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Marx and Aristotle: A Kind of Consequentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Richard W. Miller
Richard W. Miller*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

In English-speaking universities, political philosophy has long been dominated by two moral outlooks, the Judgment of institutions by the utility they create and the Judgment of institutions by conformity to rights held to be binding apart from their consequences. In the history of philosophy, Marx and Aristotle are the most striking and attractive contrasts to both alternatives. As against rights-based morality, both Judge institutions by the kinds of lives they promote and Judge proposed rights by assessing the consequences, of embodying them in institutions. At the same time, their general conceptions of the kinds of lives worth promoting are highly similar, and emphatically opposed to utilitarianism. In short, as political philosophers they are non-utilitarian consequentialists.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 7: Marx and Morality , 1981 , pp. 323 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1981

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References

1 In referring to Marx's writings, I shall use the following abbreviations. CM for 'Communist Manifesto,’ CGP for ‘Critique of the Gotha Program,’ lA for ‘Inaugural Address of the International Workingman's Association,’ CWF for ‘The Civil War in France,’ WL for ‘Wage-Labor and Capital,’ all with page references to Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York 1972); C for Capital (volume I unless otherwise indicated) (Moscow n.d.); EP for Economic and Philosopic Manuscripts, and OJ for ‘On the Jewish Question,’ both in T.B. Bottomore, tr. and ed., Karl Marx: Early Writings (New York 1964); SC for Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow n.d.); Gl for The German Ideology, CJ. Arthur, ed., (New York 1970); G for the Grundrisse, M. Nicolaus, tr. (New York 1972); I for Marx and Engels, Ireland and the Irish Question (Moscow n.d.); WPP for ‘Wages, Price and Profit’ in Marx and Engels, Selected Works in Three Volumes“(Moscow n.d.) v. II.

2 When I present a translation from Aristotle in direct quotes, I shall either note that it is my own, or give a page number referring to the translation I have adopted. For the Politics, I have relied on John Warrington, Aristotle's Politics and the Athenian Constitution (New York 1959). For the Nicomachean Ethics, I sometimes rely on the translation by Wardman and Creed in The Philosophy of Aristotle, R. Bambrough, ed. (New York 1963), sometimes that of Ross in The Basic Works of Aristotle, R. McKeon, ed. (New York 1941). Wardman and Creed translations are cited using unadorned page numbers, Ross translations using page numbers prefaced by ‘R.'

3 In Marshall Cohen, et al., Marx, Justice and History (Princeton 1980 (originally: Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1971-2)).

4 Ibid., 24.

5 See, in particular, Harry Guntrip, Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relations and the Self (New York 1969); D.W. Winnicott, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment (New York 1974); Margaret Mahler et at., The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (New York 1978).

6 The role of internationalism in Marx's thought and the implications of his basic ideas for contemporary international issues are discussed in Alan Gilbert, ‘Marx on Internationalism and War,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 7 (1977-8) 347-70.