>
>
> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 4:47 PM, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
>
>> Philp Pilkington wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:51 AM, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> How about this: ethics is the social practice of justifying existing
>>>> patterns of behavior in a society. (Ethical principles do not "drive"
>>>> individual behavior and social relations; just the opposite.)
>>>>
>>>> Miles
>>>>
>>>> ___________________________________
>>>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> As I said above, if you want to be strictly logical about this:
>>>
>>> Well, I did say "from a strictly materialistic point of view" (i.e.
>>> ideas/"ideology" generated from a material base) as I thought that's what
>>> you were getting at. Actually, I don't think you can logically say which
>>> "way around" it works, it seems to me to be a dialectical relationship
>>> and
>>> thus beyond the realm of strict cause and effect.
>>>
>>>
>> It's not a logical question; it's an empirical one. There is a veritable
>> mountain of social psychological data that supports the claim that changes
>> in social conditions and social behavior cause changes in attitudes.
>> Philosophers can engage in strictly logical arguments and ponder
>> dialectical relationships about this if they wish, but that won't change the
>> data.
>>
>>
>> Miles
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
>
> Again even if you call upon data it always comes back to a logical
> question. Its the chicken and the egg all over again. You claim that
> "changes in social conditions and social behavior cause changes in
> attitudes". So, first off - and because we're debating Marxism/politics
> here, we'll leave aside "acts of God" - what changes "social conditions"? Is
> it not usually people? You said above that "changes in social behavior
> changes attitudes" but are not social behavior and attitudes inherently
> linked?
>
> The debate has been raging between Marxists and Weberians for years. Was it
> the "Protestant Ethic" which gave rise to capitalism or vice versa? Any time
> you look at these debates it always comes down to one thing: self-assertive
> dogma or insisting relentlessly on a unilateral perspective, which is the
> same thing. I put foward the idea that both are right and that social
> relations/attitudes/sociology/social-psychology/economic
> behavior/any-of-the-other-humanities cannot be approached in a strictly
> causal manner, they must be approached dialectically.
>
> Logic precedes empirical data, because it organises that data. There's no
> getting around this, ever, and it can have extremely large consequences for
> how "facts" are represented and put forward...
>
Incidentally, Marx the "materialist" oscillates wildly between these two positions, otherwise how would you explain some of the follwoing:
"*Men make their own history*, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."
"This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. The never-ending augmentation of exchange-value, which the miser strives after, by seeking to save<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch04.htm#n10>his money from circulation, is attained by the more acute capitalist, by constantly throwing it afresh into circulation."
The latter seems to attribute agency to the capitalists passions as a sort of psychopathology rather than claiming that they were constructed by the mode of production. (I think someone discussed this a while ago in relation to Freud and Keynes...).