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Marxist Ethical Theory in the Soviet Union Sovietica MARXIST ETHICAL THEORY IN THE SOVIET UNION SOVIETICA PUBLICATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS OF THE INSTITUTE OF EAST-EUROPEAN STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG/SWITZERLAND AND THE CENTER FOR EAST EUROPE, RUSSIA AND ASIA AT BOSTON COLLEGE AND THE SEMINAR FOR POLITICAL THEOR Y AND PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH Founded by J. M. BOCHENSKI (Fribourg) Edited by T. J. BLAKELEY (Boston), GUIDO KUNG (Fribourg), and NIKOLAUS LOBKOWICZ (Munich) Editorial Board Karl G. Ballestrem (Munich) George L. Kline (Bryn Mawr) Helmut Dahm (Cologne) T. R. Payne (Providence) Richard T. DeGeorge (Kansas) Friedrich Rapp (Berlin) Peter Ehlen (Munich) Andries Sariemijn (Eindhoven) Michael Gagern (Munich) James Scanlan (Columbus) Felix P. Ingold (St. GaZ/) Edward Swiderski (Fribourg) Bernard Jeu (LiZ/e) VOLUME 40 PHILIP T. GRIER Department ofPhilosophy, Northwestern University MARXIST ETHICAL THEORY IN THE SOVIET UNION D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT : HOLLAND I BOSTON: U.S.A. LONDON:ENGLAND library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Grier, Philip T. 1942- Marxist ethical theory in the Soviet Union. (Sovietica ; v. 40) Based on the author's thesis, University of Michigan. Bibliography: p. Includes index. I. Ethics-Russia-History. 2. Communist ethics-History. 3. Philosophy, Russian-History. 4. Values-History. I. Title. II Series. BJ852.G73 171 78-12401 ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9878-0 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9876-6 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-9876-6 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc. Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass. 02043, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1978 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1978 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner To my Mother and Father TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XVIi CHAPTER ONE / MARXISM AND ETHICAL THEORY: A BRIEF HISTORY 1. Introduction 2. Feuerbachian and Marxian humanism 3 3. Engels, Kautsky, and neo-Kantian ethical theory 11 4. Marx and Hegelian ethical theory 31 CHAPTER TWO / SOVIET PHILOSOPHY: THE AMBIGUOUS INHERIT ANCE OF MATERIALISM 40 1. Introduction 40 2. Feuerbachian materialism as a critique of Hegel 41 3. Marxian naturalism and materialism 47 4. Engels, Plekhanov, and Lenin on dialectical materialism 53 5. Dialectical materialism and the critique of dialectical idealism in Soviet thought 60 CHAPTER THREE / THE ORIGINS OF SOVIET ETHICAL THEORY 68 CHAPTER FOUR / ETHICAL THEORY AND ITS OBJECT, MORALITY 86 1. Morality as an aspect of social consciousness 86 2. The science of ethics and its object 97 3. Universal norms and class nonns of morality 106 CHAPTER FIVE / DISCUSSIONS OF VALUE THEORY IN SOVIET MARXISM III 1. The origins of the discussion and the distinction of value from fact III vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 2. Analyses of value II7 3. Value judgments and truth 126 4. Good and evil 130 5. Conclusion: Soviet theories of value and metanormative naturalism 133 CHAPTER SIX / SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 136 1. Social utilitarianism 136 2. The concept of interest 143 3. Duty, responsibility, and freedom 150 4. Patriotism 155 CHAPTER SEVEN / HISTORICAL PROGRESS AND INTRINSIC VALUE 159 1. The problem of a criterion of progress in Soviet philosophy 159 2. The criterion of progress in Marx's philosophy of history 167 3. Philosophy of history and cosmology in Marx 173 4. Cosmos and value, society and progress 181 CHAPTER EIGHT I SOVIET CRITICISMS OF 'BOURGEOIS' ETHICAL THEORY 187 1. Kantian ethics and Soviet deontological theories 187 2. The influence of Hegel on Soviet ethical theory 196 3. The critique of neopositivist ethical theory 205 4. The critique of existentialist ethical theory 210 CHAPTER NINE I CONCLUSIONS 214 REFERENCES 222 APPENDIX 253 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 259 INDEX 272 PREFACE A survey of the intellectual history of Marxism through its several phases and various national adaptations suggests, for any of at least three reasons, that the attempt to provide a widely acceptable summary of 'Marxist ethics' must be an enterprise with little prospect of success. First, a number of prominent Marxists have insisted that Marxism can have no ethics because its status as a science precludes bias toward, or the assumption of, any particular ethical standpoint. On this view it would be no more reasonable to expect an ethics of Marxism than of any other form of social science. Second, basing themselves on the opposite assumption, an equally prominent assortment of Marxist intellectuals have lamented the absence of a coherently developed Maryist ethics as a deficiency which must be remedied.! Third, less com­ monly, Marxism is sometimes alleged to possess no developed ethical theory because it is exclusively committed to advocacy of class egoism on behalf of the proletariat, and is thus rooted in a prudential, not a moral standpoint. 2 The advocacy of proletarian class egoism - or 'revolutionary morality' - may, strictly speaking, constitute an ethical standpoint, but it might be regarded as a peculiar waste of time for a convinced and consistent class egoist to develop precise formulations of his ethical views for the sake of convincing an abstract audience of classless and impartial rational observers which does not happen to exist at present. The phrase 'revolutionary moral­ ity' in the Russian revolutionary period usually implied just such a committed stance and a sharp impatience with verbal disputes over the morality of political actions. The first consideration listed above, that as an empirical science Marxism cannot be understood to contain normative ethical commitments, was a view most widely espoused during the period of the Second International, particu­ larly among intellectual leaders of the German Social Democratic party, such as Karl Kautsky. The emphasis placed upon this view, and the vehemence with which it was defended, can be properly understood only in the context of the larger debate which dominated much of German philosophy during this period between various doctrines of positivism, on the one side, and several versions of neo-Kantianism, on the other. There were protracted dis­ putes over the proper characterization of empirical science, its presupposi- ix x PREFACE tions, and its modes of reasoning. Positivists generally insisted that empirical science offered the only valid source of knowledge, that no explanations in terms of transcendental or supernatural forces were admissible in science, that philosophy possessed no method and no knowledge distinct from the empiri­ cal sciences, and they broadly distrusted anything which might be labelled 'metaphysics' . The neo-Kantians differed among themselves in many respects: some were primarily interested in the transcendental conditions of experience as well as the relation· of the theoretical to the practical uses of reason; others tended to ignore the later parts of the First Critique as well as the Second Critique as exceSSively 'metaphysical', reading Kant primarily as an empiricist epistemol­ ogist. Even so it was often necessary to defend Kant against positivist critiques of his 'idealist' treatment of space and time. Neither Engels nor Kautsky would have identified himself with the posi­ tivists, but both considered themselves enemies of idealism, and critics of certain sorts of metaphysical speculation. Their heavy emphasis on the scientific, anti-metaphysical nature of Marxian socialism dominated the move­ ment at this time, and tended to keep Marxist orthodoxy out of the camp of the neo-Kantians, despite the influence of an articulate minority of neo­ Kantian Marxists within the Party, and Marxist neo-Kantians without. The 'orthodox' in this context were inclined to incorporate discussions of ethics within Marxism only to the extent that ethics itself could be construed as an empirical science. From this perspective, the genealogy of morals according to Darwin struck Kautsky in particular as providing just the right framework for a scientific inquiry into the subject, when supplemented by the tenets of historical mate­ rialism. For many adherents of evolutionary ethics, its greatest attraction lay in the apparent demystification of moral imperatives which resulted when their origins were traced to the animal kingdom. An important corollary of the thesis of the animal origins of morality was the suggestion that moral duties might be subject to evolutionary (even revolutionary) change. For adherents of a revolutionary political theory such as Engels and Kautsky, a science of ethics which authorized such a conclusion served very usefully to diminish the force of moral claims with which the old order might defend itself from destruction. Controversies over evolutionist ethics were not restricted to Marxist circles during these years, but in whatever context they occurred, such debates tended to circle around the problem of defining 'nature' and 'society', so as to insist either on their mutual exclusivity, or on their continuity. On these PREFACE xi conceptions depended one's views as to whether monkeys could be moral, duty a species of natural instinct, or principles of human conduct rooted in something transcending the realm of nature. For positivistic ally inclined Marxists unattracted by Darwinian ethics, the science of ethics could be understood in effect as the sociology of morals, and as such incorporated along with the other special inquiries governed by his­ torical materialism, without thereby admitting that Marxism itself contained any particular ethical norms. The admission that Marxism as a theory of the laws of social development incorporates a normative ethical standpoint would still threaten its scientific status in the eyes of some contemporary Marxists both inside and outside the USSR. The second claim listed above, that Marxism requires but lacks an ethic has numerous sources in the history of the movement.
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