The recent revival of Aristotelian ethics in academic philosophy -- "virtue ethics" -- perhaps makes that easier to understand. The leading contemporary Aristotelian, Alasdair MacIntyre, wrote what seems to me a brilliant piece on Marx' moral thinking, "The 'Theses on Feuerbach': A Road Not Taken" (in a 1994 Festschrift for Marx Wartofsky). --CGE
Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
> In an eloquent and important post Carl writes
>
>> Bingo, QED. As I've said before, Marx's thought is the moralism that dare
>> not speak its name. Marx was 100 percent in the Old Testament tradition of
>> a fire-and-brimstone-spouting prophet denouncing a corrupt society for
>> refusing to honor the Golden Rule.
>
>
> Surely liberation theologians read Marx that way. Jose Miranda,
> Enrique Dussel, Franz Hinkelammert.
>
> Yes some Marxists do often take distance from lay normativity,
> peoples' everyday moral and ethical critical beliefs about what they
> are obligated to do and how goods (including good, intrinsically
> rewarding work) are distributed. Andrew Sayer urges us to take lay
> normativity seriously.
>
> So I think your challenge to this seeming positivist alienation from
> everyday morality is an important one, especially in this period of
> defeat.
>
>
> Yet the Golden Rule seems realized in the free market, not
> contravened. Moreover, the Golden Rule compels action on the basis of
> duty, conscience and obligation. It is a rationalist morality
> alienated from just what you are insisting on--the the intuitive
> social social solidarity and commitment to one's own flourishing.
> Morality is alienation, as Kant's ethics, the formalization of the
> Golden Rule, makes so clear.
>
> I have only argued that Marx did not condemn capitalism for its
> injustice; next question is whether he was an amoralist.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> To make that moralistic tradition
>> relevant to the the arch-rational Victorian era, he erected a great clanking
>> engine of scientific economic principles to frighten the bourgies and
>> convince them he was no mere hand-wringing parson begging for a bit more
>> charity in the world.
>
>
> Well as his debate with Weston in Value Price and Profit makes clear,
> his science is quite comprehensible. But are you saying we don't need
> an explanation of surplus value, the internal relations among the
> different forms of wealth, an understanding of the causes of boom and
> bust, etc? On the basis of what do you defend working class struggle?
> Simply that workers should enjoy a fair or just wage? What would the
> unscientific mind say that to be?
>
>
>> The irony, IMO, is that Marx succeeded mainly in adding a new type of
>> alienation to the capitalist world. The very complexity of Marx's thought,
>> though impressive as science, serves to reduce the transparency of
>> capitalism's abominations.
>
>
> What a waste of time to discuss how to strip away the halo of justice
> and fairness from capitalist institutions. The love and rage masses
> over there in Long Island are
> so beyond this.
>
> Why not clarify what is wrong with exploitation. The paper by a
> Justin Schwartz is actually rather excellent.
>
> Nor did it even occur to me that it was undercutting proletarian
> outrage to talk about what role non moral goods such as security,
> flourishing and well being--as opposed to natural justice--plays in
> workers' understanding of their own alienation and struggle.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> You shouldn't have to *study* Marx or anybody to
>> grasp that the the existing economic order is contrary to moral law. Yet,
>> instead of being told to trust their intuitions and recognize the system as
>> a horror, the masses have traditionally been led to believe they must "do
>> the reading" and, through arduous study of Marx, understand all the wiring
>> diagrams of the system in order to appreciate how awful it is. That's a
>> formula for disaster in terms of practical politics.
>
>
>
> No one read a word of Capital to talk about above questions. In fact
> one need not be literate to discuss any of this. It just so happens
> that some of the most interesting things ever said about these topics
> are found in Capital and Marx's writings in general. I
> wouldn't say that of Lenin, Grossman, Mao, Horkheimer, Gandhi, GE
> Moore, Adorno or Foucault.
>
> And what does your oh so sincere, intuitive sense of justice give
> you? A vision of a society in which everyone has a place and the
> distribution of income is fair? Pius
> XI's Quadragesimo Anno (1931)? Quasi fascist Catholic corporatist doctrine?
>
> Oh that's not what you meant?
>
> How do we know without argument and discussion?
>
> From Riazanov's biography:
>
> Brussels during the Spring of 1846.... a report of one meeting at
> which a furious quarrel occurred between Marx and Weitling. We learn
> that Marx, pounding his fist on
> the table, shouted at Weitling, "Ignorance never helped nor did
> anybody any good." This is quite conceivable, particularly since
> Weitling, like Bakunin, was opposed to
> propagandistic and preparatory work. They maintained that paupers
> were always ready to revolt, that a revolution, therefore, could be
> engineered at any moment provided there be resolute leaders on hand.
>
>
>
>
>
>> Ultimately, I think Marx has done more than anyone else to disenfranchise
>> the masses from their visceral outrage and slow the progress of socialism in
>> the world.
>
> Morality can be alienated from visceral outrage, as can the struggle
> not for emancipation but for a just society. And visceral outrage has
> its problems. Have you studied the career of Georges Sorel?
>
> Rakesh
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