A central debate among scholars of Marx concerns whether Marxism has a moral content or is totally "amoral"--perhaps either because it embraces a strict economic determinism or because it nihilistically sides with the proletariat without offering any objective justification for that stance. Philosopher Vanessa Christina Wills argues that Marx does articulate an ethical perspective that is present throughout his writings, both the more obviously humanistic and philosophical early writings and his later, economic and more empirically-grounded studies such as Capital. The purposiveness of labor gives rise to a normativity already inherent in the present state of things, one that can guide us in knowing what sort of world we should build and that further, prepares us to build it.

In Marxism's uneasy relationship with ethics a small number of prominent theorists considered it imperative to highlight the moral principles implicit in Marx's social theory and to develop these ethics in the light of changing conditions. They developed a humanistic Marxism in stark contrast to the crude 'end justifies the means' approach of Stalinism. This collection brings together analyses by leading scholars on those thinkers who made significant contributions to ethical thinking within the Marxist tradition - Kautsky, Bloch, Fromm, Marcuse, Lefebvre, Macpherson and Heller.

This book discusses Alasdair MacIntyre’s engagement with Marxism from the early 1950s to the present. It begins with his early writings on Marxism and Christianity, moving through his period in the New Left and the Socialist Labour League and International Socialism in the late 1950s and 1960s. It then discusses MacIntyre’s break with Marxism by developing the brief but telling five-point critique he gives of Marxism in his 1981 volume After Virtue. Marxism, Ethics and Politics highlights MacIntyre’s continuing admiration for much in Marx’s thought, noting that his contemporary project is developed in response to what he now sees as the inadequacies of Marxism, particularly Marxist politics. It concludes by examining the place of Marxism in the contemporary MacIntyrean debate and by pointing out the contested nature of the claims about Marxism that MacIntyre makes.

In None so Fit to Break the Chains Dan Swain offers an interpretation of Marx's ethics that foregrounds his commitment to working-class self-emancipation and argues for the continued relevance of this principle for contemporary politics. Self-emancipation is frequently overlooked in discussions of Marx's ethics, but it deeply influenced his criticism of capitalism, his approach towards an alternative, and his conception of his own role as activist and theorist. Foregrounding self-emancipation offers new perspectives on existing debates in the interpretation of Marx, such as the meanings of concepts like alienation, exploitation and utopianism, and can also offer broader insights into the relationship between critical theory and practice that have an enduring relevance today.

Originally published in 1986, this book subverts an attitude towards the moral dimension of life which the author terms ‘ethical cynicism’. It discusses a theory of moral powers – a theory which shows that moral values are immensely potent sources of power. The author argues that there is a conceptual affinity between the Wittgensteinian account of language and the Marxist theory of history such that the two complement and even require one another in various aspects.

Being and Freedom is a panoramic account of ethics in Europe from the French Revolution to the end of the nineteenth century. In this period the influence of ethics ran far beyond philosophy, eventually dominating politics and religion in the West. Developments came from France, Germany, and Britain: this is the first book to treat them together as a Europe-wide phenomenon, paying attention to the context of events and ideas from which they emerged. Skorupski begins by examining the philosophical conflict at the heart of the French revolution, between the individualism of the Enlightenment and two very different forms of holistic ethics: the old regime's ethic of service and the radical-democracy of the Rousseauian left. Responses analysing freedom and modern social relations came from a series of French liberal thinkers. In Germany the reaction was to two revolutions seen as inaugurating modernity: the political revolution in France and the philosophical revolution of Kant. Here, the fate of religion was critical, and with it the metaphysics of being and freedom. Skorupski traces this story from Kant to Hegel's idealist version of ethical holism. In Britain, Enlightenment naturalism remained the prevailing framework. It took different forms: 'common sense' and the theory of the sentiments in Scotland, utilitarianism in England. From all these elements came a synthesis of European themes by John Stuart Mill, comparable in range but opposed to that of Hegel. The final chapter is an assessment of this period's ethical ideas. They remain the core of late modern ethics and the contested ground on which ethical disagreements take place today.

"How did Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher, become a nineteenth-century German Marxist? It is on its face an unlikely development. Karl Marx was a fiery revolutionary theorist who heralded the imminent demise of capitalism, while Spinoza was a contemplative philosopher who preached rational understanding and voiced skepticism about open rebellion. Further, Spinoza criticized all teleological ideas as anthropomorphic fantasies, while Marxism came to be associated expressly with teleological historical development. Yet socialists of the German nineteenth century were consistently drawn to Spinoza as their philosophical guide. Tracie Matysik shows how the metaphorical meeting of Spinoza and Marx arose out of an intellectual conundrum about the meaning of activity. How is it, exactly, that humans can be fully determined creatures - creatures in nature and governed by causal laws of nature - and also able to change their world? To address this seeming paradox, many revolutionary theorists scrapped the idea of activity as something autonomous humans do when they assert themselves against nature and its causal laws. Thinking with Spinoza, they came to think of activity instead as relating - as the state of relations between humans and between humans and the non-human world. Matysik follows these Spinozist-socialist intellectual experiments in the meaning of activity that unfolded across the nineteenth century, drawing lessons from them that may be meaningful for the environmental-justice issues confronting the contemporary world"--

"Communication ethics are approached from five perspectives--altruistic, egotistic, autonomous, legalist, and communitarian--in essays examining the thought of major thinkers ranging from Aristotle to the Dalai Lama. Each profile provides insight into how important ethical concepts can help the modern communicator"--Provided by publisher.