Thompson 2011 - Marxism - Ethics

Chapter 10
Marxism, Ethics, and the Task

of Critical Theory
Michael J. Thompson
Ethics is the study of human value. It is the attempt to posit concepts which can,
in some way, regulate and orient human conduct. Values are important because
they are ideas which are used to create normative views of the world, orient per-
sonal and collective action, and shape the nature of critical thought by imposing
a vision of something better to that which currently exists. The values we hold
therefore determine the social forms of life we legitimate, and guides the way
we create institutions, understand what is permissible and what is not, and, most
importantly, sustain the social forms of life we inhabit. Critical Theory was the
philosophical and social scientific attempt to tease out the elements of modern
society which were responsible for man’s dehumanization, his debasement. It
saw Marxism as a central scientific hypothesis which could explain the core
institutional arrangements of modern society and culture, but, with few excep-
tions, it left the discussion of ethics out of its purview until the recent ideas of
Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. My aim in this essay is to construct a co-
hesive ethical structure derived from Marx and the intellectual tradition which
formed him, in particular from Aristotle and Hegel. The central thesis is that
Marx’s distinctive ethical vantage point is centered on the issue of human self-
realization, which he takes from Aristotle and Hegel, but that our moral-
evaulative perspective must be fused to a critical-theoretical penetration of the
empirical world. In place of a speculative conception of ethics, Marx proposes
that our ethical concepts need to be grounded in our understanding of the ways
in which the material organization of society shapes the ontological reality of
human sociality, itself the conrete realm of individual self-realization, of genu-
ine freedom. In so doing, I hope to be able to place the tradition of Western
161
162 Michael J. Thompson
Marxism on a path to be able to articulate ethical and political claims grounded

in a concept of human value which can be used to orient political praxis and
social knowledge. I see this as the basic project of Critical Theory which was
lost over time and must be renewed in order to give new animating life to the
Marxian project.
In his project of pushing the tradition of Critical Theory and socialist theory
into a new, more politically progressive and democratic phase, Stephen Eric
Bronner has placed the issue of ethics as a central focus. With the failure of pre-
vious conceptions of the socialist tradition, specifically its emphasis on scien-
tism and determinism, the need to provide for new normative arguments to
ground the socialist becomes paramount. Bronner suggests that this can be over-
come by “linking the concerns of the idealist tradition to a critique of the objec-
tive context which denies their realization.”1 Derived from the core insights of
thinkers such as Karl Korsch and Georg Lu kács, Bronner sees that the theory of
socialism has become impoverished with the changed conditions of capitalism
which gave birth to a mass labor movement informed by classical Marxian prin-
ciples. In this sense, the renewal of radical politics in the modern world requires
that we turn our attention to the subject of ethics:
Socialist theory must articulate a political response to Marxism’s teleological

collapse. But neither ontology, a reconstructed commitment to science, nor a
democratic ethic divorced from the existing production process, seems up to the
task. Only a socialist ethic can resurrect the most radical political impulses of
the original project, confront its historical mistakes, and articulate its future
goals. Nevertheless, opting for such an ethic carries a high price. 2
The “high price” is the inability for any such ethic to offer any kind of guarantee
securing the ends which those ethical values put forth. There is a need, therefore,
to understand that the primary focus for any kind of socialist ethic is to articulate
the ends which can guide political practice.
In this sense, Bronner sees critical theory as needing to evince a commit-
ment to “public aims” which can be realized by social movements. The basic
thrust of critical theory, on this view, is the notion that critical inquiry must seek
to illu minate the relations of social power which constrains free individuality. A
context of social freedom must be created to allow for the “creation of formal
and substantive conditions that expand the arena wherein individuals can freely
determine their lives and make their choices responsibly.”3 Critical theory places
emphasis on the orientation of theoretical activity. Immanent critique is required
in order to judge “the conduct of any given order in relation to the ideas most
consistent in the given context with social equality, democracy, and internation-
alism. A critical theory with practical commitments and a public purpose will
recognize that values of this sort extend beyond the purely formal.” 4 Ethics is
therefore a means by which we are able to avoid the problematic issues which
have plagued socialist politics from the beginning. But, even more, it is impor-
Marxism, Ethics, and Critical Theory 163
tant, in my view, to reconstruct the nature of Marxism’s relation to ethics be-

cause of the need to reinforce its normative arguments as well as the way those
arguments are related to the nature of epistemology, to science itself. I think this
is the core claim I am making, that we can must examine and reconstruct the
ways in which Marxism operates as both a critical science, but also what ways
an ethic underpins the nature of that critique but also how we can derive norma-
tive claims form it. Instead of considering the ways a Marxian ethic can provide
us with an “ethical anti-capitalism,” I am concerned with the ways we can re-
construct the sublation of fact and value, with the way that knowledge claims
and moral-evaluative claims are formed in Marxian thought.5
The thesis I will develop in this essay is that this notion of a “socialist
ethic”—or perhaps a more radical conception of ethical principles—can only be
derived from a reading of the Marxian tradition which Bronner does not privi-
lege. Specifically, a radical ethics, or one that can adequately be called such, can
only be constructed from a very different tradition: the Aristotelian-Hegelian
structure of thought from which Marx’s ideas evolved. I will argue that the radi-
calism of Marxian ethics consists in the ways in which it overturns the paradig-
matic, subjectivist, positivist, conceptions of the relation between empirical
claims and normative claims; that this radicalism consists in the radically diffe r-
ent way that the Aristotelian-Hegelian way of thinking constructs a concept of
man from which Marx derives his theories about man’s sociality as well as the
ways of understanding it. What I will seek to do in this essay is derive an ethics
from Marxian principles but also from the principles of German Idealism. Pri-
mary among these tasks is the attempt to develop an “objective ethics”: a theory
of ethical value which is grounded in objective, even material (although not ma-
terialist) categories. On this view, ethical value is not to be considered from the
point of view of abstract categories (e.g., utilitarian) which are either subjectiv-
ist-deontological (Kantian) or metaphysical (Natural Law, religious, etc.) in na-
ture, but form the point of view of the real, objective nature of human life and its
capacity to promote the self-realization of subjects.6 Marx continues and devel-
ops what was central to the Aristotelian-Hegelian structure of thought: that hu-
man value is not static in nature, but dynamic, processual. The category of hu-
man value cannot be found as pre-determined to his actual existence, but must
be derived from the actuality of that existence. The overcoming of the prevailing
conception of ethics which only temper or even tolerate the prevailing condi-
tions of society therefore consist of their inability to provide a theory of human
value which is determined not by some transcendental ground or concept, but
from a conception of human value grounded in the developmental, teleological
conception which provided the impulse for Marx’s thought. This view see that
there is a crucial distinction between man’s concrete existence (Dasein) and his
actualized, complete existence (Wirklichkeit). From this point of view, the phi-
losophical anthropology that is used to ground normative claims becomes cru-
cial and, I will argue here, is the real foundation for a Marxian and socialist
ethic—one that can ground moral and political claims in a more cohesive way.
In stark opposition to modern forms of ethics—such as Kantian deontologi-
cal arguments, utilitarianism, and liberalism—the radical ethic that pervades
Marx’s thought rests on the foundation of a way of conceiving the nature of hu-
man beings not only as social beings, but as the product of the institutional and
relational structure of the social context within which they are individuated. This
cannot be stressed enough since Marx also sees, in Hegelian fashion, that cate-
gories of consciousness, of reflection, are also products of this context. As a
result, the key for Marx is to ground a moral-evaluative perspective in a phi-
losophical anthropology which can serve as a means to illuminate the categories
needed to call capitalism into question. I think that this project is grounded in
ideas and concepts handed down and transformed by Aristotle and Hegel, but
used in very specific ways by Marx. I will argue that by outlining this structure
of thought we can arrive at a Marxist ethics which can be used to ground Crit ical
Theory, as well as a more articulate form of political and moral justification for
socialist politics.
The Marxist tradition has generally been hostile to the field of ethics. Marx
himself seem openly hostile to ethical argumentation claiming that they are in-
adequate to the radical task of calling into question the institutions of capitalist
society. Previous attempts at understanding Marx’s conception of ethics have
been able to point to different dimensions of his thought without bringing them
together in a single unity. Particularly, the problem is how to overcome the dis-
tinction between scientific statements and normative statements. Some have
correctly seen that Marx’s basic ethic is one of freedom as self-development,
“the all-encompassing notion of individual self-determination within concrete
and harmonious relations to nature and other persons.”7 That the essence of
freedom is centered on the nature of social relations which shape individuals.
Others has seen that Some have seen that the essence of Marx’s ethics is an em-
phasis on an ethic of freedom. But what I want to propose in this essay is that
Marx needs to be seen as an integral moment in the development of a more
comprehensive ethical point of view pointing us toward a more integrated, more
humane, more radical form of values which can be used to ground progressive
political change. The ethical theory I will outline here is an objective ethics,
based on a ground in the development of human self-realization, but also which
premises an ontological ground: man’s development as conditioned by the struc-
ture of social relations. I believe this ethics—in contradistinction to the various
forms of subjectivist ethics—can provide a basis for reviving the politics of so-
cialism.
My aim in this essay is to lay out a more firm foundation for the Hegelian-
Marxist tradition of thought which was the groundwork for Critical Theory but
also, and perhaps more importantly, to lay the foundations for a more radical,
newer form of critical ethics which can guide our thinking about radical politics.
In place of simply trying to resurrect Marx, I will see him as a central part of a
continuum of thought on the nature of human beings and their state of freedom
in the world. The ethics I will develop here, will be an objective ethics: a kind of
ethical thinking which overcomes the subjectivism, the “bourgeois,” form of
ethics that pervaded much modern thinking on ethics. It is not a liberal or com-
munitarian conception of ethical life that I will lay out here, but a rival concep-
tion of ethics which will be derived from a re -reading of the ideas of Aristotle,
Hegel, and Marx.
CONSTRUCTING A MARXIAN
THEORY OF HUMAN VALUE
The concept of human value is, I believe, central to the construction of a Marx-
ian or socialist ethic. But Marx was, I think, completing a tradition of thinking
about human beings which begins with Aristotle and continues through Hegel.
Whereas Aristotle was concerned with the conceptual definition of objects and
Hegel with the forms of consciousness, Marx uses these efforts to construct a
politically operative conception of man. This is his theory of value, one which
undergirds his philosophical, scientific, social, and political thought. To trace
these ideas it is necessary to see how this structure of thought operates. In Aris-
totle, this problem is developed most fully in his Metaphysics where he sets
himself the task of creating a theory of essence, of being. The basic idea that
emerges from this Aristotelian root is that things are not to be understood as
imperfect replicas of abstract ideas, a Platonic move, but rather as realizing a
completeness, a perfection. This idea is developed by Hegel in a sociological
and historical sense, adding the realm of ideas not as determinative (once again a
Platonic move) but rather as mediation. Marx derives a concept of man, of soci-
ety, from this perspective and it is this which rounds out the conception of hu-
man value which is the Archimedean point for a Marxian ethics and, I will ar-
gue, the structure of Marxism as a whole.
1. ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF PERFECTION
Aristotle’s concept of “perfection” or “completion” ( ??????? ) is of central impor-

tance to his understanding of coming to terms with the central problem of Greek
philosophy after Plato: what was the nature of essence, of the substance of ob-
jects? Whereas Plato had argued that the primary means toward understanding
was through an approach to ideal forms , knowing the sensible world
(? ???????? ???? ??for Aristotle is premised on the notion that the sensible world
must be approached in its own right, through the internal mechanisms and prop-
erties it possesses ?? ?Aristotle devises a series of categories which will be impor-
tant for understanding his alternative theory of being. More precisely, in place of
the conception of metaphysics as a pursuit of the nature of being itself, Aristotle
argues that it “studies the causes which determine the nature not of this or that
department of reality, but of reality as a whole.”9 ?In this sense, we are able to
derive the essence of things based on the extent to which we can understand the
developmental structure of its existence. Knowledge of any object is more or
less complete based on the amount of substances that are grouped to gether;
knowledge is more or less correct based on whether or not those substances are
in fact derived from one another, and not from something else. The statement:
“houses are made of stone and wood” does not give us accurate knowledge of
the essence (? ???? )—the defining principle of any thing—of what a house actu-
ally is, not because many houses do not happen to be made of stone and wood,
but because stone and wood are particular to certain houses, not to the essence
of what a house actually is. If we were to say that stones form the walls of
houses and wood the roof of houses, we are coming closer to a total, “complete”
understanding of the house—i.e., that it possesses walls and roofs.
This is still incomplete in an Aristotelian sense because the essence of
house-ness is not fully, perfectly understood. A house which lacks walls or a
roof is either an imperfect house or not a house at all. Aristotle therefore derives
a series of categories which are aimed at capturing the a more complete grasp of
the essence, or defining principle of any thing. He argues that to be understood
totally, it must be understood in its completion, or perfection (??????? ?. This
implies that the essence of any thing is not static, but dynamic—it cannot be
determined from nothing, but from something prior. It does not exist as an im-
perfect reflection (??? ????) of some ideal form, as in Platonic thought but, rather,
is the product of a tension between the potentiality (????? ??) and actuality
(?? ?????? ) of any thing. The being of anything is the product of a process of
change; it is the antithesis of matter (??? ) and form (? ? ? ??) considered dynami-
cally. The stones and wood are not a house, but possess the potentiality of be-
coming a house—these material substrates require a process to reach their
“completion.”10 Similarly, a vase is not determined by its material substrate
(?? ? ) alone, say, the clay. Although clay may be necessary for the process of
making a vase, it is not reducible to that element. The vase comes to be in its
final state once it is shaped in the form of a vase—and this shape or form is de-
termined by its function: it is made to hold fluid or flo wers, in a particular way.
There can be no vase without the functional form just as there can be no vase
without the material needed for its construction. Essence (? ???? ), therefore,
moves; it is progressively determined by resolving the tension between potenti-
ality (????? ??) and actuality (?? ?????? ). Within the clay and within the vase-
maker lies the potentiality of the vase; but its final form, its “complete reality”
(????? ????? ) is possible only as the result of the relation of the various ele-
ments—of the actual elements and their formal quality. But also, and most im-
portantly, its functional nature must be complete—it must function so as to be
able to do what it does. A house to house things, a vase to hold liquids, and so
on. This becomes a crucial way in which a human conception of value is con-
structed in Marx’s thought. Since Aristotle is able to give a more dynamic, more
complex notion of being, of essence, Marx utilizes this structure of thinking—as
opposed to simply adopting Aristotelian metaphysics, tout court—in order to
derive his concept of what human beings are. Once a thing has achieved that
state of “entelechy,” its complete reality, it has achieved its end (???? ?), and
only then can it be called “perfect” (??????? ??? ? ?
Any thing therefore cannot be understood by static categories alone. It
needs to be grasped by understanding the dynamic process which makes a thing
what it in fact is. This can be done only by seeing that any thing, any object, is
the result of a series, a whole group of interconnected qualities and lesser ob-
jects. An object is an ensemble of lesser things all related in specific ways to
constitute the object. Aristotle refers to any object, any thing as a “composite
substance” (?????????? ???? ? ); it is itself a product of other qualities, relations,
and processes of change.12 The interconnectedness of these qualities and mate-
rial substrates are necessary for the final or end result which is perceived, but it
is not reducible to those qualities of substrates. As I will show below, this will
be an important element in the construction of Marx’s sublation of ethics and
science.
These terms and the way they operate together provide the basic structure of
thought that Hegel and Marx will construct their own ideas through. Rather than
use this argument as a basis for all science, it is best to see it as a way of under-
standing the process by which the nature of man is understood for Marx. This is
because Marx emphasizes the process of formation which is contextualized by
history and the governing social relations of any particular period. This process
of constitution will be central for deriving a unique perspective on ethics from
the Marxian position, and its origins in Aristotle should also be made clear. This
constitution process is central also for the scientific, or empirical, investigation
of society. Unlike other who have argued that Marx’s debt to Aristotle lies in his
concepts of phronesis and the “good life” (?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ), I think it is in the realm
of philosophical anthropology that Marx stands closest to Aristotle.13 Marx is
concerned with the ways human beings are formed, shaped, structured by the
social relations of their time. The Aristotelian roots of this idea are clear. Human
beings are developed, undergo a process of complex becoming through a series
of processes of development. Their “being,” their “essence” is therefore to be
seen as an assemblage of smaller processes: of education, of labor, of language,
and so on. Both Aristotle and Marx see man as fundamentally social in nature.
His perfection, completion, is therefore contingent upon process.14 From this
empirical thesis can be derived an inherently ethical impulse: if individuals are
to be seen as the products, the “ends” of social process of their development,
then who they are and what they are, are a question of how they become what
they are. Social beings are products of their institutions, of their social relations,
and this is the reason why Marx was driven to the realm of political economy to
perform an immanent critique of the modern processes of human self-formation
and self-realization and to explore the pathological ways that processes operates
on individuals . The static, atomistic conception of man borrowed from the
French Enlightenment was seen as inadequate for a fuller, more humanistic un-
derstanding of man. Marx is able to push this insight and make it the basis for a
critical theory of capitalism. The main reason for this is the way that science and
ethics are sublated in Marx. But to get to this point, we need to see how Hegel
was able to take the Aristotelian insights to a new level.
2. HEGEL AND THE LOGIC OF THE ABSOLUTE
Hegel and Aristotle are both concerned with a dynamic understanding of the
concept of being. Hegel was specifically concerned with these questions not in
and of themselves, but in order to develop a more nuanced, more total and com-
plete understanding of man and society. Since Kant, the main problem that per-
vaded German philosophy was the relation between subject and object. Kant had
shown that the genuine domain for freedom was circumscribed by the rational
subject. Only a rational subject had the capacity to make ethical choices free
from the external dictates of others. The essence of freedom was seen as the
state of making autonomous choices—i.e., those choices which were arrived at
through subjective reflection and reason. The “categorical imperative” was that
transcendental ethical formula which would be the formal way in which the sub-
ject would be able to triangulate his moral reasoning. Only then could the thesis
Kant put forth in his “What Is Enlightenment?” essay come true: individuals will
be able to make decisions on their own, relying on their own reason rather than
external sources of authority. But for Kant, this ethical theory of freedom was
also a crucial hinge upon which the system of philosophy, of the very possibility
of knowledge, swings. Without the free subject, true knowledge itself is not pos-
sible because there will always be some external source of authority grounding
the attempt to acquire knowledge. In this sense, Kant des cribes freedom as the
“keystone to the vault of reason”—freedom and the knowing subject were there-
fore intrinsically related.15 This was because Kant saw that knowledge can only
reach its completion when performed by a free agent: in other words, a rational
being who relied not on external or other forms of authority (heteronomy) but on
his own reason, his authorship of ideas and regulative ideals (autonomy). Even
more, this act of knowing was dependent on a critical account of the world: in
other words, a form of knowing which was constituted by its understanding of
the phenomenal world through applying noumenal categories of reason to expli-
cate them. 16
After Kant’s death, this problem of relating freedom with subjective ideal-
ism became more sharp. Before Hegel, thinkers such as Schelling, Hö lderlin,
Novalis, and Schlegel began to develop the idea of absolute idealism.17 As a
response to Kant and Fichte, absolute idealism sought to overcome the dualisms
in Idealist thought.18 They sought to show that there existed a subjectivist bias in
Idealism which was alienating thought from truth and a more humanistic con-
ception of humanity. Their romantic idealism was organicist in nature, a Natur-
philosophie. The basic thesis was that there existed a single substance in all of
nature that possessed intrinsic categories of determination which could be
known by the thinking subject. The task of thought was therefore to disclose the
total structure of being and its mediations, to find how the categories that deter-
mine the world and that are intrinsic to it cohere into a single system of being
that can be known through philosophy. The individual would be able to recon-
cile himself with the world through reason, thereby healing his diremption with
the world.
Hegel’s main thrust of criticism against Kant was, as it was with earlier
Romantic absolute idealists, the subjectivist nature of the human subject.
Hegel’s concern was to construct a conception of man which would be able to
bridge the chasm between the noumenal and phenomenal realm. 19 In this sense,
Hegel’s dialectical conception sought to grasp “the subject and its predicates as
mutually dependent. The subject is constituted qua subject only by the process
of its explication and transformation in the dialectical system of predicates.”20
Indeed, this is mirroring Aristotle’s argument in the metaphysics that the indi-
vidual object was not determined by itself, but by the assemblage of smaller
parts and processes which were constitutive of it. Even more, Aristotelian meta-
physics emphasized the way that being was itself a process, the result of a series
of prior, determinative moments. Hegel was able to pick up Aristotle’s idea that
individual objects were also determined by their environment, as in his Physics,
when he explains that the movements of planets are determined by the move-
ment of other planets, and so on.21 In this sense, the environment within which a
thing exists is determinative of that thing itself.22 By applying this basic argu-
mentative schema to the subjective idealism of Kant and Fichte, Hegel saw that
the nature of the human subject which had dominated critical idealism of Kant
and the rationalistic individualism of Enlightenment thought had to be recon-
ceived. Now, the human subject was not to be understood as a central rational
point upon which the external, phenomenal world was hinged, but the reverse:
the subject was deeply interconnected to the phenomenal realm, even deter-
mined (Bestimmt) by it just as he possessed the capacity to shape it. Hegel’s
move therefore needed to connect this thesis with the concern of the Idealists:
that rational thought was at the center of human freedom because it depends on
no external authority for its verification, it thinks and can be on its own (bei sich
selbst zu sein). On Hegel’s view, freedom requires thinking in a way that is at
home with itself and the world of objective reality around it. It flees all forms of
dependence.23
Hegel’s basic idea, then, is that there exists a dialectical sublation of the
concepts of the ought and the is. This is explained by understanding that rational
beings need to see that their internal, subjective world needs to be in sync with
the external world around him—there needs to be some sense in which the laws
he obeys, the state within which he lives, the “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit) he in-
habits, and so on, are grasped and internalized rationally.24 Hegel does not argue
that this means an uncritical acceptance of the world “as it is”: it means that the
world must in some way objectify rational laws and rational ethical principles in
order that its normative force be accepted and grasped rationally by rational
agents.25 Free individuality is not a status one simply finds oneself in, inherent
to our being; it is an achieved status, the result of a certain kind of thinking and
acting in the world.26 It is a status which brings us closer to being true subjects
of our existence as opposed to the objects of the processes of the world we in-
habit.27 This is what is at the center of Hegel’ idealist premise: that individuals
will be able to overcome their diremption from the world, the alienating split
between the self and the world around them, only through the binding force of
reason. This reason is not conceived in the narrow, Enlightenment sense of the
term, however. Instead, Hegel sees that the rational institutions within which
people live need to “enable its members to realize their true essence” which
means here their practical freedom. 28 Hence, Hegel’s concept of social and indi-
vidual freedom rests upon a broader ontological foundation: the realization of
human essence. The individual self is the product of self-realization, but one that
is “neither deontological nor teleological. It begins neither with an imperative,
law, or principle to be followed nor with the idea of an end to be achieved.”29 In
this sense, Hegel brings us to an important point in the understanding of this
structure of thought that was so formative for Marx: individuals cannot realize
freedom on their own, or by living within social institutions and an ethical fabric
of norms and habits which run counter to their needs. In this sense, the realiza-
tion of human freedom can only come from grasping the total process of human
development itself—the rational agent must grasp his own development in
thought in order to reflect it objectively in institutional form and actualize it.
In the Encyclopedia Logic, Hegel is clear that there exists a real connection
between the realization of human freedom as self-determined agency and the
rational categories of thought needed to gras p that process of realization. The
reason for this is that Hegel conceives of his Logic as the articulation of those
categories of thought which allow us to conceive of the world rationally, but
also, and at the same time, as the very structure of being itself. This is a crucial
insight because the basic premise is that the forms of thought (Denkformen)
have as their central task the formation of concepts (Begriffe) which allow the
rational subject to grasp the structure of being. Since Kant had posited catego-
ries of reason which were applied by a rational subject to the phenomenal object,
something inherently unknowable—a Ding an sich—there was a necessary, un-
breachable chasm between the subject and the object. Hegel’s view was that
reason pervades all reality and that the outside world confronts the subject as
foreign and that it is only through the discovery of its inner rational structure,
the determination of its being, that absolute knowledge was possible. This could
be accomplished through the rational subject utilizing philosophical reason to
explain this rational structure of the world to itself. This was a kind of knowl-
edge which was totally different from empirical forms of knowledge because it
enabled a deeper, more profound kind of knowing. The world was not simply to
be perceived, it was to be known and, in that sense, the alienation of the object
would be overcome—a dialectical move was therefore constituted by this kind
of knowing. We move from something being merely familiar (bekannt) to us to
something understood (erkannt) by us. There can therefore be false ways of
knowing—those ways of knowing that do not derive their concepts from the
object of inquiry, from the structure of its being—say positivism, empiricism,
and so on—which derive categories from the subject and project them externally
on to the object in order to understand it, are inferior to those that are able to
have an immanent understanding of the internal dynamics of the object: “the
logical structure of the concept of ‘something’—a concept that we must em-
ploy—is at the same time the logical structure of whatever is something in the
world.” 30 When we confuse the merely empirical as knowledge, we fall into a
state of illusion; we fail to grasp the inner essence of the object and the things
which determine its being. As a result, we derive wrong ideas about the world,
we thereby deform our ethical life, our conception of ourselves.31 This consti-
tutes a central insight of Hegelian logic: the unity of the subjective mind,
through rational categories (Kategorien), with the objective, phenomenal, world.
True propositions, true knowledge, the “absolute,” can only be derived in this
way, “the fully self-critical speculative philosopher does not, therefore, look out
into the world in order to discover the nature of being, but sets out to derive and
clarify the categories of thought in order to discover the nature of being in
them.” 32 The structure of reason and the structure of the world are the same: it is
up to us, by the act of thinking and acting, to achieve a unity between our sub-
jectivity and the objectivity that surrounds us. All other strategies of obtaining
knowledge about the world will lead to our further distortion—of the world and
ourselves —and therefore continue the condition of diremption from it.33
This not only means that there are specific determinations, specific proc-
esses, which make individuals more or less fully realized as humans. It also
means that this self-realization is inseparable from thought itself, from the act of
knowing as opposed to being merely aware of things. Hegel’s logical under-
standing of this is central for constructing not only a more nuanced understand-
ing of Marx’s ideas and theoretical strategy; it is also crucial for building the
foundations for what I will later call an “objective ethics”: one built on non-
subjectivist principles. What is crucial is that Hegel sees this process of knowing
and the process of become free as processes that mutually constitute one an-
other. This is an issue that Marx, although he will take issue with the implica-
tions of Hegelian thought, will take to a new level by developing a scientific
view that will be designed not along positivist or empiricist lines, but designed
to give insight into the structures and processes of the socio-material world that
determine the becoming, the shaping of individuals. Hegel makes this possible
in Marx, but it is also important, in my view, to retain more of the Hegelian past
that Marx himself dispenses of—the main reason for this is that Marx, like
Hegel before him, sees that the radical move in thought is the sublation (Aufhe-
bung) of facts and values —the very structure of “bourgeois” thinking.
But what does this mean that the is and the ought are in fact sublated? In the
Kantian and neo-Kantian formulation, cognitive statements must be distinct
from normative or evaluative statements. This is because philosophical knowl-
edge is derived from the categories of reason which determine rational thought
itself. In Hegel, by contrast, the problem is quite different. The basic issue is to
overcome the alienating separation (Entzweiung) of the individual from the so-
cial world he inhabits. Hegel sees that, after the Enlightenment and Kantian
critical philosophy, it is no longer possible to rely upon irrational tradition to
perform this task. Instead, reasoned agents are reconciled only with a rational
social world when the rational agent is able to perceive his connectedness to that
world, and that world is constituted rationally through processes of becoming.34
Only then when this is made real in the world, will individuals be able to possess
some form of virtue (Tugend) in the sense that they will see their ethical person-
ality as bound with their connectedness with the rational social institutions and
practices which constitute their lives and the norms of their community.35 Only
then will rational agents be able to feel “at home” (zu Hause) within the world—
what makes this a modern move is that it is based on the tenets of reason and not
tradition, religion, faith, and other forms of pre -rational consciousness.36 What is
crucial for Hegel, then, is that the subjective forms of reasoning and subjective
conceptions of reason and freedom, and so on, are overcome by seeing that the
ideas we possess about the world are answerable to the world; the reasons we
employ, the concepts we utilize, must all be measured against the world as a
whole. It is not that subjectivity does not exist, it is that a subjectivity that grasps
the world in truth is one that sees that its ideas are answerable to that world, not
independent of it.37
Freedom therefore can be further specified as the moment when individuals
grasp the Idea—the unity of the subjective and objective worlds, it is the mo-
ment when the ideas we hold about the world are confirmed in the world.38 This
unity in logical terms, in terms of the very structure of thought, is therefore a
means for a true way of acting in the world since only in this way will we be
able to overcome subjectivism and have our practical life conform to the rational
structure of the objective world of which we possess knowledge.39 The interpen-
etration (Durchdringung) of the concept and existence (Dasein) means that the
concept finds its home in the object. The object itself is known not from catego-
ries we impose upon it, but rather our categories match with the internal struc-
ture of the object itself—reason is an objective reality, not only graspable by the
subject. As such, absolute knowledge of the world is a practical affair, not a pas-
sive one. Knowledge remains abstract to the extent that it is a collection of
facts—it must be made real in the world for there to be some actuality (Wirk -
lichkeit) to our more intimate connection between mind and world, constituting
our freedom. 40 It is therefore within the process of understanding through self-
positing, non-metaphysical categories of reason that the structure of being can
be understood and known. The self-consciousness of this process is itself an act
of freedom since man becomes aware of the structure of himself and his inter-
connectedness to being as a whole. The act is also useful as an evaluative
mechanism. Since an object can only be its true self once the idea has worked
through (durchgearbeitet) that reality: a tree can be more or less a true tree; a
state more or less a true state; and a human being more or less a human being—
all depending on the extent to which it is able to manifest the completion, the
fulfilledness (Erfülltheit) of its concept. Trees without roots and branches are
logs; a state which does not possess a monopoly on the means of coercion is just
another group competing for power within society; and a human being who
lacks his full range of powers, functionings, and capacities may be a worker, a
landlord, or anything else, but not a complete (i.e., actualized) human being.
This Hegelian move is therefore a crucial step for building a Marxian conception
of ethics. Even though Marx will posit that the categories needed to explain the
world to itself are material in nature, the logic of thought is similar, and Marx
will add a very new dimension to this project, completing the frame of thinking
began by Aristotle and developed further by Hegel: that of the material and so-
cial world.
3. MARX AND THE MATERIAL CONSTITUTION OF SOCIALIZED MAN
Hegel was able to bring reason to a new point: that of being constituted in the
world rather than being simply applied to the world. It was a central problem of
Hegelian thought to correct the alienation that pervaded modern consciousness,
to realize a social and ethical life which would be able to allow modern man to
attain a total, complete human existence—for a kind of social world where man
would overcome alienation and become actual (Wirklich) and complete, “per-
fect” in the Aristotelian sense. Marx continues this concern, but sees deep prob-
lems with Hegel’s solution. Instead of seeing reason, conceptual thought, as the
principle adequate to the task of human de-alienation, Marx saw that it was in
the material conditions of social organization that this project had to play itself
out within.41 What unites Hegel and Marx is a project: one that sees that the way
we know and the way we live and act must interpenetrate each other. To the
extent that this is not the case at any moment, we can speak of ideology, of false
consciousness. Indeed, Marx’s humanistic conception of man is derived from
the Aristotelian and Hegelian ideas outlined above. Most particularly, the idea
that man is a product of his predicates rather than the originator of all his predi-
cates; that he is shaped and produced by the concrete relations that determine his
existence. Maurice Merleau-Ponty pointed this out when discussing Marx’s hu-
manist position:
Marx’s innovation does not lie in the reduction of philosophical and human
problems to problems of economics but in drawing from economics the real
equivalents of these questions. It has been remarked without paradox that Capi-
tal is a concrete Phenomenology of Mind, that is to say, that it is to say, that it is
inseparably concerned with the working of the economy and the realization of
man. The point of connection between these two problem areas lies in the He-
gelian idea that every system of production and property implies a system of re-
lations between men such that their social relations become imprinted upon
their relations to nature, and these in turn imprint upon their social relations.
There can be no definitive understanding of the whole import of Marxist poli-
tics without going back to Hegel’s description of the fundamental relations be-
tween men.42
This structure of thought pervades Marx’s ideas, and it is important to see that
the very essence of the scientific theses that Marx points out about the nature of
capitalism are best understood and interpreted through this framework. Further-
more, this framework has nested within it a moral, normative conception of
man. The problem of interpreters has been to try to tease this out as a separate
ethic, an ethic which is somehow separable from the social scientific argu ment
Marx lays out.43
Marx needs to be seen as the completion of the development of this tradi-
tion which Hegel inherited and deepened from Aristotle. It is not simply that
man is the product of process, that he is shaped by surroundings; it is also that,
for Marx, the social-material world places real constraints on the ways in which
thinking and the capacity to think are shaped. Thus, the Hegelian project of
coming to terms with the world through thought and the development of thought
(the absolute idea) cannot be a sufficient means to realize human freedom. In its
place, we need to see that the categories we employ must be specific to the
mechanisms of any social organization which shape the norms, ways of think-
ing, and ways of acting that that social organization requires for its persistence
and survival. This more functionalist understanding of man’s relation to the
world was a crucial innovation of Marx over Hegel and the other Left Hegelians.
Basically stated, it means that the nature of the social world creates a series of
structural realities within which we are formed. Our ideas, our beliefs, the tasks
we are made to fulfill, the collective concepts and norms that govern our com-
munity—all of them are mediated by these structural realities. These structural
realities are, in turn, historically determined and they survive because we, in
part, give them some form of legitimacy since they have the power to direct
man’s “consciousness in certain directions and blocks him from being aware of
certain facts and experiences.”44 We allow these structures, centrally organized
around economic life, to form false ideas (falsche Vorstellungen) about the
world for us—ideas that are useful for the social order, not a deeper, more abso-
lute truth about our nature and the kind of world best suited for it.
Although Marx sees deep deficiencies in the philosophical arguments put

forth by Aristotle and Hegel, he is deeply marked by their philosophical lan-
guage as well as the power of the concepts they employ. The reason for this is
not hard to grasp. Marx’s central concern is an understanding through science of
the pathological processes that are inherent to capitalist institutions. This is be-
cause Marx takes the Aristotelian-Hegelian structure of thought seriously: the
concept of man that he adopts is not one that is patterned on Enlightenment con-
ceptions of the self, or liberal ideas about the nature of individuality and free-
dom. Rather, they are based on the self-realization concept of human existence
as developed by Aristotle and Hegel. Now, where Marx deviates from this tradi-
tion of thinking is in the specificity of what has the most causal impact on the
shaping of man’s realization within society. It is not that man is caught in a de-
terministic universe beyond which he has no control (this was something Hegel
also argued against, a Spinozist conception of the world). It is rather that each
individual is “interwoven” (verflochten) within the material forms of life he in-
habits, and these forms of life are conceived as a series of processes. “Con-
sciousness can be nothing else than conscious being; and that being is his actual
life process.”45 It is not that agency does not exist, but that the categories needed
for its truly free self-determination are lacking in capitalist society. These cate-
gories cannot be derived from abstract thought (as in Idealism) but rather from
the immanent critique of the material social processes which determine the con-
text of man’s real existence and condition his development.
This sociological move seems to leave Marx bereft of ethics. The German
Ideology is generally seen as a break with the younger, more ethical writings of
Marx effecting a move toward science and a kind of structural determinism. But
this gets the issue wrong. What Marx is doing in developing a materialist per-
spective is not making evaluative claims irrelevant, but rather showing that eth-
ics as an autonomous enterprise is doomed to failure because any ethics divided
from an absolute understanding of the social systems and processes which or-
ganize the material life of any society, will not be grounded in the true nature of
the human needs. Put another way, it means that any evaluative statements that
are separate from the immanent critique of social institutions are perverted re-
flections of those systems . Marx did share, with Hegel, the notion that true
knowledge, or essence, can be distinguished from me re appearance by under-
standing the “laws of the material on which they operate, and with the essential
nature of the phenomena that surround them.” 46 By accepting the processual
conception of man as one developed by the structure of social relations, Marx is
specifying with more accuracy than before the extent to which structural-
functional conditions of social organization mold consciousness. It is not a de-
terminism in the mechanistic sense that Marx is after here; it is a sense of dialec-
tical causation: consciousness is shaped by institutions which require just such
shaped individuals to allow for the continuation of those institutions.47 But going
further, Marx sees that this is an important move against the Hegelian premise
that concepts, the logic of the “absolute idea,” will be able to solve the problem
of human freedom and alienation. Rather, Marx is moving toward a point of
view which sees science as the means by which we can pierce through the chi-
mera of false thinking that shrouds a true comprehension of the social totality.
This false, unscientific kind of thinking is not done in terms of pure thought, but
rather in terms of representations (Vorstellungen): ideas and images that are con-
jured before us by our unmediated social being. The meditations of thought can
be proivided only by a scientific perspective which looks at the real mechanisms
of social life. Capital therefore develops a series of analytical categories to pro-
vide an immanent critique of capitalism; but it does this by piercing through the
concrete forms of reality we encounter everyday. It is this for this reason that the
first chapter of Capital is about the commodity: that thing we experience with
immediacy each day, but unaware of its deep connectedness to the processes of
exploitation, wage labor, relative surplus value, and so on, that shape the back-
ground conditions of our lives.
But the move of making the concept of society as the focal point of Marx’s
thinking comes in the Theses on Feuerbach. Instead of seeing a break from a
humanistic Marx to a more scientific Marx, it is better to see Marx mo ving from
holding that man possesses an actual essence as laboring man, a species being
(Gattungswesen) which is distorted by capitalist relations, toward a view of “so-
cialized humanity” (gesellschaftliche Menschheit).48 The difference is crucial for
constructing a Marxian concept of human value. The older view of “essence”
(Wesen) of man is dropped by Marx because he sees that it posits itself as a mere
fact of nature, a priori in nature. 49 Instead, he proposes the view that human
beings are to be seen in terms of their sociality, and this means a departure from
the reduction of man to the genus of homo faber.50 The importance of this move
is that we can begin to see in Marx the construction of a very different theoreti-
cal structure than is traditionally emphasized. The very way we understand the
world is dialectically related to the spheres of evaluation and to praxis. By this, I
mean that we can begin to discern an “ethical structure” of Marx’s thought
premised on (i) the ontology of socialized man; (ii) the notion that this ontologi-
cal conception of man possess a series of potentialities which man needs to real-
ize to be whole, complete, most fully developed. This ontology of socialized
man means that we are seen as shaped and developed by our social relations,
relations which are, in turn, determined by the structural-functional imperatives
of our economic form of life.
The connection between science and ethics for Marx, or cognitive state-
ments and evaluative judgments, comes down to the way we approach the mean-
ing of knowledge. By materializing the Hegelian logical and phenomenological
method, Marx is able to see that the immanent understanding of social institu-
tions is a requirement for their deeper, truer knowledge. Recall that on Hegel’s
view, the true being of anything is the result of the process of its becoming ac-
tual (Wirklich) which means its lives up to the essential structure of its being, to
the ideal of what it is that determines it. In this sense, when we talk about
whether a social institution or practice is morally wrong, we must look to the
way that it shapes the actual (Wirklich) being of individuals —does it cause pa-
thologies in his thinking, acting, behaving? Does it realize his capacities and
functions, or does it impede them, deform them? This is the purpose of critical
social science, but it derives its critical impact from the normative assumption
that man is socialized man, and that he possesses capacities and functions which
can be more or less developed.51 The cognitive statement of knowing a thing is
bound up by judging its effects on human beings. This is the way of thinking
that drives Marx’s critical approach to capitalist society. In other words, the
evaluative moment is dialectically related to cognitive statements by adopting a
dynamic conception of man, socialized man. We begin with an understanding of
man as social, as produced by his relations and social processes—only then can
we evaluate how those social processes act on individuals.52 In other words, we
analyze social institutions for what they are and how they work; and they work
by constituting man through his environment. By directing his labor in a certain
way, organizing his life in particular patterns, and so on, it produces certain
kinds of people.
We therefore arrive at a new kind of judgment: evaluative-cognitive state-
ments. This kind of statement analyzes the relation between what actually exists
(Dasein) and how this maximizes the manifestation of its defining principle, its
actuality (Wirklichkeit). This means looking at the processes of social institu-
tions to discern the ways in which individuals are formed; and they are con-
demned from a moral point of view because the moral point of view, the process
of evaluation itself, is contained within the act of actually knowing any thing. If,
for instance, we adopt the notion that society is an assemblage of individuals,
cooperating to obtain some set of goods, both collective and individual, than the
extent to which the empirical existence (Dasein) of any society is unable to ob-
tain these things or perhaps even create social ills such as crime, suicide, theft,
anomie, and so on, than we can claim that such a society has not lived up to its
fulfilledness (Erfülltheit), its actuality (Wirklichkeit). It is a deformed manifesta-
tion of the potential of what society could be as defined by its very determining
principle. This is akin to what Erich Fromm terms a “normative humanism”:
To speak of a “sane society” implies a premise different from sociological rela-

tivism. It makes sense only if we assume that there can be a society which is
not sane, and this assumption, in turn, implies that there are universal criteria
for mental health which are valid for the human race as such, and according to
which the state of health of each society can be judged. This position of norma-
tive humanism is based on a few fundamental premises.53
In this sense, Marx did reject ethical concepts on their own as inadequate as
a critical opposition to capitalism. Normative categories, for Marx and his Hege-
lian roots, are necessarily abstract because they are incomplete: they fail to grasp
the essence of the very structure of being that defines and determines the present
age, capitalist society. This means that abstract ethical categories are inadequate
because they do not grasp the content of the world. For Marx, only an immanent
critique of these institutions, based on a material foundation, can serve this task.
But these are still making use of the logic of process to understand the ways in
which man’s social being is constituted. In this sense, although Marx does in
fact leave the language of alienation behind in his mature critique of capitalism,
the condemnation of capitalist society is premised on the notion that it falls into
contradiction: a contradiction between the true meaning of what modern social
organization ought to achieve and what capitalist forms of social organizations
empirically achieve. We therefore do not fall back into a sterile fact-value split.
Instead, we understand that our conception of what a human being is, what a
state it, what a society is, is determined by what its true nature is, its final cause,
its entelechy, its absolute idea, its actuality. Critical theory is therefore recast as
the means by which we are able to understand the deformative effects of mo d-
ern, capitalist institutions.
Marx’s thought is deeply shaped by the Aristotelian-Hegelian mode of
thinking. In this sense, there were two crucial dimensions of the nature of man
that Marx wanted to overcome. First, there was the idealist premise, which saw
that the purposive force or impulse in history was not idealist in nature but a
nature of the ways that societies were organized. These forms of social organiza-
tion dictated the varieties of power relations inherent within those societies. His-
tory was the ways in which these forms of social organization play themselves
out based on certain “laws” which could be empirically tested. But in the end,
the very idea of Marxian conception of human value cannot be made, in my
view, without reference to the Aristotelian-Hegelian way of thinking which so
strongly shaped Marx’s thinking. Indeed, in this sense Marx’s background con-
ception of human value lies in his freedom: in his ability to possess not only
Hegelian self-consciousness, but also, and more importantly, to construct social
institutions and an orientation toward the world which will maximize the poten-
tiality inherent within humanity—individually and collectively—itself.
Human value is therefore to be determined objectively: by the ways in
which man’s social being manifests itself as either more or less developed or
complete. This objective view of human value sees the social-relational sub-
stance of human beings and makes that the operative concept to be realized by
institutional designs. We can therefore see that an “objective ethics” is possible
within this framework: one that can make objective claims about the nature of
human good and normative statements bas ed in the social conditions of human
beings based on universal categories about what socialized human beings are in
potentia and how the structure and mechanisms of their society develop or de-
form that potential. These become, as I argued above, evaluative-cognitive
statements about the world. This is the essence of the sublation of fact and value,
of is and ought. This is the essence of the notion of an objective ethics and it is
this concept that I will now turn.
TOWARD AN OBJECTIVE ETHICS
An objective theory of ethics is opposed to those forms of ethics which rely on

subjective means for grounding the acts and practices of individuals.54 An objec-
tive theory of ethics seeks to derive ethical concepts in some value-rational, on-
tological ground.55 This means that the values derived are determined not by the
existent “is” of the real world, but by the potential “actuality” of any thing. In
Marx’s sense, this is applied to the concept of man: human beings are seen as
ontologically socialized beings. As such, the ethical structure of his thought is
built around the actualization of man; the critical problem is to isolate those
structures which deform this actualized existence. The values take their ground
from the sociological insight of man’s socialized existence. Last, they obtain an
objective status because they are not contingent upon the subjectivity of the sub-
ject, but can be shown to determine an evaluative logic which can be determined
external to that subject.56 In this sense, ethical values derive their validity from
an ontological, universal ground, and this ground is the sociological fact of man
as a socialized being.
Now, this leads a way of making ethical decision quite different from those
that are the expression of modern, atomized forms of social life. Subjective ide-
alism was criticized by Hegel—and others—for its insistence that epistemologi-
cal and ethical claims could be restricted to the sphere of the individual. Liberal
theory takes this for granted as well. Objective ethics sees that those actions,
behaviors, institutions, and so on that negatively impact social relations, distort-
ing them, restructuring them for private gain, and so on, are ethically wrong.
They are not wrong because of a condition of “fairness” or of natural right or
law. Rather, objective ethics takes as its central task the construction of moral
values which protect the social relations which produce or realize fully capable
and functioning human beings. In this sense, capable and functioning does not
mean what is useful for instrumental ends, but the inherent capacities of indi-
viduals. Every diminishment of these capacities, due to condition, ideology, and
so on, are seen as ethically wrong and require the attention of political practice.
The condemn ation of capitalism, therefore, can be made from an ethical point of
view: an ethical point of view which is grounded in the socialized ontology of
the capacity of human beings to be free. This freedom is defined as the ability of
individuals for self-determination, without the external authority of others or the
distorting effects of false consciousness.
But how can these things be determined? Objective ethics is after a unity of
ethical value and the ontology of socialized man. This includes, but is not re-
ducible to, newer theories of communication and recognition since it sees them
as aspects of socialized man and not comprehensive moral doctrines in and of
themselves. Values are not determined by their relation to a static concept of

man, but a dynamic concept of man. On this view, the ethical concepts are par-
tially needed to constitute the definition of man, of what it means to be human.57
These ethical concepts, however, are derived from our continuing knowledge of
the processes that shape human social existence. Capitalism and its institutions
are unethical precisely to the extent to which they can be shown to rob individu-
als of their capacities of self-determination and autonomy. These are values that
are good not in and of themselves, but because they are a means to human free-
dom. Human freedom is itself a value because it is the means by which the spe-
cies is capable of determining itself, of existing according to the common good
of the community rather than the interests or the good of its parts. This ethical
good has an objective ground: since every individual is produced by social rela-
tions, is a socialized subject, it means that those relations, which precede agents
in an objective sense, must be organized to produce individuals who will be ca-
pable of free agency. But this free agency of each subject is dialectically related
to the total structure of social relations which produces them, realizes them, and
which shapes their life process. This is where the materialist element becomes a
completion to the Aristotelian-Hegelian tradition.
This means that an objective ethics grounds its values in a different kind of
validity. Whereas subjectivist ethics grounds the validity of values in the sense
of the good of the individual—his conceptions of the right, wrong, what projects
are valuable, and so on—objective ethics argues that there is a structure to the
external world (i.e., the social world) which can be shown to be objectively
more valid than others. This is philosophically in line with the ideas I have been
developing in the previous section. Indeed, I will argue here that only an objec-
tive ethics—with its distinct ontology derived from the Aristotelian-Hegelian
structure of thought—is able to articulate claims which will be capable of ma k-
ing more radical ethical values than possible through subjectivist means. Subjec-
tivist arguments about ethics include not only liberal conceptions of the priority
of the “right” over that of the “good,” they include the more existentialist kind
of ethics which undergird Bronner’s thinking derived from thinkers such as Sar-
tre and Camus.58 This idea of a subjective conception of ethics, is what largely
drives the predominant paradigm that has gained ground since the Enlighten-
ment, and for good reason. Bronner’s own claim on the foundations for ethical
value and decision is that: “Genuine critique is the product of an ethical deci-
sion: it requires, at a minimum, resisting a complete capitulation to what is in the
name of what should be. There is no absolute foundation for such a decision.”59
When discussing the problem of where the “right thing to do” in politics comes
from, what ethical criteria we can use to make such a decision, Bronner relies
more on existentialism than the objectivism I privilege here: “That is the mo-
ment of decision. From where it derives, no one can say; it retains an existential
element.”60
With the structure of Marx’s ethics now clear and its roots in the Aristote-
lian-Hegelian system elucidated, now we can ask what an objective ethics could
possibly look like. Objective ethics argues that moral value can be found and
determined outside of the mere subjective preferences of individuals. But how
can an ethical position be justified which seemingly argues that there is a con-
cept of the good, a concept of value of which people may be ignorant? How can
we argue that the one person, or group of people, know the essence of ethical
value whereas another group or individual, do not? This is the stock reaction of
most liberals to the universalist ethics: they are a justification of one conception
of value over another. Objective ethics takes as a given that there is a disconnect
between the subject and his objective world. This disconnect results in a series
of contingencies of the self which generally results in heteronomous behavior.
I think that what is attractive about an objective ethics is its ability to see
that the judgments made find their validity in the principle of socialized man.
The nature of validity is crucial: it determines the extent to which a normative
argument, a value, can be said to be rationally founded giving it rational force.
The reason for the importance of the ontological categories which make up
Marx’s concept of human value—derived from the ontological categories of
Aristotelian-Hegelian logic—is that it is ground for the validity of Marxian ethi-
cal claims. What makes this a radical move is that such an ethics has the capac-
ity to make arguments which satisfy the most basic problems that concerned
those of Hegel’s generation and of Marx as well: the creation of a form of social
life—institutions, culture, and so on—which would be able to maximize the
freedom of individuals , but not because freedom is simply a value which ought
to be maximized for its own sake. Rather, the crucial insight of Marxian ethics is
that freedom is a value because it is the only way human beings will be able to
overcome the contradictions which plague them within the conditions of moder-
nity. The realization of freedom is therefore a complex phenomenon
Objective ethics based therefore recognizes several things which make it
consistent, comprehensive, and valid. First, there is the need for a grounding of
ethical claims, and this determinative ground consists in the objective conditions
which shape and determine individual agency and social relations. On this view,
an ethical claim or proposition will have validity once it is able to show that it is
making a judgment about the nature of socialized man. In this sense, we are rec-
ognizing that there is an objective, social end to moral propositions. Equality is
not an ethical good in and of itself; there is no reason that it ought to have intrin-
sic value. Instead, an objective ethics would need to state the concrete, patho-
logical effects of inequality, and then the concrete, developmental, positive ef-
fects on individuals of equal conditions before it could have validity from an
objectivist position. The same can be said for religious institutions and practices;
certain forms of cultural production, content, and dissemination; or the limits of
certain forms of state action to promote more just (i.e., more socially beneficial)
forms of social or economic organization in society. We cannot be limited by the
foundationless concept of ethics. Instead, we must recognize that it is in the

practical capacities of man that guides political action. It is not interests alone,
but interests guided by, informed by, some sense of value. An objective ethics—
based on the Hegelian-Marxist tradition I have outlined above—is a way of pro-
viding a new, and more satisfying ethical form of argument and content than we
inherit from the more subjectivist conception of ethics. Indeed, whereas J.S. Mill
saw the ground for valid ethics in emotion, and G.E. Moore sought them in “in-
tuition,” the objective form of ethics outlined here derives value from the con-
cept of socialized humanity, from that sociological reality of man’s relational
nature. It is not only the “intersubjectivity” that is crucial, a la Habermas and
others, it is the totality of social relations and the ways that these relations are
structured producing and shaping, individuals that is of primary concern for
objective ethics. In this sense, objective ethics are able to overcome the problem
of the separation of facts and values, and we are able to make ethical claims that
are grounded in the actual development and progress of human society beyond
the limitations of modern liberalism.
CONCLUSION: RENEWING THE

TASK OF CRITICAL THEORY
The central task of critical theory can therefore be seen to possess an ethical
content. If the classical formulations of critical theory expressed the elaboration
of this Hegelian-Marxist form of ethic, than I believe this can only continue to
the extent to which we see that ethical propositions need to be grounded in the
concrete exis tence of human social being. In this sense, the task of critical the-
ory needs to be guided by a kind of thinking which seeks to focus on the trans-
formation of institutions, as opposed to the emphasis on subjectivity and other
forms of aesthetic radicalism. A new critical approach to the processes of capi-
talism, to the ways in which the forms of everyday life erode, impede the devel-
opment of critically reflecting subjects, are all a crucial component to renewing
the impulse of critical theory. But perhaps even more, it is important to move to
the next step of critical thinking: the construction of alternative forms of institu-
tions and social arrangements which might be used to correct the negative ef-
fects of capitalist society. It is true that if we remain trapped within the sphere of
ethical reflection, we risk the possibility of withering praxis. But there can be no
doubt that a return to the ethical concepts, the unique way of ethical reasoning
inherent in Marx and derived from Aristotle and Hegel, we can see that another
thing is accomplished: a return to the ability to create values which are capable
to form the cementing norms and values for new social arrangements and new
forms of social organization.
To put this in another shape, I see the return to the Hegelian roots of Wes t-
ern Marxism as providing us with a new way to build a critical theory with pub-
lic aims: by articulating ethical, institutional, and social concepts which can
more adequately serve certain human needs. But the problem raised by Georg
Lukács over 90 years ago is still relevant: how to provide consciousness for
those who are needed to build, politically, these new institutions? I believe that
the construction of an objective ethics can go long way in pushing the impulse
of critical theory forward. The main reason for this is that by establishing uni-
versal criteria for understanding and judging social arrangements, we are able to
evaluate the ways that late capitalism structures and distorts the nature of human
sociality and, in the end, individual personalities as well. Consciousness of ethi-
cal value is seated in the personality (Persönlichkeit); the ability of any agent to
act, to choose, to become conscious of himself and the things that motivate his
actions, are also contained there. Hence the limitation with discourse ethics
which deals with an assumed ready-made for discourse kind of subject. The con-
tent of ethical claims also needs to be addressed, and objective ethics sees that
there are correct and incorrect forms of ethical propositions based on the extent
to which individuals are able to grasp the disconnect between actually existing
conditions and the potentiality inherent in their own humanity—socialized hu-
manity.
To illuminate the mechanisms of social process therefore becomes an inher-
ently political act to the extent that we are able to show their negative impact on
the ways that human individuality and sociality are formed. It is not a complete
political act, but necessary to ground the alternative of socialism and social de-
mocracy against the spread of market capitalism and the distortions of liberal
individualism. Properly grasping the nature of human freedom means grasping
the mechanisms of his self-realization. The Hegelian-Marxist premise is that
human freedom is bound the problem of a tension between self-realization and
the nature of the social world and the ways it patterns social relation. Individuals
cannot obtain the sense of freedom envisaged by the Idealists (Kant and Hegel)
as true self-determination because of the contradictions inherent in the social
structure they inhabit. It is therefore paramount to see how Marx rounds off this
philosophical discourse by seeing that the individuals is a moment in the social
totality; he is an expression of that social world, not an atom circulating within
it. In this sense, an objective ethics seeks to posit a sense of value, or moral con-
cepts which can guide and structure cognitive understandings of the world and,
more importantly, become a normative guide to practical activity. In this sense,
the practical activity that is engendered by such a thinking is one that should be
able to objectify its moral value within the institutional realm; to specify, con-
struct, experiment with new institutional forms that can enhance the sociality of
human beings rather than the opposite. This is what places the Hegelian-Marxist
tradition on a different path than liberal or other forms of political tradition.
Critical theory is a crucial element in that tradition, but bereft of ethical value, it
becomes a sterile, indeed directionless enterprise.
Notes
1. Stephen Eric Bronner, Socialism Unbound. (New York: Routledge Press, 1990),
157.
2. Ibid., 155.
3. Ibid.
4. Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and its Theorists. (Oxford: Blackwell,
1994), 326.
5. For a recent exploration of an “ethical anti-capitalism” derived from Marxian
principles, see Paul Blackledge, “Alasdair MacIntyre: Social Practices, Marxism and
Ethical Anti-Capitalism.” Political Studies. Vol. 57, no. 4 (2008): 866-884.
6. A more recent attempt to make this argument from an Hegelian prespective is
Axel Honneth, The Pathologies of Individual Freedom: Hegel’s Social Theory. (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 2010). The problem with this view is that it does not
consider Marx’s critique of the limitations of Hegelian thought. We must look for a con-
ception of freedom and human self-development that embraces the structural conditions
of human sociality, as I will demonstrate in the remainder of this essay.
7. George Brenkert, Marx’s Ethics of Freedom. (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1983), 203.
8. For an excellent discussion on the growth of Aristotle’s metaphysical doctrine,
see Werner Jaeger, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of His Development. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1950), 194-227.
9. W. D. Ross, “The Structure of the Metaphysics,” Introduction to Aristotle’s
Metaphysics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924), lxxvii.
10. This is the example Aristotle himself chooses to illustrate the concepts of poten-
tiality and actuality: “In defining the nature of a house, those who speak of it as stones,
bricks, and wood speak of the potential house, for these things are matter; those who call
it a receptacle for goods and bodies, or some other such thing, speak of its actuality.”
Aristotle, Metaphysics, VIII. ii, 8. (Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my
own.)
11. “Those things that have attained their end, if their end is good, they are said to be
perfect; for they are perfect because they have attained their end
(? ? ????????????????? ?????? ???????? ).” Metaphysics, V. xvi., 3.
12. The relevant section in the Metaphysics is VIII. ii-iii.
13. See George E. McCarthy, Classical Horizons: The Origins of Sociology in An-
cient Greece. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2003), 22-63.
14. This was a view common in eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century
German thought. Moses Mendelssohn summed this up in 1784 with an essay on the na-
ture of the Enlightenment (Aufklärung): “Bildung, Kultur und Aufklärung sind Modifika-
tionen des geselligen Lebens; Wirkungen des Fließes und der Bemühungen der Men-
schen, ihren geselligen Zustand zu verbessern.” Moses Mendelssohn, “Über die Frage:
was heißt aufklären?” in Ehrard Bahr, (ed.) Was ist Aufklärung? Thesen und Definitionen
(Stuttgart: Reclam, 1974), 4.
15. For an important discussion of this theme in Kant, see Dieter Henrich, Between
Kant and Hegel: Lectures on German Idealism. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2008). As Henrich makes clear concerning this metaphor of “freedom as the key-
stone of the vault of reason,” for the relation between subjective freedom and the possi-
bility of knowledge: “it is actually the case that as long as we do not insert the keystone,
the vault cannot stand without external support. As soon as we insert the keystone, how-
ever, the structure becomes self-supporting.” 54.
16. For a discussion, see Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy, 1790-1860: The Leg-
acy of Idealism. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 19-65.
17. For a discussion of this development, see Frederick Beiser, “The Enlightenment
and Idealism,” in Karl Ameriks (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
18. For an excellent discussion of the nature of Kantian dualism, see Paul Guyer,
“Absolute Idealism and the Rejection of Kantian Dualism.” In The Cambridge Compan-
ion to German Idealism, 37-56.
19. For an excellent discussion of Hegel’s critique of Kant, see Josef Maier, On
Hegel’s Critique of Kant. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939).
20. Yirmiahu Yovel, “Hegel’s Dictum that the Rational is Actual and the Actual is
Rational: Its Ontological Content and its Function in Discourse,” in Jon Stewart (ed.) The
Hegel Myths and Legends. (Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 31.
21. Hegel is deeply affected by these Aristotelian ideas, so much so that we see
direct examples taken in his lectures. For instance, in the preface to his Vorlesungen über
die Philosophie des Geschichte Hegel makes use of the example of the solar system and
the revolution of the planets to outline his thesis about the ontological structure of reason
in the world. This passage is a direct idealist re-reading of Aristotle’s similar discussion
in his Physics, VIII, 6. 259b 20-30 and 260a 1-20. For a further discussion of the relation
between Aristotle and Hegel on the subject of being and process, see Werner Marx, Hei-
degger and the Tradition. (Evanston Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1971), 17-71.
22. For an analysis of Hegel’s debt to Aristotle’s metaphysical argument for his con-
ception of freedom, see Richard L. Schacht, “Hegel on Freedom,” in Alasdair MacIntyre
(ed.) Hegel: A Collection of Critical Essays. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1972), 289-328.
23. “[D]ie Freiheit ist eben dies, in seinem Anderen bei sich selbst zu sein, von sich
abzuhängen, das Bestimmende seiner selbst zu sein. In allen Trieben fange ich von einem
Anderen an, von einem solchen, das für mich ein Äußerliches ist. Hier sprechen wir dann
von Abhangigkeit. Freiheit ist nur da, wo kein Anderes für mich ist, das ich nicht selbst
bin.” Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I: Logik. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 1986), §24, Zusatz, 2.
24. See the discussion by Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1979), 84-95.
25. An excellent exploration of this thesis of Hegel is made by Frederick Neuhouser,
Foundations of Hegel’s Social Theory: Actualizing Freedom. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2000), 114-174.
26. For a discussion of this theme, see Robert Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy:
Rational Agency as Ethical Life. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 36-64.
27. As Herbert Marcuse puts it: “[F]reedom is for Hegel an ontological category: it
means being not a mere object, but the subject of one’s existence; not succumbing to
external conditions, but transforming factuality into realization.” Reason and Revolution:
Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960), viii.
28. Frederick Neuhouser, Hegel’s Social Theory, 114. Neuhouser goes on to explain
that: “for social freedom to be fully realized, the institutions with which social members
subjectively identify must also be objectively worthy of that identification, which is to
say that they must meet the criteria Hegel sets out for rational social institutions; they
must embody, in Hegel’s words, ‘that which is inherently (or in itself) rational’ (das an
sich Vernünftige).” 114-115.
29. Allen Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 31.
30. Stephen Houlgate, “Hegel’s Logic,” in Frederick Beiser, Hegel and Nineteenth-
Century Philosophy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 118.
31. As Gillian Rose points out: “Hegel is precisely drawing attention to the illusions
(relations, difference) of bourgeois society. He is warning against an approach which
would see illusion as rational, which makes illusion the absolute principle of the whole.”
Hegel: Contra Sociology. (London: Athlone Press, 1981), 81.
32. Stephen Houlgate, “Hegel’s Logic,” 124.
33. Terry Pinkard formulates this idea nicely when he says: “Absolute knowledge . .
. is the practice through which the modern community thinks about itself without attempt-
ing to posit any metaphysical ‘other’ or set of ‘natural constraints’ that would underwrite
those practices.” Hegel’s Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason. (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1994), 262. Pinkard’s reading is colored by a pragmatist inter-
pretation. We must also see that Absolut e knowledge is a kind of knowledge about
things—one that perceives them, knows them throughout, by grasping the essential
structure determining their being. This is important for developing an Hegelian concep-
tion of the Absolute: it sees that knowledge, that reason itself is not anchored subjec-
tively, but is disclosed through the act of grasping the determinative processes that pro-
duce the actuality (Wirklichkeit) of any thing. This can only be known through the unity
of the essence and existence of any thing, its inner and outer categories: “Die Wirklich-
keit ist die unmittelbar gewordene Einheit des Wesens und der Existenz oder des Inneren
und des Äußeren.” Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I: Logik,
§142.
34. Ludwig Siep has pointed to this as a central theme in Hegel’s thought: “Was
man eigentlich aus der moderner Wissenschaft lernern kann, ist für Hegel, daß die Welt
nicht aus sinnlichen Dingen und geistigen Gesetzen besteht, sondern ein Prozeß ist, in
dessen Ereignissen und Strukturen sich eine verständliche, auf Begriffe und Schlusse
zurückführbare Ordung zeigt.” Der Weg der Phänomenologie des Geistes. (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 2000), 17.
35. “Die Beziehungen des Einzelnen in den Verhältnissen, zu denen sich die Sub-
stanz besondert, machen seine sittlichen Pflichten aus. Die sittliche Persönlichkeit, d. i.
die Subjektivität, die von dem substantiellen Leben durchdrungen ist, ist Tugend.” Enzyk-
lopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften III: Die Philosophie des Geistes, §516.
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986).
36. See the discussion by Frederick Neuhouser, “Hegel’s Social Philosophy,” in Fre-
derick Beiser (ed.) Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, 204-229.
37. See the discussion of Hegel’s logic by Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy:
1760-1860. Specifically, Pinkard’s argument that: “‘true being’ . . . points to the idea that
our judgments are answerable to what is—that subjectivity is answerable to the world, all
the while setting its own standards for what counts as a legitimate form of such engage-
ment.” 262.
38. “Die Idee als Einheit der subjektiven und der objektiven Idee ist der Begriff der
Idee, dem die Idee als solche der Gegenstand, dem das Objekt sie ist.” Hegel, Enzyk-
lopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I: Logik, §236.
39. “Die absolute Idee ist zunächst die Einheit der theoretischen und der praktischen
Idee und damit zugleich die Einheit der Idee des Lebens und der Idee der Erkennens.”
Ibid., §236, Zusatz.
40. As Charles Taylor comments, “The demands of reason are thus that men live in
a state articulated according to the Concept, and that they relate to it not just as individu-
als whose interests are served by this collectively established machinery, but more essen-
tially as participants in a larger life. And this larger life deserves their ultimate allegiance
because it is the expression of the very foundation of things, the Concept. Freedom has
been given a very concrete content indeed.” Hegel. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1975), 374.
41. The classical interpretation—originated by Marx himself—concerning the split
between Hegelian philosophy and Marxism seems to me to be deeply overwrought. I
believe that Hegel’s thought, although not materialist in Marx’s sense, is still deeply non-
metaphysical and tied to the actual objective conditions of human social existence. For
the classical statement of the non-metaphysical understanding of Hegel’s thought, see
Klaus Hartmann, “Hegel: A Non-Metaphysical View,” in Alasdair MacIntyre (ed.)
Hegel: A Collection of Critical Essays, 101-124.
42. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969),
101-102.
43. See the brief discussion by Svetozar Stojanovic, “Marx’s Theory of Ethics,” in
Nicholas Lobkowicz (ed.) Marx and the Western World. (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1967).
44. Erich Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man. (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing,
1964), 21.
45. Karl Marx, Die Deutsche Ideologie. (Berlin: Verlag für Literatur und Politik,
1932), 15.
46. Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx. (London: New Left Books,
1971), 95. For more on the connection between Marx’s ideas about knowledge and
Hegel’s ideas as developed in his Logik, see 95-126.
47. See the discussion by John McMurtry, The Structure of Marx’s World-View.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 145-156.
48. “Aber das menschliche Wesen ist kein dem einzelnen Individuum inwohnendes
Abstraktum. In seiner Wirklichkeit ist es das ensemble der gesellschaftlichen Verhält-
nisse.” Thesen über Feuerbach, in Marx-Engels Werke, Band 3. (Berlin: Dietz Verlag,
1969), 5. (Emphasis added.)
49. Perhaps the most excellent discussion of this move in Marx and its significance
is Max Adler, Der soziologische Sinn der Lehre von Karl Marx. (Leipzig: Hirschfeld,
1914), 10-24.
50. Some maintain that Marx’s definition of man as a laboring being constitutes the
basis for his social ontology. The most persuasive attempt at making this argument is
Carol Gould, Marx’s Social Ontology: Individuality and Community in Marx’s Theory of
Social Reality. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978). The more developed version of this
thesis is Georg Lukács, Zur Ontologie des Gesellschaftlichen Seins, 2 vols. (Darmstadt:
Hermann Luchterland Verlag, 1986). This ontological move in Marx is evident in the
Theses on Feuerbach, but it is also more useful in trying to give a cohesive structure to
Marx’s thought in general, one that can be used to derive ethical arguments as opposed to
rigidly political ones. For a deeper discussion of Lukacs’ views of Marx’s social ontol-
ogy, see my essay “Ontology and Totality: Reconstructing Lukács’ Concept of Critical
Theory,” in M. Thompson (ed.) Georg Lukács Reconsidered: Essays on Politics, Phi-
losophy, and Aesthetics. (New York: Continuum Press, forthcoming).
51. This perspective of capacities and functionings has been developed more re-
cently by Amartya Sen. See his “Capability and Well-Being,” in Martha Nussbaum and
Amartya Sen (eds.) The Quality of Life. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 30-
53. He has recently developed this into a more comprehensive theory of justice in his The
Idea of Justice. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
52. This position is also taken by the Kantian Marxist, or Austro-Marxist, Max
Adler who argues that: “just as the critical philosophy starts, and must start, from the
individual consciousness but demonstrates in this consciousness a supra-individual, tran-
scendental-social, a priori socialized character; so Marxism starts from man, a fact which
has not yet received enough attention. However, it does not start from man as he con-
ceives himself, as individual man, but from socialized man.” The Relation of Marxism to
Classical German Philosophy, p. 65 in Tom Bottomore and Patrick Goode (eds.) Austro-
Marxism. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). In this way, Adler was able to blend Marxism
with certain strains of positivism. Nevertheless, it brings us to a similar position: that
knowledge claims are blended with normative judgments. A normative conception of
man is implicit in Adler’s neo-Kantian view, but explicit in the Hegelian-Marxist view.
53. Erich Fromm, The Sane Society. (New York: Rinehart and Company, 1955), 12.
54. For a more developed discussion of an objective ethics derived from the onto-
logical ideas of Georg Lukács, see my paper “Toward an Objective Ethics: Lukács’ On-
tology and Contemporary Moral Philosophy.” Jahrbuch der Internationalen Georg-
Lukács-Gesellschaft, vol. 13, 2010.
55. For a discussion, see Vittorio Hösle, Objective Idealism, Ethics, and Politics.
(Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1998).
56. See Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1986), 13-27.
57. Here I am drawing off of the interesting ideas developed by Raymond Polin in
his La création des valeurs. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952).
58. For a discussion of the former, see Charles Larmore, The Morals of Modernity.
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 19-40.
59. Stephen Eric Bronner, Ideas in Action. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield,
1999), 300.
60. Stephen Eric Bronner, Imagining the Possible: Radical Politics for Conservative
Times. (New York: Routledge, 2002), 211. For an excellent discussion of the ethical di-
mensions of the thought of Sartre, see Francis Jeanson, Le problème moral et la pensée
de Sartre. (Paris, 1965). For ethical ideas of Camus, see Herbert Hochberg, “Albert Ca-
mus and the Ethic of the Absurd,” Ethics, vol. 75 (1964): 87-102.

Thompson 2011 - Marxism - Ethics

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Thompson 2011 - Marxism - Ethics

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Chapter 10

Marxism, Ethics, and the Task

Marxism on a path to be able to articulate ethical and political claims grounded

Socialist theory must articulate a political response to Marxism’s teleological

tant, in my view, to reconstruct the nature of Marxism’s relation to ethics be-

1. ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF PERFECTION

Aristotle’s concept of “perfection” or “completion” ( ??????? ) is of central impor-

2. HEGEL AND THE LOGIC OF THE ABSOLUTE

3. MARX AND THE MATERIAL CONSTITUTION OF SOCIALIZED MAN

Although Marx sees deep deficiencies in the philosophical arguments put

To speak of a “sane society” implies a premise different from sociological rela-

TOWARD AN OBJECTIVE ETHICS

An objective theory of ethics is opposed to those forms of ethics which rely on

themselves. Values are not determined by their relation to a static concept of

foundationless concept of ethics. Instead, we must recognize that it is in the

CONCLUSION: RENEWING THE

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen