Why Socialists Need Moral Theory

There’s a venerable socialist tradition of dismissing the need for moral philosophy. That’s a mistake — we need to think rigorously about the moral choices involved in building a new society.

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Ever since Karl Marx’s brilliant writings established him as the foremost critic of capitalism, the left has harbored a deep suspicion of — if not outright contempt for — moral theorizing. Marxists, and the Marx-sympathetic, have often viewed moral philosophy as at best irrelevant and at worst counterproductive to socialists’ political project.

There are a few reasons for this view. One stems from the assumption, widely shared by the Marxists of the Second International generation, that capitalism’s continued development would inevitably produce a massive, immiserated proletariat with an interest in overthrowing the old order; and capitalism would be subject to increasingly severe crises that would, at some point, give the proletariat the opportunity to carry out a socialist revolution.

If that were true, then there would be no need to develop a theory of why capitalism is unjust, or a vision of what makes a socialist society morally desirable. The internal dynamics of capitalism’s evolution would automatically lead a sufficient number of people to recognize that their own interest will be advanced by replacing capitalist property relations with something better — and once they have the opportunity, they will do so. There’s no place for moral persuasion.

Contemporary philosopher Brian Leiter expresses this view clearly in a 2015 article entitled “Why Marxism Still Does Not Need Normative Theory?”: 

People revolt when they are miserable, see no alternative, and understand that radical action holds out the promise of an alternative given the level of development of the productive forces… Agents do not need to know what justice is, or fairness, or morally right action.

The Second International view that capitalism would necessarily produce its own gravediggers is no longer plausible. Although it certainly generates grotesque inequality and immiseration for many, capitalism doesn’t seem to be automatically creating an ever-more-powerful revolutionary subject. Nor does the economic system seem to be building toward a terminal crisis. (At least not of the kind that make socialism more likely — maybe the climate crisis is irresolvable within capitalist relations of production, but barbarism seems at least as likely a result as socialism.)

There is still a crucial grain of truth in the orthodox Marxist view: workers have an interest in replacing capitalism with something better, and that interest is fundamental to socialist politics. Moral ideas alone aren’t sufficient to motivate masses of people to engage in a revolutionary project to transform society; they need to understand how socialism will allow them to have materially better lives.

The fact that workers have an interest in socialist transformation leaves some important questions unanswered, however. On the whole and “in the long run,” the working class’s interests may best be served by socialism. But for individual workers in the here and now, organizing to build socialism is far from the only way to advance their interests. They might (and typically do) adopt individualistic strategies, eschewing collective action in favor “keeping their heads down,” working hard and scrimping and saving. Or workers might organize collectively around more parochial or tribal lines to hoard economic resources and opportunities — by trying to exclude workers of a different race, ethnicity, or gender from getting certain jobs, for instance.

In other words, workers have various means of promoting their interests. We organize for socialism because we believe it’s how workers can advance their long-run interests as a class, and the morally best way for them to advance their interests — the path to a world of freedom, justice, and equality. So socialists should be able to systematically and rigorously defend our vision of the world on these grounds. Hence the need for moral theory. The work of analytical Marxist thinkers like G. A. Cohen, John Roemer, and Nicholas Vrousalis provide examples of how this is done.

That brings me to another crucial point. To make a practical and moral case for socialism, we need to say what socialism is. Given the limited number of (mostly disappointing) attempts at “moving beyond” capitalism, we don’t have a ready-made blueprint for what a feasible and desirable socialist system would look like. But we need such a blueprint, at least in a rough form. (Beyond that, our sense of where we want to end up is clearly important for our political strategy, since we want to be building the movements and institutions that can help bring our desired society into being.)

Devising a rough-and-ready idea of a feasible, desirable socialist society isn’t just a matter of solving practical problems of efficiency and the like. It means grappling with moral questions of various kinds. For example:

1. Will such a society have labor markets? If so, what should those look like? How do we design them so that they aren’t exploitative or otherwise objectionable in the way labor markets under capitalism are? Related: Should people be guaranteed a basic income? If so, what level of income is sufficient?

2. Will such a society still have workplace hierarchies? If so, what kinds of hierarchy are permissible and compatible with democracy? What sort of workplace organization is worth striving for?

3. What sorts of political institutions ought to exist in a democratic socialist society? How can we design such institutions to avoid the injustices we associate with capitalism, on the one hand, and Soviet-style authoritarian socialism on the other?

These are not only problems of moral philosophy, of course. Answering them requires empirically informed political-economic and social analysis, which can tell us about the feasibility of establishing and sustaining different institutional arrangements and their likely consequences. 

But these questions aren’t merely of a technical kind, either. They ask us to specify the content of our guiding values, like freedom, democracy, and equality. And they ask us to make difficult trade-offs between different values when they come into conflict.

Building a new socialist movement requires that we answer these questions in a rational and consistent way. And doing that means doing moral philosophy.

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