hey everyone welcome to the Minerva

podcast it is a rather common view that

what is immoral today will be just as

immoral in the future philosophers such

as Hegel or marks see this very

differently though David Marchbanks this

research focuses on the theories of

ideology and the implications for

morality in Marx and post Marxism he

thinks that ethical norms are not

transcendent but are already there

embodied within our social practice

critique he thinks is the holding to

account of practice to its professed

ideals some people think that morality

is a set of rules or duties which have

always been true and will always be true

Hegel Feuerbach and Marx disagree with

this let's start with Hegel

why does he think that morality is not

at all something fixed

well Hegel sees ethical values social

and historical products he sees history

of philosophy as being at the core of

philosophy we can't understand

philosophy without history he thinks

there are no permanent single moral

questions or answers for that matter

morality is not a matter of abstract

principles but have forms of what he

calls it ich kite it translates as

ethical life as it ER meaning custom

literally so the ethical norms are

embodied concretely in social and

historical forms of practice and

institutions to understand this more

fully it might be helpful to understand

how Hegel sees reason reason we often

think of as some kind of universal human

faculty where we can just access some a

historical truths outside of forms of

practice that's how a lot of

enlightenment philosophy sees it Hegel

disagrees Hegel sees reason as in the

world so it's not a transcendent force

outside of history outside of society

outside of practice but it's rather

something embodied within human action

within practice therefore within

specific forms of society so Hegel uses

the term Guice which translates roughly

as spirit to denote a kind of collective

consciousness embodied in society and

its forms of practice Geist is a kind of

creative activity

a creative energy which strives to

become self-conscious of itself as

spirit and history Hegel thinks is

they're coming to self-consciousness of

this spirit it's a kind of inter

subjective collective consciousness a

bit like the way we talk about the

spirit of a nation for example it's

something which isn't individual it's

not particular to an individual but is

rather shared into subjective and

collective a kind of living soul of the

world or at least of the particular

society in question Hegel sees reason

therefore as a spirit as embodied in the

world in the forms of practice

so therefore the products of reason

things you know we think about are

therefore also part of part of the

social historical world and not apart

from it and I suppose this alone should

make us critical of the morality that we

have today if it's really just a product

of society exactly and as we come to

Marx will see exactly why this insight

should lead us to be critical and not

just of forms of morality but it was so

off the society that give rise to it and

we'll see this when we turn to throw it

back and particularly Marx okay let's

turn to Feuerbach he comes along and

takes over Hegel's idea of alienation

for Hegel that was an alienation from

the spirit
Farber focuses much more on humans

themselves what kind of alienation is he

concerned with yes boy buck comes to

this idea of alienation which Marx

really takes forward from for for buck

alienation is primarily a matter of

religious consciousness whereas Hegel

had seen alienation as just a necessary

part in the self-development the self

realization of spirit just a necessary

stage in history for abarca sees it as

something rather more negative

alienation for phobic is the

misrecognition

of our own essence of our own human

qualities and powers as something alien

something literally external to us

experienced as something separate from

us and not our own so for the far back

we misunderstand our own essence we

externalize it and project it

a lien above us so we literally bow down

before our own creations and religion is

is the paradigm here so for for Berk the

the human essence is inverted alienated

and projected as something other than

human something inhuman something

supernatural for Berk rights God is the

highest subjectivity of man abstracted

from himself he says religion is the dis

uniting of man from himself he sets God

before him as the antithesis of himself

but actually you know God isn't

something separate for himself God is

just our own powers our own qualities

which we don't realize our own and this

is the essence of alienation for firebug

this misrecognition of what our own

powers misunderstood and rejected as a

supernatural so phobic was a humanist

who sought to can recover this human

essence if only we could understand that

these supernatural qualities aren't

supernatural at all but are actually our

own products which we are bowing down

before if any we could understand that

God didn't make man rather man made God

then we could recover ourselves and be

free of this alienation

okay so feuerbach says that what is true

of God is actually true of ourselves and

then Marx combines this view with Hegel

to come up with his own theory of

morality yes or at least his own

approach to morality I'm not sure we can

call it a theory certainly Marx combines

the Hegelian insights that ethics

ethical values are embodied their social

and historical products and a concrete

they're not some kind of trans

historical concepts outside of history

he combines this with four bucks idea of

alienation but with a particular twist

whereas feuerbach only sees alienation

and religious alienation as something a

kind of mistake of human consciousness

Marx traces it to what he sees as its

material basis so Marx thinks that what

he calls force consciousness this idea

of bowing down before our own creations

and worshipping our own nature with

something external

he thinks this has a as a causal story

here he thinks that this alienation has

its roots in a particular form of

society so alienation has its basis in

the real state of things Marx says a

society that's entrapped by religious

illusions is not really mistaken it's a

society that has need of this illusion

he writes very nicely the religious

sentiment is itself a social product so

he says to abolish religion as the

illusory happiness of the people is to

demand their real happiness the demand

to give up illusions about existing

state of affairs is the demand to give

up a state of affairs which needs

illusions the criticism of religion is

therefore an embryo the criticism of the

veil of Tears the halo of which is

religion so overcoming alienation can't

just be a matter of changing

consciousness thinking correctly we

can't just replace this religion with a

humanistic religion which is what phobic

ultimately does he tries to replace the

prevailing form of religion Christianity

with a kind of humanistic religion based

on happiness and particularly based

around the IU relationship if we

discover that our individual happiness

depends on the happiness of another for

a bug thinks we can just become this

alienation for many humanistic religion

Marx says this is not possible because

the inversion the taking of our own

essences and qualities as something

supernatural has a real basis a material

basis in the way that society is

organized in the prevailing forms of

practice so if this religious self

alienation has a material basis we can't

just give it up without actually

understanding the society so it turns

the attention of philosophy not to

consciousness but to the way the world

is and Marx identifies several causes of

this alienation

there's the division of labor basically

the division of labor into classes so

some people work some people don't work

Marx thinks some people own the means of

production other people who don't own

any means of production have to sell the

labor in order to to what

to live basically also he identifies the

production for the market economy as a

source of alienation because we no

longer produce for each other as human

beings we produce in an inhuman way we

don't understand where our products go

we just produced for some people we

never even meet and there's a mediation

where we don't understand the human

relation because production is a human

relation but we experience it in an

inhuman way so with this material basis

of alienation Marx combines this with

the Galen insight the ethical norms are

social and historical products do you

get to the conclusion that if if

morality is a matter of something social

historical and if this society from

which morality emerges is something

which is materially alienated not just

misunderstood but actually really in as

contradictions really is inhuman in some

sense then the morality of prevailing

society will also be to a large extent

inhuman and distorted in history so Marx

is suspicious of a lot of morality

although mark sees communism as clearly

based in some kind of ethical norms he's

very suspicious of much moral talk he

often dismisses moral ideas he says talk

of morality and justice in particular is

just ideological nonsense that has no

relevance at all to the workers

interests and their struggle for

communism basically so yeah putting the

bagel with feuerbach marx basically gets

the conclusion that at least much of our

morality is a matter of distortion and

illusion ok so Marx is criticizing

morality but where does he take his

critique from because he too is living

in the context of a society and a

certain stage in history which according

to his own theory determines his values

so how does he manage to go beyond this

where does he take the values from which

he then uses to criticize the current

system and morality yes well this is a

fundamental problem in Marxist theory

and there's very various different ways

people have understood this the problem

of ideology is exactly that that if

ethical norms are largely distorted or

serves the ruling class or legitimize

the status quo then where can we get the

moral basis of socialism from if you

know Marx denies a trans historical

realm of ethical truths and clearly

socialism isn't some absolute moral

ideal so where does it come from

there are three or at least three

different routes that people have taken

here and trying to understand Marx and

also not just understand what Marx

thinks but also understand how Marxists

or people influenced by Marx today could

understand this too so the first one the

first option would just be to say that

he's plain inconsistent and this is a

route taken by what often called

analytical Marxists that is Marxists in

the analytical tradition who basically

follow a sort of liberal Enlightenment

idea of morality and say the Mocs all

not have rejected transhistorical moral

truths they say that moral values must

be transcendent they must not be

historical and social products and since

Marx rejects these moral absolutes his

ethical critique fails because he has

he's undercut his own norms of critique

he's just plain inconsistent the second

route is to say that Marx rejects

morality entirely but his critique is

non moral so his critique might be based

on certain values and norms which are

not moral the idea is they could be

based in a kind of conception of the

human good which has no idea of morality

but rather what is good for us so it

could in that sense be seen as some

people might say it's ethical without

being moral other people want to go even

further and say no the critique is based

and we can understand this critique is

based in things like

efficiency and they you know there's a

rational reason for preferring socialism

to

listen um the third option is to say

that Marxist critique is to use Hegelian

language imminent and this is the

interpretation that I favor and I'll

explain it a bit more in in detail but

the basic idea is that although the

norms which Marx uses to criticize

capitalist society come from capita

society and are not somehow moral

absolutes outside of history outside of

society they are nonetheless critical so

values and norms which are embodied in

present forms of practice have a

potential which outruns their

realization by that practice so it turns

out that these ideals which are produced

by a particular form society nonetheless

can be critical of that society because

the prevailing forms of practice the

institutions of that society failed to

fully live up to their own ideals so

imminent critique identifies a

discordance between reality and the

ideals that it professes to say it

doesn't actually live up to its own

ideals and does the same thing happen

when he criticizes justice yes I think

so and again there's a big debate on

Marx and justice Marx whenever he talks

about justice he's most of the time very

disparaging of the idea he talks about

his ideological nonsense as obsolete

verbal rubbish in one case and he says

in one place he was moved to laughter

that a thought that political economy

could be reduced to what all about to

justice so clearly he didn't think much

of the term himself and he didn't like

using it you in fact in a letter to her

angles he wrote that I was obliged to

insert two phrases about duty and right

into the preamble to the rules of the

first international and also about truth

morality and justice but he says these

are placed in such a way they can do no

harm so clearly he doesn't think much of

justice however on the other hand Marx

also describes exploitation as theft and

as a robbery he talks about the theft of

surplus labour time he says in the

contract between the worker in the

capital

the capitalist steals from the worker

because the worker produces far more

than they get back in terms of the wage

so they produce a surplus which the

capitalist steals and he is quite free

and using language of theft robbery

embezzlement exchange of equivalent with

without equivalent so a lot of writers

have suggested well there's a clearly a

critique of injustice here how can we

talk about theft and robbery in a way

that doesn't suggest injustice right

it suggests that some right has been has

been violated suggest that the workers

who owned this product this surplus

which is going to the capitalists

belongs rightfully to the workers so

again we have an apparent inconsistency

Marx rejects justice yet also seems to

need a conception of justice to talk

about exploitation as robbery I think

the only way we can make sense

adequately of what Marx is doing in a

way that it's both charitable to Marx

but also but also fair I think is to

understand his critique of justice in

the same way as his general critique of

moral ideas generally and his own his

own idea of how ethical norms can be

justified which is only imminently or

internally following Hegel so Marx says

that the capitalist steals from the

worker I suggest this means not that

there are some trans historical

principles of justice whereby the worker

has an absolute right to the product the

surplus which they produce which the

capless steals rather I think we can

understand is meaning that capitalism in

a sense violates its own ideals because

capitalism values equality mark says

that on the surface it seems that the

deal between the capitalist and the

worker satisfies this demand by they

exchange equivalent for equivalent the

worker exchanges their labor power in

return for a wage it all seems fine he

describes this quite nicely is on the

surface the the level of exchange he

says there alone rule freedom and

equality and property but when we

penetrate this surface level what looks

to be a fair in equal exchange we

realize that the the worker has nothing

to sell but their labour the capitalist

has ownership of means of production

it's not an equal bargaining

relationship therefore the outcome is

not an equal one but one of forced

labour mark says the labourer is forced

to work for the capitalist forced to

produce this surplus which then is taken

away by force so understanding

justice in terms of imminent or internal

critique means we can hold as I think

Marx does hold capitalism to account to

its own ideals so that on the surface

where it looks like an exchange that's

equal turns out to be unequal an

exchange which looks to be free turns

out to be forced then we can understand

Marx's critique of capitalist injustice

in a way which doesn't mean giving up on

the Hegelian insights that ideas of

justice of morality are social

historical products which doesn't mean

you know going back to a kind of

enlightenment liberalism where these

ideals have to be trans historical

outside of society outside of history if

Marx is right about values being amazing

society if he's right about his analysis

of society and the economy how can his

predictions which are related to that be

mostly wrong he said that the income gap

between capitalists and workers will

increase he said that more and more

independent producers will be forced

down into the proletariat he said that

the wage of a worker will remain at

subsistence level that the rate of

profit will fall that capitalism will

collapse because of its internal

contradictions that the revolutions will

occur in the most industrially advanced

countries all that clearly didn't happen

umm.yeah Marx clearly was a better

critic than he was a prophet as he say

most a lot of his predictions just have

been widely off the mark I think it'd be

too quick to conclude therefore his

analysis

was wrong certainly not all of it was

right had I think but I think it'd be

too quick to rule it all out because of

these predictions um I think we need to

understand that these predictions were

based on his very detailed empirical

analysis of capitalism as it was at that

time he was making these predictions on

the basis of current trends the tendency

of the rate of profit to fall for

example is something which isn't

peculiar to Marx in fact a lot of

political economists had been worried

about this it was only marks that could

explain it so he thought so a lot of the

predictions Marx made were based in zuv

trends at the time there were much you

know stretch much further beyond just

Marx it's clear that a lot of them have

just been false I think it's fair to say

he couldn't have imagined the the

welfare state and this was a big problem

for Marxist in the twentieth century to

understand the ideology how the workers

had been won over into capitalism

basically and the answer someone gave

was that the welfare state had been a

kind of compromise the Marx hadn't

envisaged that had lessened the class

battle by giving a welfare state to the

workers particularly after the Second

World War the idea that you know the

workers could be placated in some sense

with this welfare state this was an

explanation that some Marxist in the

twentieth century had given I think

there are a lot of predictions of Marx's

particularly when it comes to the

communism I think some of his

predictions about capitalism I think can

still be held up I mean although he

thought capitalism would fail as a

result of its own internal

contradictions and he assumed that he

would inevitably give rise to the

communism

that's clearly been proved false I think

at least so far but I think it'd be

rather quick to give up on the idea of

crisis I mean the current crisis we're

going to at the moment the current

economic crisis has caused quite a few

people I think to return to Marx to

understand at least how he understood

how he saw crisis as at the heart of

capitalism crisis wasn't an accident

for Marx crisis was the essence of

capitalism but he clearly seems to have

been far too optimistic in thinking that

this crisis would inevitably lead to the

dissolution of the capitalist order and

the creation of a communist one and

certainly today it seems even if there

there are you know real crises in

capitalism at least in the West there

seems to be lacking the the force that

Marx thought was bring about communism

and this is probably one of the

predictions which is most most wrong I

guess that the the working class hasn't

become a more unified whole that has

understood its position and come to

oppose the capitalist class we haven't

seen the division of society into two

opposing camps as Marx puts it nicely in

the Communist Manifesto workers and

capitalists so the agency that Marx

thought would bring about communism they

lead the working class the proletariat

just doesn't seem to be what Marx

thought it would be so I think we can

conclude that Marx wasn't right about

quite a quite a few things in his

analysis of CAP lism I think he was an

excellent critic but not always the best

he profit he just seemed to have got

things wrong but as I said I think it's

more a case of his generalizations his

predictions were based on

generalizations of current trends which

today just don't obtain but I think this

needs to challenge the imminent form of

criticism because although capitalist

society is clearly not what Marx thought

it would be 150 years on since Marx

we're not living in the world that I

think Marx thought would be living in

that how much is true but it's also true

I think that the world is still one

which is susceptible to a lot of Marx's

critique the exploitation has not

lessened particularly if we look at

international scale exploitation is

still a very real issue alienation does

not seem to have lessened in fact if you

just look at I think number of people on

the medication fur for suppose it's

mental illness such as depression I

think it's very clear that alienation in

in a sense probably that is wider than

Marx talked about

and yet still innocence which also has

has links with the way Marx talks about

alienation alienation is clearly also a

real fact and has not lessened so so

long as exploitation and alienation

continue to be real problems I think

that although Marx's empirical analysis

is not maybe as useful as he hoped it

would be it's still I think gets to the

heart of of capitalism and some of the

problems in capitalism and even if we

don't have any confidence in Marx's

predictions or his his ideas about

communism inevitably following

capitalism and its crises I think we can

still see his criticisms of exploitation

of alienation of the problems of

capitalism I think we can still see his

critique as of paramount importance for

today if we can have no faith in his

solutions do you think that there is

anything else we can learn from him are

there any values that are still relevant

today absolutely I've been talking about

exploitation and alienation and the

critiques the Marx gives of these

phenomena clearly rest on certain values

and given the sort of critique Marx

offers which I've suggested in turn or

eminent critique these values if they

are as they must have some real material

existence in you know there must be been

embodied concretely in present forms of

social practice and I think they still

are so take exploitation to start off

with exploitation as I've already noted

rests on an idea of robbery in some

sense of what we could call injustice

even if we don't want to say that's a

trans historical norm so the critique of

exploitation of theft rests on a notion

of the quality in some sense so the idea

is that as I said the the norm which

capitalism claim is to live up to

equality turns out to be not deceptive

so we can immediately conclude that Marx

values equality in a more full

substantive sense than the what

whose bourgeois tree quality which is

claimed to be satisfied by the contract

between the worker and the capitalist

and trends in the 20th century and and

more recently in moral philosophy and

more Germany I think have moved to a

more full substantive nation of equality

so the first notions of equality were

fairly informal the idea of being equal

before the law for example or equality

of opportunity meaning just that people

shouldn't be and bar there should be no

real restrictions but I think a lot of

people now have accepted that equality

goes beyond this purely full idea so if

we talk about equality of opportunity we

tend to mean not just the absence of

formal restrictions but also a kind of

not leveling down but a sense in which

that the accidents of birth the

contingencies which affect our lives so

greatly and for which we can take no

responsibility ought to be in some sense

mitigated so that if someone's born

disabled for example they ought to not

have less less life chances just because

they happen to be disabled which is

nothing they have chosen so even the

notion of equality of opportunity now

extends beyond that purely formal sense

so we talk about equality as an idea

where people are not limited by things

outside of their control and I think

this is basically Marx's critique of

capitalist equality that capitis

equality is purely formal if Marx's

critique is right if he's right in his

descriptions of exploitation then it's

clear that's you know we have a notion

when we're already committed to a notion

of equality which is not realist I think

that's a fundamental value and norm

which is very still very much relevant

today and which I think calls for a

rather different social arrangement it

may be not some of those are vague

things Marx said about communism and

Marx was notoriously vague

most of his writing was dedicated to

capitalism rather than communism but

still I think there's a notion of

equality which is which is important

there also alienation the critique of

alienation similarly rests on a value or

norm which is I think still very

relevant today or several actually

several norms the idea of alienation for

Marx has several different dimensions

and were alienated from our products so

the worker produces something but it's

not there they produce for someone else

they're forced through the need to

survive to produce for someone else

there we're also alienated from our

productive activity which for Marx's are

essentially human capacity of

essentially human essence basically our

human essence is to be productive

creative beings and the moves Marx has

produced but they don't produce

consciously they're not creative also

we're a lien ated from each other mark

six were alienated from community so we

have again here some values which I

think are still very relevant community

for one thing also the notion of

production being human being consciously

and collectively controlled Marx is

basically committed to a notion of

freedom which is rather like the Kantian

idea of autonomy so Marx thinks before

capitalism we were largely held hostage

by the blind forces of nature the

advance of capitalism is it frees us

from this from these blind forces of

nature but we're now also forced you

know we're now all unfree in the sense

that we are ruled by equally blind

forces but of our own creation so in

production for a market economy

production is not human because we don't

see the result of our production we

don't produce for other human beings we

produce for an inhuman market we're

separated the way money works furthers

this separation and we see ourselves as

producing things which have a value in

themselves rather than as a part of a

wider human relationship so this value

of freedom and autonomy and the idea

that we ought to be collectively

rationally consciously controlling our

own products rather than

ruled by them is also I think a core

value which is rooted in present

practice and also is still highly

relevant for the critique of present

practice even if it might not be the

rather romantic ideals of communism the

Marx often talks about it's ironic we

talk about equality about freedom that's

so far from what we have seen in states

that claimed to be communist absolutely

I think yeah whenever we talk about Marx

it's important to differentiate to

distinguish him from the various regimes

of you know held his name and wave his

banner Marx clearly I think would have

been appalled by the things that have

been done in his name Marx's values are

very much you know freedom democracy as

well and Marx was a Democrat so when we

talk about Marxism it's important to

distinguish the theoretical Marx I

suppose from the the real the actual

existing Marxist states or so-called

Marxist states as a Democrat and as

someone who valued freedom it's it's

clear I think the Marx would have never

have supported so much of what's been

done under his name that said I think

it's a little bit too easy to just say

that communism is an ethical norm and

has nothing to do whatsoever with with

these so-called Marxist states although

Marx clearly would not have supported

them as someone who values democracy

freedom I think it's very clear Marx

wouldn't have supported the Soviet Union

China etc and all the other states

around the world came to be Marxist I

think it's also a bit too easy for some

Marxist to say oh it's just got nothing

to do with him at all because that's

that risks I think the materialist

approach the Marxist that risks making

communism a kind of moral absolute which

stands outside of practice which as I've

said before is I think antithetical to

Marxist approach Marx follows Hegel in

seeing these things as social and

historical so on the one hand these

so-called Marxist states clearly did not

embody the values that Marx Marx had on

the other hand it's too quick to just

say they're nothing to do with it's

rather I think Marxists or people who

claim to be Marxists or poly Marx are

inspired by Marx I think need to study

these societies more closely to

understand how that transition happened

because Marx is always clear that

communism was supposed to be the real

movement of things not an ideal which is

brought to bear on reality so if what

happened was so far from Marx's ideas I

think Marxists need to really study that

and understand what happened rather than

just dismiss it as in an aberration as

something completely unrelated to Marx's

thanks to David Marchbanks for the

interview and thank you for listening to

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