The Research On The Moral Theory Of Analytical Marxism

The school of Analytical Marxism has a wide studying field, which involves many subjects such as philosophy, economics, political science, sociology. Although the objects of most scholars of Analytical Marxism are differrent, they also have a common theoretical theme:moral theory of Marxism. Most scholars of Analytical Marxism Analysis analyzed and studied many topics related to moral theory of Marxism in detail, which involved in justice, equality, freedom, exploitation, ideology, the objectivity of morality, ethical relativism and so on.Wood, Cohen in the perspective of moral relativism and moral universalism had fierce debate on theory of justice of Marxism, but they did not come to consensus. The reason lay in that they didn’t understand historical principle which was used by Marxism in discussing justice. Cohen and Roemer saw equality as the core values of socialism, Roemer pay more attention to equality of opportunity, but Cohen pay more attention to the equality of outcome, the idea of which is more close to the Marxist doctrine. The ultimate goal of Marxist theory is the pursuit of human freedom, Brenkert, Peffer, Lukes realized this point and reconstructed Marxist freedom theory. Brenkert reconstruction Marxist freedom theory early through self-control and self-decision, objectification of relations and community, but later turned to "virtue ethics" concept of freedom, which gradually deviated from the trajectory of freedom of Marxism. Peffer defined freedom of Marxism as opportunities of self-determination, reconstructing the freedom theory through the negative freedom and positive freedom, especially negative freedom is an important development of Marxist theory of freedom. Lukes believes that Marxist freedom was different from narrow concept of freedom of Bentham, but similar to Rousseau’s and Hegel’s broad viewpoint of freedom. Elster, Cohen and Roemer all think that capitalist exploitation is unjust, but their explanation about exploitation is not on the basis of the facts of the theory of surplus value. Therefore, moral judgment, that is,"capitalism exploitation is not just", lacks the objective foundation.Is morality Ideology? Is ideology false consciousness? These two questions are life-and-death matter for Marxist moral theory. Wood and Miller think morality is vision of ideology, thus do deny Marxist moral theory. Nielsen admits that Marx had made judgments like "moral is ideology", but that is about the sociology of morality, rather than moral epistemology claims. That is criticism on the morality of exploiting class, rather than on the morality on the proletariat. Peffer gives Marxist ideology a definition:the theory system that hinders human well-being, or interferes with the amelioration and\or the improvement of the human condition. Needless to say, Nielsen’s and Peffer’s understandings are closer to Marxism than Wood. Marxist doctrine analyzed the ideology through the method of class analysis, criticizing the ruling class’s ideology maintaining their interests and acknowledging the proletarian ideology, which also solve the problem:"morality is ideology" means that Marxism opposed morality. Since Marxist doctrine has the moral theory, does it belong to teleology or deontology? Derek P. H. Allen regards Marxist moral theory as the utilitarianism, but Peffer regards Marxist moral theory as mixed deontology. In fact, both are one-sided interpretations. Marxist moral theory is neither utilitarianism, nor simple deontonogy, but in connection with this two, which contains the dual dimensions of teleology and deontology.Can historical materialism lead to a form of moral relativism? Can historical materialism provide objective basis for moral theory? Peffer, William Shaw, Nielsen get the same answer through research on these two issues, that is, historical materialism can not lead to any form of relativism. However, they have different attitude in historical materialism. William Shaw and Nielsen think that historical materialism is scientific, supporting on it firmly, but Peffer shows pausing attitude. In fact, historical materialism has two dimensions:factual dimension and value dimension. The Marxist doctrine of the facts of the historical development of human society is the basis of evaluating the existing social system, of advocating the better social system in the future. What’s more, factual dimension and value dimension interact and have achieved dialectical unity through the historical principles, as well as practice principle as mediate function. They construct a body of "double spiral type", being applied to study the development of human society, especially to evaluate the capitalist system. Analytical Marxism does not solve the problem of relation between historical materialism and the moral theory, the reasons lies in that it is confined to special method of details analysis, against dialectics, confined to the narrow fact\value dichotomy, relative\absolute dichotomy and dichotomy view of historical materialism and the moral theory. Moreover, there is another important reason:Analytical Marxism forgets the historicism principle and the principle of practice, Which, however, just points out the basic path transcending Analytical Marxism and reconstructing Marxist moral theory from the reverse side.