Morals and Marx

Abstract

There are fourteen original papers (plus Kai Nielsen's introduction) in this substantial volume devoted to the general problem of the relation of Marxism, or at least Marxism as found in the works of Marx, and moral theory. The questions are, in Nielsen's words, “whether there should be or even could be a Marxist moral theory and if there could be a Marxist moral theory, what sort of a moral theory it should be” (1) (all references in this Critical Notice are to pages in the volume under review). Why does he not include the question what Marx's moral theory is? For a few of these writers do think that Marx had (at least in fragmentary form) some moral views that inform his writing, and attempt to say what they are. But Nielsen is justified in putting the questions they treat of in the way he does, for as is commonly known, Marx had no explicit, worked- out moral theory. So if one wishes to argue that he nevertheless has a morality or part of a morality, one has no alternative to attempting to infer it from what he does say.