>What's the difference, really? Sometimes I think that Marx's hostility
>towards moral or ethical judgments comes from contempt for the admittedly
>sentimental positions of utopians and a desire instead to be scientific.
>But if you don't have some moral or ethical objection to exploitation,
>why do you have a problem with capitalism?
Yes, I would only like to make a difference between "moral" and "ethical" ideas, in as much as moral has this clear background in the institutions of private property, persons, contracts. A german sociologist put it this way: To behave in a moral way is keeping your contracts, this is not the same as responsible behavior in society. Of course the concept of "responsible behavior" is based on the existence of individual freedom, or - if this more suitable to this or that theoretical tradition - of individual autonomy.
The thread is about "the Threat" from Religion. Amazingly only a few days ago the eastgerman commitee for the remembarance of the concentration camp Mauthausen invited me to speak about opposition against nazi rule "out of religious motives". No one in the meeting of more than 30 persons confessed to a religion. Not the few veterans, not the more or less younger activists of the commitee. They had invited a leftist theologist, the protestant Heinrich Fink, but he could not come. So we had to discuss the topic "from outside". Religion is not so common in east germany, especially not in communities near to
the old communist party tradition. Very different from the US-situation.
One lesson we learned in the discussion was: we have to make differences. We have to distinguish between churches/religious institutions and personal belief/individual interpretations of this or that dogma, we have to distinguish between different churches or religious groups, we have to be carefull in analyzing the role of expressed motives in the organization of individual behavior, we have to distinguish between the social experiences possible in religious groups (the possibility to learn selforganization in a group a equals in the late 30s in nazi Germany - one precondition for the "White rose" in Munich) - and the "content" of this or that world view. And so on and on. In the discussion somebody mentioned, that most consciously risking his/her life in a conflict need something to believe in, bigger than his/her personal life.
We started in making the difference between the atheists in the room and the people we wanted to speak about. Obviously, there is a difference. But where this difference is, that's not so obvious. May be this lesson is valid in relation to this thread: To speak about "the" Threat from Religion "in general" is easy, but empty. An in many cases the seemingly rational "materialist worldview" has something of a religion too, not only the "short course" and its "Dialectical and historical materialism".
Sebastian
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