." For example, writing in the venerable SEP, Jonathan Wolff (Oxford) treats this as a "conundrum." I think part of the problem here is a post-Rawlsian artifact that influences Rawlsians and non-Rawlsians alike. For, what is meant by a moral foundation is often (mistakenly!) reduced to 'does Marx think capitalism is unjust? And since Marx seems thinks that 'justice' expresses the ideology of the ruling classes, he can't really think that. And if he did think that, he thought it -- paraphrasing Cohen -- despite himself. Moreover, one often hears that since historical materialism is supposed to be a scientific theory, there shouldn't be room for moral foundations at all.
Even so, again quoting Wolff, it "simply seems obvious that Marx’s critique [of capitalism] is a moral one. One way to to go is to suggest that Marxism involves an immanent critique. But this strikes me as unpersuasive because the whole tendency of immanent critique is to reform the status quo not to overthrow it. (In political terms: think of the Rawlsian theory of civil disobedience.)
Another, more persuasive route, is to suggest that the ethically rich language we find in Marx's writings is supposed to work on our reactive attitudes and promote political action, even revolution. This seems clearly the case. But it would involve a kind of bad faith, if simultaneously these reactive attitudes are to be unmasked as themselves ideological.
A better way to go is to note that in some crucial ways Marx's thought is more akin to eighteenth century philosophy. In particular, he has a view of human nature that in our terminology is normative: he offers an account of (what we may dub) proper human functioning in which there are fundamental, even "essential" human needs that any society ought to meet. This is in Norman Geras' useful terminology the "ethical standpoint" of Marxism. That ethical standpoint is compatible with the thought that the content of these needs may be culture-relative, determined by historical forces, or trans-historical. (My own understanding of Marx inclines to the former, but there is evidence for the latter.) And the ethical standpoint is compatible with the thought, and seems to imply, the idea that when our essential needs are met human flourishing becomes possible.
This is akin to eighteenth century philosophy in three ways: (i) their science presupposes such an account of proper functioning. It is a mistake to project on to them the idea that science must abhor such a proper functioning account of human nature because (a) it is too Aristotelian, and they are known critics of Aristotle or (b) it mistakenly mixes facts and values. On (a): it is true they (and Marx) are critics of Aristotle in some senses, but proper functioning accounts can come in many varieties and even the ones influenced by Aristotle (need not inherit Aristotle's factual or normative mistakes). On (b): this is a species of pernicious anachronism. In addition, (ii) the idea that there are basic human needs which require development is, in fact, a core agreement between Marx and Enlightenment thought (which are both emancipatory; for references to wide variety of Marx's texts, see p. 85 of Geras' Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend).* And (iii) in proper functioning human nature, the reactive attitudes are indicative of a shared normativity.
So, while the ethical standpoint of Marxism is not exhausted by its theory of human need (grounded in human nature) this is one of its foundations. (It is not exhausted because there are also other normative commitments (recall)). This is not to say there are no tensions at all. Part of the (Marxist) drama of human history starts when production becomes the means of satisfying needs (Geras: 69).
Yet, the manner in which our needs are expressed as "wants" is determined by the constantly evolving production process. [There are, in fact, times where Marx comes close to suggesting all wants are adaptive (in the sense of Stockholm syndrome).] For Marx it is important not to conflate our objective needs with our socially developed wants. The adoption of the ethical standpoint mentioned above prevents this conflation in so far as our needs are objective (and objectively conducive to proper functioning, even human flourishing).
I would want to close here. But let me make two points: first, even if it is not grounded in a theory of justice, Marx's ethical standpoint is not beyond normative (or properly self-aware scientific) criticism. Second, this ethical standpoint is not far removed from ideals prevalent within liberalism, even the skeptical liberalism of bourgeois theorists like myself. I am not bothered by this, but that's because liberalism is an emancipatory, even revolutionary project.
*Norman Geras dies in 2013. His essay "Our Morals: The Ethics of Revolution" has become of interest to the security state.
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