PROBLEMS OF MARXIST ETHICS (MORALS, LENIN, PHILOSOPHY, COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM)

Marxism is often accused of being morally unacceptable. Such accusations are bolstered by the lack of an explicit ethical component in Marx's work, as well as the Machiavellian tactics used by Marxists in their attempts to gain and maintain power.;I argue that Marx's ethical analysis demonstrates that this situation is not a post-Enlightenment phenomenon, but reflects a problem inherent in the ethics of class societies caused by the conflicting interests which exist in these societies. I also argue that Marxism is a form of Aristotelianism, and contains within it a functional conception of human nature. Marxism also contains an explanation of why human beings cannot systematically behave in ways consistent with this nature except in a socialist society. Lenin attempted to create that society.;Leninism is not an intrinsic failing of Marxism, but a historical phenomenon which took on a Marxist form and was used to attempt to facilitate the historical process in ways consistent with Marx's vision of history and human nature. Although Marxism does have its failings, most notably its description of a historical process which inevitably results in socialism, Marxist ethical theory provides an important conceptual context within which ethical decision-making in any class-structured society become apparent, as does the realization that the solutions to MacIntyre's ethical crisis are not conceptual but lie in changes in social organization.;Alasdair MacIntyre maintains that the ethical inadequacies of Marxism are particular instances of an ethical crisis which affects all of Western civilization and stems from the replacement of the classical functional definition of human nature by a liberal/modernist one. This transformation, he argues, combined with the Enlightenment secularization of culture, eliminated the possibility of basing ethics on a conception of human nature and thus of any agreement on what the basis of ethical decision-making should be. MacIntyre asserts that the solution to this dilemma must be a form of Aristotelianism, which is the paradigm of a functionalist ethics.