论马克思主义与道德之争的三个问题

The Three Questions of Arguing about Marxism and Morality

20世纪70年代,一些英美学者就马克思主义与正义、与道德的关系展开激烈争论。总体上看,论辩双方的基本立场是"马克思主义的非道德论"与"马克思主义的道德论"。纵观两派争论的焦点,其理论分歧主要源于双方在三个问题上缺乏共识,即道德是否必然是意识形态、事实是否可以容纳价值、历史唯物主义是否消解了道德客观性。只有对以上三大问题进行清晰界定和有效辨明,才能有效应对不同学者有关马克思道德哲学是否存在的诘问,并更切近马克思道德哲学的阐释路径和内在结构。

In the 1970s, a debate on ＂Marx and Justice＂ has given rise to the heated study of Anglo-American Marxist ethics. The general debate was around the arguments of ＂ Marxist Immoralism＂ and ＂Marxist Moralism＂. Immoralists, mainly represented by Robert C. Tucker and Allen W. Wood, argue that Marx＇s critique of capitalism does not resort to moral goodness such as justice and equality, but is rather based on a comprehensive analysis of the inner working procedures of capitalism. While moralists, mainly represented by Rodney G. Peffer, Kai Nielsen, and George G. Brenkert, argue that Marx adopted a morality discourse and criticized capitalism as injustice, inequality, or illiberalism. Further, moralists not only clarify the normative moral value of Marxism, but also endeavor to construct a complete Marxist moral theory. An examination of the argument loci indicates their disagreements mainly lie in being lack of consensus in three aspects, namely, whether morality is necessarily an ideology, whether facts can accommodate values, and whether historical materialism has eliminated the objectivity of morality. First of all, in the view of immoralists, the moral notions of justice, equality and liberalism are just concepts of legal right in Marxism and construction of ideology by Marx. These concepts are not substantively critical in the evaluation of capitalist society. According to moralists, the ideology of Marxism doesn＇t necessarily suggest the distorted epistemology but instead explicitly or implicitly confirms the existence of the ideology as science of ideas. In fact, the Marxist concept about the relationship between morality and ideology is based on special contexts. What he opposes is only the reversal of the relationship between morality and social existence, which cannot legitimize his general argument about the relationship between ideology and morality. Secondly, according to the immoralists, the Marxist concept of justice is the highest expression of the rationality of social facts from the juridical point of view. That is to say, as long as it corresponds to the existing mode of production, it is just. This is not a value judgment about ＂what it should be＂ but a factual judgment about ＂what it is＂. On the contrary, moralists try to bridge the dichotomy between reality and value, but they come to the extreme that value greatly outweighs fact. However, Marx manages to go beyond the dichotomy between the fact and value by adopting the historical dialectics and returning to practice. Finally, immoralists hold that social existence determining the social consciousness, a fundamental proposition of the historical dialectics, endows morality with the features of dependence and variability. It eliminates the moral objectivity. However, moralists believe that the Marxist theory inherently contains the objective criteria of moral judgment, which points to a concept of moral progress. Therefore, the Marxist theory does not slip to moral relativism. In short, only by clearly defining and effectively identifying the above three major issues can we effectively deal with different criticisms and a better understandings of the interpretation and internal structure of Marx＇s moral philosophy.