Marxism and Ethics (New Studies in Ethics)

In this critical survey, the author, who is one of the best informed and most perceptive amongst Marxist scholars, examines both Marx's positive ethics of the truly human man freed from alienation and Marx's materialist critique of moralities as class-bound ideologies. He considers the contributions of Marx's disciples, in the Soviet Union and the western world, and argues that Marxism has conflated a number of ethical positions -- the ethics of self-realisation, utilitarianism, ethical relativism, evolutionary ethics and an unexamined ethic of self-determination and cooperation. Whatever its defects may be, Marxism has helped to point the way to a sociology of morals and to an understanding of the connection between man and society.