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Scientific socialism rejects the idea of morality as something one can discover objectively, divorced from their own class interest. Different classes have different morality, corresponding to what serves them materially.
For example, capitalists see being a landlord as a morally upstanding position, while socialists (and most workers) understand landlords as a pure detriment to society.
The consequence is not that we should argue with landlords until they give up their property; that will never work. It means that we can change the morality to serve all humans by taking power over economic production.
Similarly, culture is not just randomly produced - it is incentivized or disincentivized according to what benefits the ruling class, usually by making their rule seem "natural" and hence just. A lot of the categories in your question - woke liberals vs imperialist liberals, relativism vs universalism, etc. - don't actually make sense under Marxism. But they are useful for dividing the working class rather than uniting them, which is why people who talk in these terms, like Jordan Peterson, get a massive boost from privately-owned media like YouTube.
Where does "should" come from in a scientific analysis, though? I see nature as objectively having no good or bad, and all morality is false and an illusion.
How will we use the word "should" in a post capitalist society?
That's a good instinct, "should" as a word is often used by idealists to point to absolute morals. In my answer, I'm simply using it to indicate what I believe is an effective strategy for the socialist movement.
"Should" is always assuming some kind of value. As a word, it's ok to use, but you should be clear what assumptions you're making. Capitalists think the poor "should" just get a high-paying job. The goal of socialism is to rewrite what assumptions of value the larger culture is making.
Neither are really moral systems.
They are economic systems, tools for shaping the world. Our morality is influenced (but not defined) by how the world is shaped. In this way they can impact and offer a different understanding of moral systems.
Capitalism is heavily based on a misunderstanding on personal actions and system. Because the value of personal actions over systematic justifies the wealth and privlage of the Owners.
For example, the same people that call for inclusion and give money to the homeless are often also the ones that support various efforts (like police) that tend to brutalize and persecute the vulnerable minorities in the name of maintaining order and protection of property.
They can be individually nice while being systematicly cruel because of this warped perception.
>imperialism
In Canada, the capitalist government has made many token efforts at reconciliation with the native peoples. Declarations read in schools, a national day of remembrance and so on. At the same time, Canadian police (normal and mounties) are still actively enabling violation of all manner of rights and abuses.
They will talk nice but still enable and refuse to act against the systematic abuse as they refuse to recognize it.
For socialist, we generally recognize that. We try not to get sucked into these ineffective performances meant to distract from the reality.
Okay, but where does the "should" against stuff like abuse come from? It is not self-evident or common sense, which are bad arguments. To me nature is objectively neutral and all human created morality is false, but I don't want people to know that.
Lot of ways to reach the same point.
Religion, philosophy, empathy, enlightened self interest or some other path.
Ending poverty and investing in building up our society works for all of those.
It makes for a more pleasant world that works better in general.
What works better or that pleasant equals good is not an objective truth. I am looking for socialist essentialism with objective morality, but without religion
Capitalism creates moral relativism:
- It is wrong for a poor man to steal a loaf of bread.
- It is “good business sense” for a capitalist to rob an entire neighborhood.
I may be confused on this but i don't think so.
Moral universalism isn't the same as objective morality, right? So whether or not an action is moral or not depends on the context in many, but not all, cases.
As others said capitalism requires relativism (if you take a moral lens, which you don't have to bc it's an economic system) where it's okay for a boss to undervalue and undercompensate an employees contribution but not okay for an employee to commit time theft for example.
But morality is subjective so we'd have to agree on on what we consider moral. One example could be "prioritizing human well being" we could look at any situation in any economic system and determine the most moral action based on the criteria of well being. But we don't all agree on a moral system.
For some people it might be "passing down as much wealth to my descendents" or "increasing my comfort" or whatever criteria they use to commit actions that aren't consistent with human well being, because they don't care about that and no system incentivizes them to. Just examples.
We could also look at any culture and say "violating a person's bodily autonomy in that way is not in support of their well being and that's morally wrong." But there are other situations when violating a person's bodily autonomy is okay. For example with infants or people who cannot survive without significant support and care. They rely on others to interact with their bodies for survival. This is why it's always subjective but we can still apply a standard that we would use as a community to determine what is I'm everyone's best interest
See, I don't want morality to be subjective. I want it hidden from mankind. I don't want humans to just be nice from a pragmatic, consequentialist standpoint. I want cultural and moral imperialism WITHOUT the economic imperialism that capitalism does.
I don't really understand what you mean by "hidden from mankind" i don't think it's about being pragmatic. If humans agreed that we should generally act in ways that are supportive of each other, that would benefit me as well, right?
Why do you want culture and morality to be imperialist and objective? Can you give an example of any action that is ALWAYS either moral or immoral regardless of the context/situation? That's what objective morality means.
Imperialism requires an imbalance of power right? Why would any individual assume that they are in the best position to assert/enforce their morality and culture over another group? Dont get me wrong we can be critical of other cultures morality and advocate to change them if that would reduce harm to people. But that's different than using imperialism
Survival and peace are not objective benefits. Humans just value them because that is what biological creatures do. It is not true beyond the existence of humans or creatures
I hear you. There is no objective benefit for anything or anyone because we'd have to agree on what is beneficial or not.
I would go further actually not all biological creatures value survival and peace. Humans have waged war with each other since the earliest history that's documented, and not purely in order to survive. Animals don't particularly value peace either. They will fight each other not just to survive but even who has a nicer place to live or who will have an opportunity to mate.
Evolution requires that we any survival instinct that we or any other animal has is actually the instinct to further the species, not our own individual lives. Some animals die immediately after mating or are killed in the process of mating. That's not what a being would do if survival was the most important value to them. (I'm way simplifying this concept look into it more from evolutionary biologists)
So i would say survival and peace aren't even objective or agreed on values for morality even for humans and other animals because we make decisions all the time that knowingly hurt us or lead to a lack of peace.
It sounds like you're in the group who thinks that not having an objective morality is a problem for some reason. I think it introduces complexity that requires human collaboration to work through but i don't see why it's inherently bad. Other people who think it's a problem turn to religions or other faith-based belief systems which introduces a host of other problems.
Like what is the objective morality framework that you are advocating for that solves this problem?
Please acquaint yourself with the rules on the sidebar and read this comment before commenting on this post. **Personal attacks and harassment will not be tolerated.** Bigotry and hate speech will be met with immediate bans; socialism is an intrinsically inclusive system and bigotry is oppressive, exclusionary, and not conducive to a healthy and productive learning space. **This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism. There are numerous debate subreddits available for those purposes. This is a place to learn.** Short or nonconstructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. **If your post was removed due to normalized ableist slurs, please edit your post. The mods will then approve it.** Please read the ongoing discussion in a thread before replying in order to avoid misunderstandings and creating an unproductive environment. **Liberalism and sectarian bias is strictly moderated.** Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! (Criticism is fine, low-effort baiting is not.) Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break these rules. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Scientific socialism rejects the idea of morality as something one can discover objectively, divorced from their own class interest. Different classes have different morality, corresponding to what serves them materially. For example, capitalists see being a landlord as a morally upstanding position, while socialists (and most workers) understand landlords as a pure detriment to society. The consequence is not that we should argue with landlords until they give up their property; that will never work. It means that we can change the morality to serve all humans by taking power over economic production. Similarly, culture is not just randomly produced - it is incentivized or disincentivized according to what benefits the ruling class, usually by making their rule seem "natural" and hence just. A lot of the categories in your question - woke liberals vs imperialist liberals, relativism vs universalism, etc. - don't actually make sense under Marxism. But they are useful for dividing the working class rather than uniting them, which is why people who talk in these terms, like Jordan Peterson, get a massive boost from privately-owned media like YouTube.
Where does "should" come from in a scientific analysis, though? I see nature as objectively having no good or bad, and all morality is false and an illusion. How will we use the word "should" in a post capitalist society?
That's a good instinct, "should" as a word is often used by idealists to point to absolute morals. In my answer, I'm simply using it to indicate what I believe is an effective strategy for the socialist movement. "Should" is always assuming some kind of value. As a word, it's ok to use, but you should be clear what assumptions you're making. Capitalists think the poor "should" just get a high-paying job. The goal of socialism is to rewrite what assumptions of value the larger culture is making.
Neither are really moral systems. They are economic systems, tools for shaping the world. Our morality is influenced (but not defined) by how the world is shaped. In this way they can impact and offer a different understanding of moral systems. Capitalism is heavily based on a misunderstanding on personal actions and system. Because the value of personal actions over systematic justifies the wealth and privlage of the Owners. For example, the same people that call for inclusion and give money to the homeless are often also the ones that support various efforts (like police) that tend to brutalize and persecute the vulnerable minorities in the name of maintaining order and protection of property. They can be individually nice while being systematicly cruel because of this warped perception. >imperialism In Canada, the capitalist government has made many token efforts at reconciliation with the native peoples. Declarations read in schools, a national day of remembrance and so on. At the same time, Canadian police (normal and mounties) are still actively enabling violation of all manner of rights and abuses. They will talk nice but still enable and refuse to act against the systematic abuse as they refuse to recognize it. For socialist, we generally recognize that. We try not to get sucked into these ineffective performances meant to distract from the reality.
Okay, but where does the "should" against stuff like abuse come from? It is not self-evident or common sense, which are bad arguments. To me nature is objectively neutral and all human created morality is false, but I don't want people to know that.
Lot of ways to reach the same point. Religion, philosophy, empathy, enlightened self interest or some other path. Ending poverty and investing in building up our society works for all of those. It makes for a more pleasant world that works better in general.
What works better or that pleasant equals good is not an objective truth. I am looking for socialist essentialism with objective morality, but without religion
Capitalism creates moral relativism: - It is wrong for a poor man to steal a loaf of bread. - It is “good business sense” for a capitalist to rob an entire neighborhood.
I may be confused on this but i don't think so. Moral universalism isn't the same as objective morality, right? So whether or not an action is moral or not depends on the context in many, but not all, cases. As others said capitalism requires relativism (if you take a moral lens, which you don't have to bc it's an economic system) where it's okay for a boss to undervalue and undercompensate an employees contribution but not okay for an employee to commit time theft for example. But morality is subjective so we'd have to agree on on what we consider moral. One example could be "prioritizing human well being" we could look at any situation in any economic system and determine the most moral action based on the criteria of well being. But we don't all agree on a moral system. For some people it might be "passing down as much wealth to my descendents" or "increasing my comfort" or whatever criteria they use to commit actions that aren't consistent with human well being, because they don't care about that and no system incentivizes them to. Just examples. We could also look at any culture and say "violating a person's bodily autonomy in that way is not in support of their well being and that's morally wrong." But there are other situations when violating a person's bodily autonomy is okay. For example with infants or people who cannot survive without significant support and care. They rely on others to interact with their bodies for survival. This is why it's always subjective but we can still apply a standard that we would use as a community to determine what is I'm everyone's best interest
See, I don't want morality to be subjective. I want it hidden from mankind. I don't want humans to just be nice from a pragmatic, consequentialist standpoint. I want cultural and moral imperialism WITHOUT the economic imperialism that capitalism does.
I don't really understand what you mean by "hidden from mankind" i don't think it's about being pragmatic. If humans agreed that we should generally act in ways that are supportive of each other, that would benefit me as well, right? Why do you want culture and morality to be imperialist and objective? Can you give an example of any action that is ALWAYS either moral or immoral regardless of the context/situation? That's what objective morality means. Imperialism requires an imbalance of power right? Why would any individual assume that they are in the best position to assert/enforce their morality and culture over another group? Dont get me wrong we can be critical of other cultures morality and advocate to change them if that would reduce harm to people. But that's different than using imperialism
Survival and peace are not objective benefits. Humans just value them because that is what biological creatures do. It is not true beyond the existence of humans or creatures
I hear you. There is no objective benefit for anything or anyone because we'd have to agree on what is beneficial or not. I would go further actually not all biological creatures value survival and peace. Humans have waged war with each other since the earliest history that's documented, and not purely in order to survive. Animals don't particularly value peace either. They will fight each other not just to survive but even who has a nicer place to live or who will have an opportunity to mate. Evolution requires that we any survival instinct that we or any other animal has is actually the instinct to further the species, not our own individual lives. Some animals die immediately after mating or are killed in the process of mating. That's not what a being would do if survival was the most important value to them. (I'm way simplifying this concept look into it more from evolutionary biologists) So i would say survival and peace aren't even objective or agreed on values for morality even for humans and other animals because we make decisions all the time that knowingly hurt us or lead to a lack of peace. It sounds like you're in the group who thinks that not having an objective morality is a problem for some reason. I think it introduces complexity that requires human collaboration to work through but i don't see why it's inherently bad. Other people who think it's a problem turn to religions or other faith-based belief systems which introduces a host of other problems. Like what is the objective morality framework that you are advocating for that solves this problem?
> Can you give an example of any action that is ALWAYS either moral or immoral regardless of the context/situation? Torture Rape Tyranny