Historical materialism tenders a sociological theory of morality. According to it, different types of society are characterized by different and distinctive moral codes, values, and norms, and these moral systems change as the societies with which they are linked evolve. Morality is not something immutable and eternal; rather, it is part of ‘the general process of social, political and intellectual life’ - part of the social consicousness - which is conditioned by the general mode of production of material life. It is no accident, but rather a functional requirement, that different forms of moral consciousness accompany different modes of production. Moreover, since all existing societies have been class societies, their moralities have been class moralities in the sense that they sustain and reflect the material relations that constitute the basis of the different forms of class rule.

Plato taught us to be suspicious of any political theory void of moral underpinnings and, a fortiori, of any political theorist offering the appearance of a moral Philistine. The lesson was well learned by political theorists (though by comparably few others) and has contributed to the view that basic political concepts (eg. legitimacy, obligation, and rights) are at root moral concepts. This view, transformed into a methodological imperative, has in turn given rise to the commonplace strategy of criticizing political theorists by claiming either that the institutions or practices which they advocate are not Justifiable given their espoused moral theories or, more radically, that the moral theories to which they subscribe are unacceptable and, because of this, their political conclusions are to be rejected. Should the theorist have no (relatively) obvious and easily compartmentalized moral views whatsoever, he is deemed unworthy of his title - his license to theorize is revoked.

A paradox in Marx's thought (and for Marxism in general) is that while Marx's writings abound in moral Judgments (i.e., in commendations, condemnations, prescriptions, etc., made on the basis of a concern for human ill and well-being), they contain, at the same time, explicit repudiations of morality. A major charge leveled against morality in the writings of Marx and other Marxists, a charge to which, perhaps, all of the other charges against morality can be reduced, is that morality is ideology or, to say the same thing slightly differently, that morality is ideological.

The relationship between Marxism, morality, and ideology has been fraught with controversy and heated debates throughout the century. Advocates of ‘scientific socialism’ tend to dismiss morality as mere ideology, which serves as a camouflage for class interests. In this view, Marxism is a science, separate from and opposed to morality; morality is conceived of as part of the ideological superstructure: false consciousness, containing lies and illusions, which seduces the bourgeoisie into self-satisfaction and complacency, while blinding the working class to their own class-interests and exploitation by the ruling class and the capitalist mode of production. Since, however, there are powerful moral impulses in Marx's own critique of capitalism and call to socialist revolution, and since those engaged in political struggle invariably make use of moral terms and exhortations, the self-reflexive ‘scientific socialist’ comes to devise some sort of moral doctrine: Engels, Kautsky, Trotsky and others talked of a higher socialist morality which would govern the future socialist society and, in some versions, which is to become already the guiding morality for a socialist revolutionary.

The dominant view among academic political philosophers in the English speaking world is that radical political differences, such as those between socialists and non-socialists, are in the last analysis differences of value-judgment, or ‘ideals,’ or ‘principles.’ Few perhaps would now endorse the view of Weldon that the Marxist's espousal of common ownership and the liberal's of private enterprise are ultimate, unarguable principles — as if the entire economic work of Karl Marx or W.S. Jevons could be reduced to sets of changes rung on the themes ‘private enterprise, boo!’ or ‘private enterprise, hurrah!.’ But it is generally assumed that at some point in the argument, value-judgments will be reached, and that it is these that explain the disagreement.

Marx wrote in The German Ideology that the communist movement ‘shatters the basis of all morality’ and that ‘the communists preach no morality at all’; in The Communist Manifesto that morality and religion are correctly seen by the class-conscious proletarian as ‘so many bourgeois prejudices behind which there lurk in ambush Just as many bourgeois interests.’ In an article ‘Marxism and Morality’ and in a book Ruling Illusions; Philosophy and the Social Order, I urged that Marx's well advertised but untheorised scorn for ‘morality’ not be interpreted in terms of rejection of the prevailing (bourgeois) content of moral norms, which would be consistent with espousing an alternative set of ‘precepts’ or ‘principles.’ Rather, Marx's position should be seen as a theoretical and practical opposition to the very form of ‘morality’ as he understood it: the form of universal, absolute laws binding on individuals as beings with a capacity to rise above and conquer their selfish, capricious ‘inclinations.’

The idea of a Marxian personal morality is in some ways irresistible. It strikes a personal chord in us, as most Marxian ideas may not, and it brings us close to the heart of the Marxian vision, its concern for the welfare of oppressed others.

Yet Marxist theory, with its emphasis on classes, social laws, and historical determinism, seems to rule out the domains of the personal and the moral in principle. And this standard theoretical preemption is reflected in practice. Marxists rarely examine, or seek to revolutionize, their individual lives as they do societies. Indeed they may be inclined to be disdainful of any such venture as a sort of ‘bourgeois individualism.’

The nature of Marx's ethics has been a matter of considerable dispute since the latter part of the nineteenth century. Some have maintained that Marx had no ethics; others have claimed that his ethics is Kantian; and yet others have maintained that his ethics is utilitarian. The first two views were prominent at the turn of the century. It is the utilitarian view that seems to hold favor among a great many today. Thus Adam Schaff has claimed that ‘Marxist theory … leads to the general position that may be called “social hedonism” —the view that the aim of human life is to secure the maximum happiness for the broadest masses of the people … ’ Similarly, Derek Allen has claimed that ‘it is possible … to show that the arguments which support [Marx's and Engels’] moral judgments are utilitarian in all but name.’

A difference of opinion exists among some philosophers who have recently inquired whether Marx thinks that capitalism is distributively unjust. What has to be determined is whether in Marx's view the wage worker suffers an injustice in not receiving most or all of the surplus value he creates. Allen Wood argues that this is not Marx's view, and George Brenkert agrees, for quite similar reasons; but Ziyad Husami and Gary Young, on the other hand, argue in reply to Wood, and on overlapping grounds, for the opposite interpretation; Wood, in turn, has defended himself against Husami.

Among analytic philosophers in the past few years there has been a growing commitment to taking Marx seriously. Since the publication in 1971 of John Rawls’ book A Theory of Justice there has been a growing commitment to taking problems of Justice and rights seriously. These two developments intersect in mutual criticism: Marx's radical critique challenges the resources of recent theories of rights and Justice, while the sophistication of recent theories raises the possibility that they escape Marx's most basic criticism.

I have argued elsewhere1 that Rawl's method (i.e., the original position and so forth, as distinct from the principles that Rawls derives by using the method) provides us with the proper way to determine whether the structure of any society is exploitative. The argument trimmed to the bare bones is this. Since exploitation is the suppression of some peoples’ interests for the benefit of others, an argument that a set of social relations would be unanimously agreed to by rational individuals concerned to secure maximum opportunity to control their lives and possessed of correct knowledge of the nature of social reality and free of interests or attitudes deriving from the society they occupy or the position they occupy in it, is an argument that those social relations are not exploitative. If we take ideology to be false beliefs or interests or attitudes arising from society which lead people to think that their society is rational for all to accept when it would not be rational in the absence of such beliefs or interests or attitudes, then we can see that Rawls has constructed a method for arguing around ideology.

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.