Philosophy 152 Philosophy of Human Nature Darwall Fall 1996 MARX I (For next time: read Abel, pp. 223-235) I Historical context II An important Marx theme: We cannot understand our lives as conscious individuals without grasping how it is rooted in material, socio-economic conditions. The stronger version: Consciousness and culture are effects of material conditions and have no causal power of their own. Although we see our actions as the effect of our own conscious lives, this is an illusion. Ideas have no causal power. The weaker version: Culture and consciousness are the results of material conditions, but they can also have real effects. III On either version, Marx holds that it is impossible to understand history without grasping changing material conditions of human production. Two passages: p. 123, 129 Two examples: the modern idea of natural human rights and the modern idea of race. Why is it that these ideas arise in the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries? IV Marx's dialectical, materialist theory of history: feudalism, capitalism, socialism. V General theme: We cannot understand ourselves, or the ethical or social issues we confront simply as individuals, we have to grasp the political- economic context in which they take place. Example: What is justice? Libertarian idea: it is each individual respecting each other's individual rights, in particular, their liberty. This makes justice a matter of how each individual treats other individuals. Marx: This idea arises only under capitalism. But what is capitalism? The very idea of capitalism presupposes that different people have different relations to the means of production: capitalists, workers, capital. And these different relations itself raises an ethical question (one which we cannot grasp so long as we fail to understand the structure within which it arises). VI This suggests one critique of "pure" capitalism. Next time we will consider a further set of criticisms that Marx actually shares with traditional conservatives, namely, that unbridled capitalism alienates us from forms of community and shared values that are essential to a good human life.