Practice And Good: The Revolution Of Marxist Ethics

The revolution of Marxist philosophy often focused on practical and existent visual angle, neglecting ethical visual angle. When referring to Marxist ethics, it was often discussed in other problems, and wasn't talked about in the view of the ethical history. That seriously affected the understanding of Marxist ethical thought and made it a difficult work to differ Marist ethics from other ethics. In the light of several important man, namely Aristotle, Kant and Hegel and two ethical schools, namely Utilitarian ethics and obligatory ethics, This thesis tried to clarify the revolution of Marxist ethics in the history of ethics from four respects, namely the human nature foundation of the ethics, the ethical freedom premise, the ethical real road and the ethical goal of the good state.The kernel of Marxist ethical revolution was that Marx raised a historical materialist ethics. Marx based his ethics on existent practice, historical materialism and the critique of political economy. He gave a new explanation on the origin, material foundation, principle and aim of the ethics, and made ethics a historical existent, not a close system; a practical action, not a conceptual and logical reasoning; a community liberation, not a personal combination of personal interest. Clarifying the revolution made us not only further understand the real intension of Marist ethics, but also study deeply Marxist philosophy and reveal the great vitality of Marxist theory in modern era. This thesis was composed of four sections.The first section was about seeking human nature foundation of the ethics in existent practice. The foundation of the ethics was lied in man. The ethics took root among the person real-life and made a start from metaphysic reflecting on the human nature. The ethics couldn't exist without assuming the human nature. The traditional ethics took the human nature foundation according to the feeling nature or the rational nature. Because of the different understanding of the human nature, the western ethical theories were pluralistic and showed in the polemical statement. These theories all considered the abstract, one-sided, fixed and short of society man as the ethical starting point. That decided the failure of moral's rational expounding.Marx based his ethical foundation on realistic man and personal real-life. He sought human nature foundation in existent practice and thought that human nature was the unity of natural and spiritual attribute; and the unity of personal and social attribute. Marx based the theory of human nature on materialist conception of history and revealed man's feeling and spiritual needs. The human nature theory was concrete because of basing on real-life. That was the basic difference from the traditional ethics.The traditional ethics abstractly understood man because they didn't understand existent practice. Marx understood man and ethical foundation in personal real-life mode, namely"existent practice", which made the ethical theory go a real road and realize the revolution in the ethical history. The second section was about establishing ethical freedom premise among the decision-making acts. Ethics was a kind of existent mode about man. Man generally established some good as aim to seek and lived a moral life, so man must judge and chose among the kinds of possibilities. Freedom was the cause that man could judge, choose and standardize self's activities, and it was the subject's capacity evident. Freedom was the ethical premise so that the ethics could not exist without it. When establishing ethical freedom premise, freedom was formulated with the activity choice according to moral, self-discipline by the will, self-realization of the ethical entity or realizing personal maximum interest. These all formulated a rational or perceptual premise for freedom's realizing in advance. Marx thought that freedom shouldn't be limited by someone theory and it was the self-creating. Freedom was a creative process in which show continuous acting between subject and object, subject and subject. The process during which subject realized the combination with the external necessity, changed not only the necessity but also subject. So freedom was in the continuous acting state. Comparing with the traditional freedom theory, Marx's freedom was studied in the real personal activity. In Marx's thought, freedom existed not only in subject's consciousness but also in labor. So we shall study not only the freedom labor but also the labor's emancipating. Marx's thought had not only the real basis but also deep intension and original visual angle, namely economic visual angel, time visual angel and existent and ontology visual angel.The third section was about exploring ethical real road in history practice. The ethical exploration had a great change in Marx who found a real, practical and creative road to realize ethical ideal. Aristotle was the first one studying ethical practice and paid attention to studying concrete practice. Although he put forward that the practice itself was the aim, he didn't reflect philosophically and stop on experience. Kant limited the ethical practice to noumnon region and regarded the ethical practice as metaphysics. So that the practice was lose contact with reality. The practice was a pure, and moral duty practice. Hegel studied practice in history visual and put firstly forward with the concept of labor practice. Because of the absolute spirit, his practice was only an abstract and spiritual moral practice. Utilitarian made the standard of ethical practice with the expected activity result. Their practice was a pure satisfaction of personal needs. Marx studied practice during the practice history process. He thought that we should explain the ethical problems only with the theory foundation of historical materialism, methodology support of political economy critique. The traditional ethics spoke in defense of the moral of the capitalist class. They only concerned with the personal interest or moral feeling of subject's inner world. In the view of Marx, the practice was not only the theoretical reasoning but also the concern with the real personal life and the ideal pursuing. The real practical study should begin from personal real material work. Only in this way the practice can have reality. The goal of Marx's ethical practice was to seek the existent mode according with human nature and to realize the full development of man.The fourth section was that achieving the ethical goal of the good state through freedom and emancipation. Good was always the human pursuit and was the ideal realm of the ethics. The understanding of good was different for different philosopher in different era. If all the ethical theories show loving care for man, Marx's ethics showed loving care for mankind. This was the particular of Marx's ethics. In the view of Marx, the good was the freedom and emancipation of mankind. Aristotle thought the good was the activity according to moral. Utilitarian thought the good was the maximum well-being for most people. Kant thought the good was self-discipline of the good will. Marx didn't agree with these. He thought the good was the emancipation of the joint community in which should be established on everyone's freedom and not be divorced from the emancipation of the joint community. They were jointed tightly. Marx tried the best to realize the good ideal in the real-life. He achieved the combination with the good of everyone and mankind and realized the change from the absolute universality, the subject relativity of the good to the social historical significance, and from the formalized good to good's institution arrangement. Marx started the ethical critique and reform from the real-life and made the good having the substantive content and guarantee, which made his good the highest ethical ideal realm.