POST 7: MARX VS HOBBES VS MILL

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 04:03:12
 
karl marx's ethical theory is centered around the idea of an innate economic principle in human nature. marx claims that all actions that human beings commit has economic basis underlying them, whether they realize it or not. for marx, ethical theories that philosophers have proposed and claim to be a product of pure reason, are simply "ideology," and are deceptive; marx thinks these people are not aware that even their theories are influenced by some economic principles. marx also argues that what is right for one is never necessarily right for everyone, and from this concludes that to formulate ethical theory for morality in general is meaningless. marx also despises capitalism since capitalism involves labor exploitation and therefore cannot bring happiness.

hobbes' ethical theory is centered around scientific concepts. he essentially claims that nothing is intrinsically good. people call good the things they desire and bad the things they do not desire. for hobbes, morality is relative for individuals, as in good and bad; what is good for one person is not necessarily good for another. hobbes depicts people to be selfish and that everyone's actions are centered around one thing: maximization of individual benefit. because of this, there required a central governing system that governs these individuals' thirst for the maximization of own benefits. hobbes claims that since this governing system represents each individual, whatever the system approves is right and whatever the system disapproves is wrong.

mill's ethical theory is utalitarianism, which is based on the maximization of pleasure and minimization of pain. to mill, what defines good is pleasure, and evil is pain. so in order for one to reach true happiness, pain has to nullified and pleasure has to me maximized. mill's utalitarianism is in a way not any different than hedonism, but mill goes on a little further to claim that morality means promoting the greatest happiness to the most of society. for mill, happiness for oneself is not yet the final happiness that everyone seeks, but happiness for the whole entire society. what is important to mill's utalitarianism is not only the quantitative aspects of the pleasure ---like that of bentham's--- but also the qualitative aspects. mill's utalitarianism also introduces the idea of sanction, which is an incentive for individuals to focus not only on happiness for their individual self, but also for the benefit of the whole society.

marx would agree with hobbes since he himself proposes in his ethical theory that what is good for one society does not necessarily imply good for another society, even though their situations are alike. for both hobbes and marx, morality IS simply ideology; concepts of morality that philosophers have been proposing are not a depiction of what the real life actually is.

the idea of utalitarianism, for marx, is just another form of labor exploitation. one would always want to maximize one's pleasure, and since the nature of human is influenced by economics principles, the idea of maximization of pleasure promotes capitalism, and in capitalism, labor exploitation, which marx despises so much.