The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought
by Cornel West
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Book Summary Information
Author: Cornel WestEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1991-01-01
ISBN: 0853458189
Number of pages: 220
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
Book Reviews of The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought
Book Review: WEST'S MOST SYSTEMATIC PRESENTATION OF HIS DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST IDEALS
Summary: 5 Stars
Cornel West (born 1953) is a Professor at Princeton, a philosopher, magnificent speaker, best-selling author (e.g., Race Matters, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Wisconsin Project on American Writers), etc.), and preeminent "public intellectual."
Although this book was first published in 1991, West writes in the Introduction that the book, "written over a decade ago when I was in my mid-twenties---was my attempt to understand Marxist thought as one grand stream, among others, of the larger modern articulation of historical consciousness, an articulation fanned by Romantic quests for harmony and wholeness and fueled by concrete revolutionary and reformist movements for freedom, equality, and democracy... Hence I take the reader---step by step, text by text---through Marx's own intellectual development in order to show how he incorporated modern historical consciousness ... in relation to his ethical values of individuality and democracy, and how these values clashed with what he viewed as the pernicious and vicious effects of the fundamental class-ridden capitalist processes of capital accumulation and the commodification of labor." (Pg. xx-xxi)
Here are some additional quotations from the book:
"I have always shunned the role of theologian because I have little interest in systematizing the dogmas and doctrines, insights and intuitions of the Christian tradition. Nor do I think that they can be rendered coherent and consistent." (Pg. xxix)
"For Feuerbach, anthropology or philosophy of abstract man is the secret of theology; for Marx, a theory of history and a social analysis is the secret of anthropology." (Pg. 67)
"If there is a fundamental problem in ethics for Marx, it consists of the discrepancy between moral ideals and moral practices---or more specifically, the way in which systems of production have hitherto seemed to require a discrepancy between particular interests of a specific class and the claims of universal interests by ideologues of that class." (Pg. 91-92)
"Since this essay is primarily concerned with providing an in-house discussion of the historicist approach to ethics in the Marxist tradition, I have focused on Marx's radical historicist critique and rejection of philosophic ethics, rather than putting forward in any detailed manner Marx's own theoretic alternative." (Pg. 94)
"The major difference between Marx and the Marxist philosophers regarding approaches to ethics is that Marx is not bothered by charges of moral relativism, whereas the philosophers are bothered by such charges." (Pg. 167)
"The failure of the Marxist philosophers is that they ultimately remain philosophers, whereas Marx's radical historicist metaphilosophical vision enables him to stop doing philosophy and to begin to describe, explain, and ultimately change the world." (Pg. 170)
Summary of The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought
In this fresh, original analysis of Marxist thought, Cornel West makes a significant contribution to today's debates about the relevance of Marxism by putting the issue of ethics squarely on the Marxist agenda. West, professor of religion and director of the Afro-American studies program at Princeton University, shows that not only was ethics an integral part of the development of Marx's own thinking throughout his career, but that this crucial concern has been obscured by such leading and influential interpreters as Engels, Kautsky, Lukács, and others who diverted Marx's theory into narrow forms of positivism, economism, and Hegelianism.Philosophy Books
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