Marxist ethics is a doctrine ofmorality andethics that is based on, or derived from,Marxist philosophy. Marx did not directly write about ethical issues and has often been portrayed by subsequent Marxists as adescriptive philosopher rather than amoralist.[1] Despite this, manyMarxist theoreticians have sought to develop often conflicting systems ofnormative ethics based around the principles ofhistorical anddialectical materialism, andMarx's analysis of thecapitalist mode of production.
The officialSoviet interpretation of Marx's writings,Marxism–Leninism, holds that morality, like other forms ofideology, is of a class character and is manifested in people's behavior in different ways throughout different historical conditions in accordance with the interests of what classes or social strata a person occupies.[2]: 47
The main methodological principles of Marxist-Leninist ethics arematerialism anddialectics. Marxist–Leninist ethics is materialist: the ideals, standards and virtues prevailing in society are interpreted as a reflection of actually existing interpersonal (value) relations, an expression of interests and requirements of social groups and classes. Morality is not reduced to an ethical ideology that has isolated itself from the world and lays claim to absolute value. Marxist ethics describes morality as a property of one's behavior conditioned by social and historical existence as those moral values that bring together (or force apart) living individuals.
Marxist–Leninist ethics is dialectical: it maintains that like morality as a whole, each of its manifestations, each standard, and virtue, is in perpetual motion, emerging, developing, disappearing, passing from one qualitative state to another. Torn out of the concrete historical process, morality in general simply does not exist. Each type of morality is socially and historically conditioned—this is the fundamental tenet of Marxist ethics. The objective core of morality conveys the character of definitesocial relations—relations of ownership of themeans of production, the interaction of the various classes and social groups and the forms of distribution and exchange. It follows from this that morality has class content. If the nature of social bonds determines the essence of morality (and in a class society these bonds manifest themselves, first and foremost, in the relations between classes), then the morality reflecting them has a class stamp.
Any conception ofhuman rights, to the Marxist-Leninist, are viewed asconceptualconstructs granted to the individual by the emergent ideology of the collective. As a result, theSoviet state's treatment of human rights was very different fromconceptions prevalent in the West. The state was considered to be the source ofhuman rights, conditionally granted to the individual, whereas Western law claimed the opposite.[3] Therefore, the Soviet legal system regardedlaw as an arm of politics and courts as agencies of the government.[4] Extensiveextra-judiciary powers were given to theSoviet secret police agencies and in practice, there was virtually noseparation of powers.
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in turn needs to be justified. From the Marxist point of view, which expresses the historical interests of the proletariat, the end is justified if it leads to increasing the power of man over nature and to the abolition of the power of man over man.
In 1938, Trotsky had written“Their Morals and Ours” which consisted ofethical polemics in response to criticisms around his actions concerning the Kronstadt rebellion and wider questions posed around the perceived, “amoral” methods of the Bolsheviks. Critics believed these methods seemed to emulate theJesuit maxim that the “ends justifies the means”. Trotsky argued that Marxism situated the foundation of morality as a product of society toserve social interests rather than “eternal moral truths” proclaimed by institutional religions.[6] On the other hand, he regarded it as farcical to assert that an end could justify any criminal means and viewed this to be a distorted representation of the Jesuit maxim. Instead, Trotsky believed that the means and ends frequently “exchanged places” as whendemocracy is sought by the working class as an instrument to actualize socialism. He also viewed revolution to be deducible from the laws of the development and primarily theclass struggle but this did not mean all means are permissible.[7]
In contrast, adherents ofMarxist humanism consider Marxism to be a normative philosophy grounded in a moral sentiment ofsecular humanism. They reject thepositivistic interpretation of Marxism as an objectivesocial science and instead see it as anideological product ofclass interest in itself with a motivated goal ofhuman emancipation and reconciliation fromalienation. Marxist humanists derive many of the philosophical foundations that they use to orient the human subject's relation to history from theEconomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, which were not published until 1932, well after the canonization of Marx's works by Soviet authorities. These texts provide acritique of capitalism on the basis of its alienating properties from a static conception ofhuman essence. Many humanists also emphasize Marx's doctrine of theunity of theory and practice, and therefore reject the mechanisticdeterminism of Soviet Marxism, providing a space forhuman agency in the development of history, and viewing socialist revolution as the "realization ofphilosophy". For Marxist humanists, Marx articulates a concept ofspecies-being (Gattungswesen), according to which Man's essential nature is that of a free producer, engaging in labor to reproduce his own conditions of life. In capitalist society, and in prior economic arrangements, the freedom of the individual is hindered bywage-labor and emasculatingrelations of production that can only be overcome by participation inclass struggle and eventually,revolution. For humanists, history is the process by which Man acquires more and more control of blind natural forces and produces a humanized natural environment, thus externalizing his inner essence for one another. In a classless society, therefore, ethics thus lose theirclass-relative nature and broad interests become unified amongst all human beings, therefore producing anideologically homogenous system of ethics that contributes to maximize human thriving through the principle ofreciprocity, as is the immaterial purpose of material liberation.
