Do Social Sciences Threaten the Autonomy of Ethics? Reconstructing the Marxian Metaethical Response

Abstract

AbstractIn the present paper, I attempt to provide a reconstructed Marxian response to the question of whether the social (and behavioral) sciences constitute a philosophical threat to the autonomy of ethics. I suggest that shedding light on some aspects of the Marxian work (especially the Theses on Feuerbach), from the standpoint of the debate on naturalism in contemporary analytic philosophy, can offer valuable philosophical insights against the framework of scientific naturalism. This framework is responsible for presenting the social sciences as a philosophical threat to the autonomy of ethics. I argue that Marx detects and rejects three fundamental presuppositions of scientific naturalism: empiricism, ‘God’s point of view,’ and methodological individualism. I conclude that the Marxian view is a liberal naturalist perspective which allows both the scientific comprehension of the social world and the autonomy of ethics.