The ontological and analytical status of Marxian social theory has been a matter of fierce controversy since Marx’s death, both within and without Marxist circles. A particular source of contention has been over whether Marxism should be construed as an objective science of the capitalist mode of production or as an ethico-philosophical critique of bourgeois society. This is paralleled by the dispute over whether Marxism ought to be considered a humanism or a structuralism. This article addresses both sides of this (...) debate. The argument is that, rather than Marx’s own social thought being split into incompatible poles, giving rise to ‘two Marxisms’, it forms a coherent unity. Marx’s social theory is neither humanist philosophy, nor structural science, but is in fact realist science, which synthesizes these apparent antinomies, and thereby transcends both. (shrink)

This chapter explores two central questions in the conceptual ethics of normative inquiry. The first is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around folk normative concepts (like KNOWLEDGE or IMMORAL) or around theoretical normative concepts (like ADEQUATE EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION or PRO TANTO PRACTICAL REASON). The second is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around concepts whose normative authority is especially accessible to us (such as OUGHT ALL THINGS CONSIDERED), or around concepts whose extension is especially accessible to us (such as (...) BETRAYAL). The chapter aims to make vivid and plausible a range of possible answers to these questions, and important forms of argument that can be used to favor certain answers over others. (shrink)

A wave of recent studies attributes to Adorno, if not a full-fledged moral theory, at least an ethical model regarded to be adequate to the conditions of late modernity. The article argues that any attempt aimed at isolating an independent ethical domain out of Adorno’s philosophical writings is misguided. Adorno belongs to a tradition of thinkers - including Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger - who break away from the modern idea that the task of philosophy is to provide rational foundations (...) for the moral beliefs of individuals. Although it is true that Adorno’s work is scattered with innumerable moral considerations, the article suggests that these do not constitute the basis of a coherent moral system, but are to be understood within the context of Hegel’s philosophy of history retranslated in materialist terms. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Marxists claim capitalists unjustly exploit workers, and this exploitation is to show that workers ought to hold more than they do. This paper presents two accounts of exploitation. The Theft Account claims that capitalists steal some of the value to which workers are entitled. The Underpayment Account holds that capitalists are not entitled to pay workers as little as they do, even if the workers are not entitled to the full value they produce. This paper argues that only the Theft (...) Account can explain why workers ought to hold more than they do. The Underpayment Account cannot yield this conclusion. The Theft Account is superior to the Underpayment Account insofar as exploitation is to be an injustice—a wrong that requires the exploited party to hold more. (shrink)

This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. Our focus is a defence of the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a theory’s groundedness in facts about the political status quo and its ability to consistently envisage radical departures from the status quo. To overcome that problem we combine insights from three distant corners of the philosophical landscape: theories of legitimacy by Bernard Williams (...) and other realists, Frankfurt School-inspired Critical Theory, and recent analytic epistemological and metaphysical theories of cognitive bias, ideology, and social construction. The upshot is a novel account of realism as empirically-informed diagnosis- critique of social and political phenomena. This view rejects a sharp divide between descriptive and normative theory, and so is an alternative to the anti- empiricism of some approaches to Critical Theory as well as to the complacency towards existing power structures found within liberal realism, let alone mainstream normative political philosophy, liberal or otherwise. (shrink)

The article explores the early Marx’s vision of communal relationships, which is centered on the idea that in producing for others individuals can be concerned with satisfying the needs of others, and may reciprocally value their interdependence in producing for one another. It is argued that if the ideal of communal reciprocity is to be realized in a viable and desirable form, it must be compatible with some forms of self-interest, social indifference and instrumental action, typically realized through the institution (...) of the market. The article shows that communal reciprocity may go together with market reciprocity as long as market relations are structured such that exploitative motives are not systematically promoted. The article examines various economic institutions that could meet the non-exploitation requirement, either by transforming the constitutive rules of the market, in contrast to its regulative rules, or by regulating the market internally, in contrast to its external regulation. (shrink)

In the Critique of Gotha Programme, Karl Marx famously argues that a communist society will be characterised by the principle, ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!’ I take up a question about this principle that was originally posed by G.A. Cohen, namely: what makes communism (so conceived) possible for Marx? In reply to this question, Cohen interprets Marx as saying that communism is possible because of limitless abundance, a view that Cohen takes to be (...) implausible for ecological reasons. I develop a new interpretation of Marx's position. On this interpretation, people in communist society achieve self-realisation through providing others with the goods and services required for their self-realisation. Coupled with a reasonably high (but not immense) development of productive power, self-realisation generates conditions in which people can produce according to their abilities and receive according to their needs. I defend this view as an interpretation of Marx and I argue that it represents a more plausible account of what makes communism possible than Cohen's interpretation in which technological advance and limitless abundance play the predominant role. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

I suggest that we can read Marx in the light of recent analytic, neo-Hegelian thought. I summarize the Pittsburgh School philosophers’ claims about the myth of the given, the claim that human experience is conceptual all the way out, and that we live in a space of reasons. I show how Hegel has been read in those terms, and then apply that reading of Hegel to Marx’s argument that capital is akin to what Hegel called Geist, or spirit. We can (...) understand capitalism as a space of reasons that is contradictory: while the space of reasons is supposed to make human freedom possible, our space of reasons makes freedom impossible. Reading Marx in this way is helpful, because it avoids the flaws of analytical Marxism, existentialism and structuralism. However, it raises a large problem of its own: Can the theory of the space of reasons be applied to a society that is not free of alienation? I argue that it can, but only in ways that would not satisfy the analytic neo-Hegelians themselves. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with the methodological framework and practices of nonideal theory. I argue that nonideal theory, while attempting to offer a substantive alternative to ideal theory, fails to deliver on its promises insofar as it takes a juridical view of society. The juridical view involves the overwhelming dependence on, employment of, and requirements of, the concept of justice. I contend that nonideal theory should instead adopt a more Marxian approach to social and political philosophy which involves, inter alia, (...) viewing society as an interworking and interdependent totality of needs, production relations, and ideas. Finally, I argue that the juridical view is misguided and, as a result, that nonideal theory, to the extent that it wants to distinguish itself from the dominance of ideal theory, should abandon the discourse of justice altogether. (shrink)

Diese Arbeit untersucht die Frage, welche möglichen Auslöser für emotional bedingte Voreingenommenheit es auf Seiten der Kritiker des heutigen philosophischen Naturalismus gibt. Sie findet diese zum einen in bestimmten Ergebnissen einzelner wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen, den sogenannten ›Kränkungen‹, die fälschlicherweise dem philosophischen Naturalismus angelastet werden, und zum anderen in den programmatischen Voraussetzungen des philosophischen Naturalismus, den ›naturalistischen Zumutungen‹. Nach einer kurzen Darstellung des naturalistischen Programms werden diese beiden Gruppen exemplifiziert, voneinander abgegrenzt und zwei Ansätze zur Klärung von Missverständnissen der naturalistischen Position vorgeschlagen.