Study On Kai Nielsen’s Marxist Morality

Regarding on the key question for the dispute between Marxist moralism and Marxist immoralism in Anglo-American Marxist:"Does historical materialism has a kind of morality that is compatible with it?",Canadian scholar Kai Nielsen made a systematic and comprehensive interpretation of the Marxist moral ideas contained in historical materialism,thus providing a reasonable defense for Marxist moralism.Nielsen believes that the essential characteristic of ideology is related to class interests and ideology is not necessarily distorted and blind.The reason why historical materialism criticizes ideology is to emphasize that production is fundamental and reality and consciousness cannot be reversed.Second,the ruling class will use ideology to package the interests of the ruling class into universal interests to confuse the public.Although morality belongs to the category of superstructure,not all superstructures are ideologies,and there is a neutral morality outside of ideology.Therefore,Marx rejects the abstract moral preaching and moral ideology.Historical materialism can still have a kind of morality,coherence with it and effective.The moral theory of historical materialism is fundamentally different from the traditional moral philosophy.Nielsen interprets this moral theory as social ethics in production and life by moral sociology and moral contextualism.Historical materialism rejects abstract and eternal moral principles.The morality of historical materialism is determined by the current mode of production of a society,and it develops with the development of productive forces.We must talk about morality in a specific context and can also expect a more ethical society.The moral theory of historical materialism is contained in Marx’s revelation of the internal law of capitalism.The discourse of Marx’s political economics contains rich moral thoughts.Nielsen puts Marx’s moral thoughts and his overall criticism of capitalist society together,and the morality of historical materialism is actually a social norm that works in reality and targets the most common class interests.Nielsen’s Marxist morality is a powerful defense of the historical materialistic moral theory.It deeply explains that the scientific and value of historical materialism are unified,and has important theoretical enlightenment for out of the struggle between morality and immoralism.At the same time,the moral sociology and moral contextualism emphasized by Nielsen also have methodological significance for the study of Marxist ethics,and help to construct the contemporary theoretical form of Marxist ethics.Finally,in terms of its theoretical nature,Marxist political philosophy is a kind of moral politics,so determining the legitimacy of historical materialistic moral theory has theoretical implications for the study of Marxist political philosophy.