“Wood’s Thesis” And Its Enlightenment Of Marxian Ethics

What was Marx’s attitude towards morality? Whether this problem is solved or not is related to the question of whether the foundation of Marxist ethics as a discipline is stable.These two issues are related,and "Wood’s thesis" is the key to our grasp of these two issues."Wood’s thesis" begins with Marx’s criticism of justice and rights,and then makes a negative judgment on the relationship between Marx and morality as a whole.To meet this serious challenge,Marxist ethics must carefully answer the questions posed by the "Wood’s thesis".For this reason,this article first clarifies the ambiguity in the use of the concept "Wood’s thesis",arguing that Allen Wood should be distinguished from Robert Tucker and others and then to focus on Wood’s own points of view;Secondly,this paper examines the content of the main arguments of "Wood’s thesis",and thinks that the thesis can be understood through the main six arguments scattered in different articles of Allen Wood.The main issues of these six arguments are: The question of how to interpret the word"justice" within the framework of Marx’s historical materialism;the question of whether it is just to rely on capital to capture surplus value;the question of whether Marx condemns capitalism with some moral principle;the question of whether exploitation necessarily means injustice;the question of the distinction between moral and immoral good;the question of class interests.Then,on the basis of the predecessors,this paper explains the stability and rationality of these six arguments from different aspects,and thinks that almost all the main arguments of "Wood’s thesis"have some problems of one kind or another,so the validity of its argument is questionable.Even so,it does not mean that the "Wood’s thesis" has no value.In the opinion of this article,its value mainly lies in breaking the "dogmatism dream" in the field of Marxist ethics and making scholars aware of many fundamental issues of Marxist ethics.Therefore,on the basis of the above work,the last part of this paper discusses what the proposition can provide us,about the relationship between Marx and morality,and the inspiration and value of Marxist moral theory.Specifically,there are the following four aspects that need to be considered in advance when engaging in Marxist ethics,namely: whether “Marxist ethics” is necessary;the type of Marxist ethics;“Marx’s” ethics or“Marxist ethics”;academic and political issues of Marxist ethics in China."...