Marx's social ethics and critique of traditional morality

Abstract

right, morality, and ethics (the family, civil society, and the state) from Hegel and through the process of his Feuerbachian transformative method and critique began to analyze the process of social production and the class society.31 The separation of non-moral from moral human goods would not be possible within a moral philosophy built around the concept of social ethics and species-being. This fragmentation of human goods into distinct realms is only possible in a moral philosophy that also fragments and alienates man from nature, man from society, practical reason from social rationality, individual freedom from social structures, etc. If the latter sort is the criterion by which moral philosophy is measured and judged, then Marx did not base his analysis on a system of ethics. But understanding the Marxist concept of ethics entails that one also understand the revolution that oc curred in moral philosophy, critical social science, and the reconceptualization of the social world in a conceptual framework that through Hegel returns to This content downloaded from 157.55.39.144 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 05:23:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms