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An Interpretation On Marx's Moral Theory

Posted on:2009-10-30Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:H M QuFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360245964466Subject:Marxist philosophy
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My aim in this thesis is to reinterpret Marx's moral theory. In my opinion, the possibility of a successful interpretation relies on a suitable perspective. I make a survey of the history of interpreting Marx's moral theory in order to find out some research clues and to get a useful way in solving the focal problems. After a serious examination, I realize that only when the originality and revolutionary change in Marxian philosophy being discovered, can we find an effective way in interpreting Marx's moral theory.I divide the history of interpreting Marx's moral theory into three sequential phases. The 1890s saw the beginning of the first phase. It ended in 1938. In this phase, people regarded historical materialism as merely a set of scientific principles or impersonal doctrines. Accordingly, it was concluded that there is no moral element in Marx's thought. The following 30 years after 1938 saw the second phase of research on Marx's moral philosophy, during which most theorists realized the danger of consolidating Marxism into a rigid doctrine. With the publication of Marx's early works, especially the Paris Manuscripts and the German Ideology, People discovered that Marx did show his mind to morality in his early years. Thus, the debate on Marx's moral philosophy was polarized by two schools, the Marxist humanists and the scientific Marxists. The former maintains that the core of Marx's thought is of Humanism, while the latter asserts that only with the discovery of historical materialism can Marxism reach a scientific level. Since the mid of 1970s, research on Marx's moral philosophy entered the third phase and took on a multi-polar appearance. Quite a few scholars realized that it is vital to look for the ethical foundation of Marx's thought from the theory of historical materialism. Two pieces of inspiration are showed in analyzing the history of Marx's moral philosophy. On the one hand, focal problems in each phase are presented, which is just the ones that I hope to solve; on the other hand, I find that research on Marx's moral theory entangled with research on historical materialism all the time. Moreover, with our understanding on historical materialism getting deeper and deeper, the idea to solve the paradox on Marx's moral philosophy is getting clearer and clearer. In a word, the aforementioned research indicates that we can find a suitable way of interpreting Marx's moral theory on the basis of historical materialism.However, such a clue can be used only when the real sense of historical materialism is grasped. Based on the plentiful outgrowth of Marxist research in contemporary Chinese academy, I assert that in Marx's materialist concept of history, there is not only a scientific understanding on social law presented, but also a new kind of viewpoint on philosophy and the world implied. With the foundation of historical materialism, Marx achieves a revolutionary change in philosophical thinking mode.Both the rereading on Marx's works and the reconstruct on Marx's theoretical logic indicate the same presupposition that regarding historical materialism as Marx's new concept of philosophy and world view is a fresh developing point in Marxist research in order to emphasize Marx's opposition to all kinds of traditional materialism and idealism.By rereading Marx's literature, I state that Marx achieves a revolutionary change in philosophical principle and a great turning in examining relation of materialism and humanism in the year of 1845. In the Paris Manuscripts, Marx interprets historical phenomena with the theory of human nature, which in essence does not exceed the bound of traditional philosophy. Since Marx can not unite the materialistic idea based on Naturalistic philosophy and the humanistic idea based on abstract human nature, the antinomy of materialism and humanism which puzzles philosophers preceding Marx for many years can not be solved by Marx, either. But in the German Ideology, Marx interprets man and his activity on the basis of human subsistence, which indicates that Marx does not go on the same road with his forerunners, but set up a new-brand philosophical thinking mode. What Marx achieves is philosophy on human subsistence, which is expressed in historical materialism. Historical materialism in this sense is social materialism which can be only understood explicitly in history. And historical materialism is some kind of scientific theory concerning on social being and social consciousness, which solve the antinomy of materialism and humanism successfully.By analyzing the theoretical logic of Marxian thought, I realize that both the apparently scientific theory and the latently philosophical principle are important in it. Before Marx, all kinds of materialists and idealists share the same idea in conception of history, that is, the final aim of historical change can be found out only in the changeable consciousness of human beings. However, Marx tells us the real basis of history, which is the directly material production for human life. Then why is it necessary for man to produce his material life? That's the further question that needs to be answered when Marx finds the scientific law of social development. The premise more prior to human production is that man must be in a position to live. Such a premise is the first premise for all social existence and social history as well. Man has to satisfy his need for subsistence, and then works on other things. Once activities for other aim conflict with activities for subsistence, they have to give place to the pursuit for the latter. In Marxian thought, on the one hand, Marx asserts that the pursuit for subsistence plays the most important role in life with the finding of law in historical development; on the other hand, Marx believes that social law owes to human subsistence and is caused by the latter. Therefore, Marx's conception of history is not only the law of social development, but also the philosophical principle of human subsistence. The aforementioned two sides rely on each other.With the above two kinds of justification, historical materialism in Marx's idea is never a result of theory on history adding to theory on materialism. That is to say, Marx's philosophy is neither the sum of dialectical materialism as world view and historical materialism as concept of history, which is held the orthodox Marxists, nor the mixture of philosophical theory on man and scientific law on history, which is insisted by some western Marxists. Rather, it is the dialectical unification of materialism and humanism in history. In this sense, Materialism and humanism united in history, which are based on the new kind of thinking mode are actually the unification of history's human dimension and scientific dimension, in which the ideality of human values and the reality of man's subsistence fuse together, and also the necessity of historical law and the aim of human live come into one thing. I call the new concept of philosophy implied in historical materialism the historical viewpoint. In detail, the historical viewpoint means that Marx starts a fresh way of interpreting relation of man -nature and man-man from the basis of social history. It is a new set of philosophical principles which gets its starting point from the real man and his subsistence.Firstly, the historical viewpoint is helpful to comprehend the revolutionary change that Marx achieves in understanding man. From the historical viewpoint, man's subsistence takes on its historicity, which concretely is about the condition, process and sociality of subsistence and the essence of man changes with his really material foundation changed. That is, human nature is not definite, ready-made and eternal any more. Man in Marx's eye is created and changed with the development of history. Although Marx admits the superiority of external world to man and the existence of common character in man, Marx does not concern too much on this aspect. What Marx cares most is human subsistence and its diversity. In Marx's idea, the relation of mind and matter can reach its unity only in history. Likewise, only in history can human subsistence and its reality and diversity present. The common character of human beings is not deserved to paying too much attention for its inability in understanding man's real life. I therefore emphasize that only in history can the interactions of man-nature and man-man unite, Man's natural attribute and social attribute unite, and nature and history which are apart in Feuerbach's philosophy unite.Secondly, the historical viewpoint is useful in solving the paradoxes in Marx's moral theory, and in understanding its significance. By analyzing the three phases of the research on Marx's moral theory, I conclude the paradox of Marx's moral theory in appearance into three aspects. They are firstly opposition between humanistic idea which is based on the abstract human nature and historical materialism as scientific law, secondly, antinomy between moral condemning on exploitation happened in the capitalist society and morality which is regarded as outcome of ideology, and thirdly contradiction between bourgeois morality and proletariat morality. Among the above three aspects, the first one is the most important one which determine the being of the other two. By reexamining on significance and position of historical materialism in Marxian philosophy, we find that it is historical materialism that is the key point to solve the aforementioned paradoxes. In the whole life of Marx, he always pays concerns intensively on the inhuman conditions that man is faced with in his subsistence, but since Marx changes his concept of philosophy in the German Ideology, he reached a totally different level in understanding man and his subsistence. Hence, it is unwise to interpret Marx's moral theory and to denounce historical materialism as a theoretical regradation in the development of Marxian thought according to the humanistic idea expressed in the Paris Manuscripts, nor it is suitable to Marx's own logic to highlighting the scientificity of historical materialism by eliminating the humanistic dimension in Marx's thought. From the historical viewpoint, Marxian humanism is a neo-humanism in understanding man, which helps to solve the paradox of two Marx and to infer that Marx's moral theory is about the theoretical evaluation on whether a kind of social institution is moral or not.Finally, the historical viewpoint can supply us with a newly theoretical angle in thinking about contemporary ethical theory and in evaluating practical problems.To sum up, to understand the originality and revolutionary change in Marx's thought guarantees the possibility of interpreting Mar's moral theory in its real sense. Based on the philosophical principle of human subsistence implied in historical materialism, we can evaluate the property of Marx's theoretical change correctly, explain Marx's moral theory reasonably, and advance the research of contemporary ethics into a higher degree.
Keywords/Search Tags:Historical Materialism, Marx's Moral Theory, the Real Man, Subsistence
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