allen - reply to brekter

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anadian Journal of Philosophy

Reply to Brenkert's "Marx &Utilitarianism"Author(s): Derek P. H. AllenSource: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 517-534Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40230640.

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Canadian journal of PhilosophyVolume VI, Number 3, September 1976

Reply to Brenkert' sMarx & UtilitarianismDEREK P. H. ALLEN, University of Toronto

In Marx and Utilitarianism/' (thisiourna/, Vol. V, No. 3, November1975) Professor George Brenkert argues against a case that I made forinterpreting Marx and Engels as utilitarians.1 I will consider his mainpoints in turn.

IHis first is that Marx does not give equal weight to the desires ofeveryone - proletarian and bourgeois alike. 2 But if Marx does nottake into account as prima facie worthy of satisfaction the interests,

simply as such, of all those who would be affected by the communistrevolution then he does not advocate that revolution on utilitariangrounds.However even if, as Brenkert holds, Marx regards bourgeoisinterests as prima facie evil/'3 it does not follow that he regards all theinterests of the men who are bourgeois as prima facie evil, for not alltheir interests are bourgeois. Thus Marx and Engels emphasize the

1 The Utilitarianism of Marx & Engels/' American Philosophical Quarterly, X, 3(July 1973), pp. 189-99.2 Brenkert, p. 433.3 Ibid., p. 424.

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distinction between the personal and the class individual: 4 the manwho is a bourgeois and the bourgeois, for example. In a preface toCapital Marx writes:I paint the capitalist and the landlord in no sense couleur de rose. But hereindividuals are dealt with only in so far as they are personfications of economiccategories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class interests. Mystandpoint ... can less than any other make the individual responsible for relationswhose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raisehimself above them.5

Communism is not in the interests of the bourgeois as such. ButMarx and Engels believe that it will be in the interests of the men whoare bourgeois, and they advocate it partly on that account. One of theclearest statements of this point was made by Engels in 1892.... great stress is laid on the dictum that Communism is not a mere partydoctrine ofthe working class, but a theory compassing the emancipation of society at large,including the capitalist class, from its present narrow conditions. This is true enoughin the abstract, but absolutely useless, and sometimes worse, in practice. So long asthe wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of any emancipation, butstrenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the working class, so long the socialrevolution will have to be prepared and fought out by the working class alone.6

This makes it plain that the communist revolution is supposed tobenefit all men as such.7

4 Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (MOSCOW: ProgressPublishers, 1964), p. 93; cf. p. 87.5 KarlMarx, Capital (London: Lawrence &Wishart, 1970-72), I, p. 10; (The Prefacein question is to the first German edition.)6 From Engels' 1892 Preface to his book The Condition of the Working Class in

England, eds. & trans. W. O. Henderson & W. H. Chaloner (Oxford: BasilBlackwell, 1958), p. 364. Cf. German Ideology, op. cit., pp. 49, 82-6; and Marx &Engels, The Holy Family in Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy &Society,eds. &trans. L. D. Easton &K. H. Guddat, (New York: Doubleday &Co., 1967), p.368.7 The distinction between the personal and the class interests of the bourgeois didnot emerge clearly in my original article. There I showed that Marx and Engelsapproved certain policies which they believed would promote the communistrevolution but which they knew to be in the interests of the bourgeoisie, and Iconcluded that therefore they did not discount bourgeois interests. But, frommy premise, which Brenkert grants, it does not follow that Marx and Engels tookthe benefit to bourgeoisie of the policies in question to be a reason for adoptingthem, and thus it does not follow that they did not discount bourgeois interests.Brenkert does not make this point. Instead he objects that the term bourgeoisis not, as I suggested, value-neutral. But this objection is irrelevant to thematter at hand in this Section.

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III take utilitarianism to be the normative ethical theory ofuniversalistic consequentialism.8 In Brenkert's view Marx is to someextent a deontologist, not a consequential ist, and a fortiori, not autilitarian. He argues that for Marx certain higher activities -activities in which man is an end in himself - are intrinsically morallyright. Marx appears to identify three kinds of 'higher activities'. Manas an end in himself is one who is self-determining, who treats otherthings in accord with their inherent standards, and who is a social

being, that is, one who treats others as a necessary part of one's ownnature ... Marx clearly thinks these are the ways in which man morallyought to act, and to live.9 Brenkert believes that since the activities helists are formulated and identified by Marx independently of theirconsequences, to this extent Marx in not a consequentialist.A consequentialist takes the notion of the right action for an agentin given circumstances to be a maximizing notion. Corresponding toeach of the higher activities Brenkert cites is a moral principle withwhich men in communist society are required to comply.10 Thissuggests the following test for whether Marx is a consequentialist: isthe action which would be performed in given circumstances by anagent who acted in conformity with these principles made right onaccount of its constituting or bringing about a state of affairs betterthan any other state of affairs accessible to him? (A state of affairswhich would be constituted or brought about if the agent did anaction available to him in those circumstances is accessible to him.)11Consider first the requirement that an individual be self-determining. Brenkert supposes that an action in conformity with thisrequirement is intrinsically morally right because its being performed

8 Thus I assume, for present purposes, that utilitarianism is compatible with anytheory of value. In my original article I implicitly attributed eudaimonisticutilitarianism to Marx and Engels. Below I raise the possibility that Marx's theoryof value is non-eudaimonistic. But otherwise the sort of utilitarianism inquestion in this paper is eudaimonistic.

9 Brenkert, p. 430.10 Within communist institutions, the actions one is to perform are those whichare intrinsically morally right. (Brenkert, p. 434). Communism not onlysupports the possibility of performing such higher activities/' its achievementbrings about their sole performance (p. 432). Forthis reason men in capitalistsociety are morally obligated to promote communism (p. 433).11 Cf. B. Williams, A Critique of Utilitarianism/' Utilitarianism: For &Against,}. J.C. Smart & B. Williams (Cambridge: University Press, 1973), p. 87.

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by a self-determining agent is not a consequence but an intrinsicfeature of it. But this does not show that it is not right on account ofbeing, if it is, a maximizing action. First, what does the directive to beself-determining mean? Presumably it means either that an individualought to do what he desires or that he ought to make of himself whathe desires, where this requires that he have some conception of thesort of person he wants to be and that he perform actions that makehim that sort of person. If in some situation he does an action whichconstitutes or brings about a state of affairs which he takes to be betterthan any other accessible to him then to this extent he does right, oneither interpretation of the directive. But this is a consequentialistthesis.

Objection: what makes his action right is simply that he freelychooses to do it. Reply: if so, the directive to be self-determining isempty, for it fails to provide him with guidance as to how he ought toact.Consider next the requirement that an individual treat others as anecessary part of his own nature. I take it that a person who does sorespects others' desires; he regards it as a reason for his doing someaction that another would benefit and against his doing it that anotherwould be harmed. Suppose that he has a choice between actions Aand B, that another person, X, prefers that he do A, and that at leastpartly for this reason he does A. Then to this extent he does the rightthing in doing A because his so doing results in a better state of affairsthan would have resulted had he done B. But this too is aconsequentialist thesis.Objection: what makes A right is simply that the agent does it atleast partly for the reason that X desires that he do it. Had he falselybelieved that X preferred that he do B, and partly for this reason doneB, he would still to this extent have done the right thing; but it wouldnot follow that his doing B had produced a better state of affairs thanwould have resulted had he done A. This is not a consequentialistthesis. Reply: the principle in question requires him to respect X'sactual desire, or preference, which is that he do A. Had he done B inthe mistaken belief that this was X's preference he would not havedone the right thing even if he himself would not have beenblameworthy. Ob/ect/on: The principle,thus interpreted, requires theindividual to respect whatever desires, or preferences, X happens tohave, which is not the same as for him to treat X as part of his ownnature. Reply: This objection is well-taken. If an individual's actualdesires, or preferences, are not those he would have if he had furtherrelevant information, then, given the choice in the abstract, he would,if rational, prefer satisfaction of the latter. Accordingly, he treatsanother as he would himself - as part of his own nature - if herespects the desires which the other would have, given full knowledge

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and reflection, which may not be the same as his actual desires. In thepresent example, he does right in doing A provided that X, givenrelevant information he currently lacks, if any, would still prefer hisdoing A to his doing B.12Evidently, then, an individual who is morally required to be self-determining and to treat others as part of his own nature ought toperform those actions which maximally conduce to the satisfaction ofhis own (informed) desires and those of others. But this is preciselywhat the principle of utility prescribes.The individual is also required to treat other things in accord withtheir inherent standards. In support of this point Brenkert might havereferred to the Commodities chapter in Capital, in which Marxcontrasts commodity-fetishism with a state of affairs in which thepractical relations of every-day life offer to man none but perfectlyintelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen andto Nature. 13 The fetishistic character of commodities consists in thefact that their value appears to be a natural property which theypossess as material objects. To treat the products of men's labouraccording to their inherent standards - that is to say, rationally - is torecognize that, on the contrary, value is a social relation amongproducers, peculiar to products as commodities not as materialobjects.Now an individual under socialism does right to the extent that hetreats products rationally rather than fetishistically; for if he treatsthem rationally, which socialism supports the possibility of his doing,he believes that they are controlled by the producers, and he is to thisextent in a better position to make of himself what he desires thanwere he to suppose, falsely, that the producers are controlled by them,which he would if he treated them fetishistically, as he might evenunder socialism.14 This is a consequentialist thesis.

12 It was of course because, in Marx's view, Benthamite utilitarianism prescribedthe satisfaction of the given desires of the normal man - for Bentham themodern shopkeeper, especially the Englishshopkeeper - that, but for want ofcourage, Marx would have called Bentham a genius in the way of bourgeoisstupidity. (Capital, op. tit., I, n. 2, pp. 609-10.)13 Ibid, p. 79.14 Ibid., pp. 75, 80. A further point. Under socialism the determination of valuecontinues to prevail (cf. Capital, op. cit., Ill, p. 851.); hence so does thepossibility of fetishism. And under communism fetishistic treatment of productsis at any rate logically possible. (Socialism is the first, and transitional, phase ofpostcapitalist society, communism the second: on this periodization, withreference to Marx, cf. V.I. Lenin, The State & Revolution, Lenin: SelectedWorks (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1968), p. 334.)

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But Brenkert holds that to treat other things according to theirinherent standards may be to treat them aesthetically. Now if forMarx to treat (certain) objects aesthetically is as such morally rightthen, I agree, his position is not at this point consequentialist; for if anagent in given circumstances treats an object according to aestheticstandards it does not follow that what he does constitutes or bringsabout a better state of affairs than any other accessible to him. But areactions of this sort intrinsically morally right for Marx? Brenkertsupposes that they are because in Marx's view they are characteristicof man as man.15 But that an activity is characteristic of man as mansimply means, on Brenkert's interpretation, that it is some kind ofhigher activity. 16 Brenkert recognizes that he must provideevidence that for Marx higher activities are not intrinsically (non-morally) good but intrinsically morally right. To this end, he refers toone passage and quotes another; but he misreads the former17 andmisinterprets the latter.He quotes as follows: assume man to be man and his relationshipto the world to be a human one: then ... everyone of your relations toman and to nature must be a specific expression corresponding to theobject of your will, of your real individual life. 18 He does not try toexplain this passage but he takes it to show that for Marx some kindsof actions simply are morally right because of the kinds of actions theyare. ... the morally correct action is not determined by which actionmaximizes the most intrinsic goods. However the passage does notsupport this position. To see this we need to fill in part of the ellipsis.

15 Brenkert, pp. 430.16 Ibid., pp. 428.17 Marx refers to the function of the worker in the modern workshop as a moralstrike against the worker/' (Brenkert, p. 430) But the passage he cites in supportreads: After striking the worker morally by a degrading function [in themodern workshop] ... he [Proudhon] laysthe blame ... (K.Marx, The Poverty ofPhilosophy (New York: International Publishers, 1963), pp. 132-3.) Thus Marx issaying that it is Proudhon who strikes the worker morally. Indeed he goes on tosay that conditions in the modern ( automatic ) workshop are not degradingbut have a revolutionary side {ibid., p. 144.), which Proudhon overlooks. Ifworkshop conditions were as Proudhon describes, Marx would certainly agreethat they were degrading. But it is important to notice that it is Proudhon, notMarx, who uses moral vocabulary as such, for partof Marx's point in the Povertyis that a critique of capitalism which, like Proudhon's, is specifically moral, isinsufficient by itself.18 Brenkert, p. 430, cf. T. B. Bottomore, Karl Marx: Early Writings (London:McGraw-Hill, 1963), pp. 193-4. (Henceforth Bottomore )

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The section Brenkert omits begins: 'love can only be exchanged forlove, trust for trust, etc. If you wish to enjoy art you must be (musst du... seiny9 an artistically cultivated person ... The passage is from thesection of the Manuscripts on money. Man as capitalist gives not lovebut money in order to get love in return. But love can't be bought; likehuman qualities in general it exchanges only for itself. If an individualwants love - if love is the object of his will - then he must exchangefor it a specific expression of his personality which corresponds towhat he wants, namely love. Marx's point here is not that it is morallycorrect to exchange love for love but that it is possible to be lovedonly if one loves. But even if he does believe that to exchange love forlove is morally right, perhaps what makes it right in his view is thatsince it is a relation in which both parties secure something which eachvalues for its own sake - the other's love - it is to this extent a betterstate of affairs than one in which either wanted but failed to be lovedby the other. ( If you love without evoking love in return ... then yourlove is impotent and a misfortune. )20 This is a consequentialist,indeed a utilitarian, position. It is not supported by the passage butnor, pace Brenkert, is it ruled out.Finally, Brenkert's account of how Marx takes the expressioncharacteristic of man as man is mistaken. He contends withoutoffering textual support, that Marx explicates it in terms of certainhigher activities. 21 In fact the kinds of activity he lists are not thosethat seem to be higher for Marx. Marx uses the expression higheractivity 22 but the kinds of activity he evidently regards as higher areartistic and scientific, among unspecified others.23It is worth considering what Marx might have meant bycharacteristic of man as man. The first point to make is that theexpression man as man occurs mainly, and frequently, in the

19 Marx Engels Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1968), Supp. Vol. 1, p. 567. (The modalauxialliary verb in the second clause of the passage Brenkert quotes ismussen, inthe third person singular.)20 Bottomore, p. 194. Marx makes this remark in the sentence which immediatelyfollows the passage Brenkert quotes.21 Brenkert, pp. 428.22 E.g., K.Marx, Grundrisse, tr. M. Nicolaus (London: Penguin Books, 1973), p. 712.23 Ibid., p. 706. Brenkert does not explain why he puts the expression higher

activities in inverted commas. I did so in my original article in the course ofarguing that Marx quite probably would not have regarded any kind of activityas higher per se.

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Manuscripts and intends a contrast with expressions designating otherabstractions, for example, man as animal/' man as worker/' man ascapitalist. Thus man is an animal partly in virtue of having what Marxsometimes calls animal needs/' which, like other animals, he mustsatisfy by engaging in productive activity if he is to survive. Productivelife is ... species-life. 24 The second and crucial point is that theproductive life characteristic of man simply as such is free, consciousactivity. 25 To produce freely is the essence specific to man as such.(Evidently Marx uses, or would use, the expression productiveactivity , or production, in a general sense, to cover the exercisingof any power,26 which he interprets as a capacity to produce.27 Anyactivity is in this general sense productive in virtue of being therealization of a power. Composing a song, making a desk, loving awoman, enjoying art, are, in this sense, productive activities.)Man's life activity is free just insofar as he makes it an object of hiswill and consciousness, 28 or, an end-in-itself. An animal of a differentspecies, by contrast, does not distinguish its life activity from itself ( Itis its activity. )29 It produces only under the compulsion of directphysical need, 30 whereas man as man produces for the sake ofproducing.31 If a man makes his life activity, his being, only a meansfor his existence, 32 and not an end-in-itself, then his existence does

24 Bottomore, p. 127.25 Ibid.26 Thus, production for its own sake means nothing but . . . the development ofthe richness of human nature as an end in itself. K. Marx, Theories of SurplusValue (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1969), Part II, pp. 117-8. Cf. G. Cohen,Bourgeois & Proletarians, Journal of the History of Ideas, XXIX,2 (April-June1968), p. 223.27 Ibid., p. 227.28 Bottomore, p. 127.29 Ibid.30 Ibid., p. 128.31 Marx suggests other differentiae between the productive activity of men and of(other) animals. For example, men's production involves advance planning, andmen produce instruments of production, (Cf. Capital, op. cit. I, p. 178;Bottomore, p. 128.) But these other differentiae are not specific to theproductive activity of man as man, for they also characterize productive activityin which a man engages as a means to ends other than producing.32 Bottomore, p. 127; cf. German ideology, op. cit., pp. 54-5.

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not conform with his essence. His labour is estranged. Thus, that somekind of activity is characteristic of man as man means that it is an end-in-itself for man as such, and the kind of activity which is an end-in-itself for man as such is productive. A man's productive activity ischaracteristic of him as man, and he is on this account human, justinsofar as he engages in it for its own sake.33 Then, contrary toBrenkert, Marx's position is not that an activity characteristic of man asman is as such morally right but that man as such takes it to be an end-in-itself, or intrinsically good.A further point. The word human in one of the senses in whichMarx frequently uses it in the Manuscripts, would be substitutible forthe phrase characteristic of man as man. In this sense the humaneither is or has as its object what for man as man is an end-in-itself.34 1take it that Marx uses the word in this sense when, in the passagediscussed above, he states what is the case on the counterfactualassumption that an individual's relationship to the world is a humanone. Thus, for example, the relation between X and Y in which, byloving Y, X secures his end that Y love him is human for X in virtue ofbeing, under the description of the end he secures, an end-in-itselffor him and identical to the relation which satisfies the description ofhis means.

IllBrenkert concedes that even if the sorts of actions characteristic ofman as man are intrinsically morally right, there may be a utilitarianstreak in Marx nevertheless, for after all some do claim that autilitarian can determine which actions ought to be performed on thebasis of the moral consequences produced ... Thus, Marx's mixed

deontological theory would include that one is morally to performthose actions, bring about those institutions, which would producethe greatest fulfillment by individuals of intrinsically morally rightactions. 35 Brenkert then advances two arguments to show that Marx'stheory is proof against even this measure of utilitarianism.

(1) The first is that the utilitarian principle assumes a cleavagebetween the individual's interests and the general interests. It is for

33 Cf. Cohen, op. cit, pp. 212-3.34 Men, needs, activities, and relations are among the things that can be human inthis sense. Cf. Bottomore, pp. 154, 159, 160, 168, inter alia.35 Brenkert, p. 431.

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this reason one calculates individual utilities to find out what is thegreatest good. Whereas, on the other hand, for man as man ... thereis a harmony of personal and social interests/'36 This argument isconfused on three counts. First, utilitarianism is not committed inprinciple to the assumption that interpersonal interests diverge. Hereis J. S. Mill on the point : utility would enjoin ... that laws and socialarrangements should place the happiness or (as, speaking practically,it may be called) the interest of every individual as nearly as possible inharmony with the interest of the whole/'37 Mill seems to believe that astate of affairs in which to satisfy the interests of any individual wouldthereby be to satisfy interests of every other individual would beproductive of more utility that one in which to satisfy the interests ofall, collectively, would be to frustrate the interests of some. This beliefmay be false but it is not inconsistent with the principle of utility.Secondly, Brenkert suggests that the method utilitarians use to identifythe greatest good (the general interest) is determined by theassumption that interpersonal interests diverge. This is true, but on thecontrary assumption a different method is available to utilitarians.Thus, assuming divergence of interpersonal interests, the utilitarianmust take into account the interests of each and every individualseparately, if he is to identify the general interest in any instanceconsistently with the principle, to which utilitarianism is committed,that the interests of each individual count equally with those of everyother individual. But on the contrary assumption of harmony orcoincidence of interpersonal interests it would suffice, and would beconsistent with utilitarianism, to determine the general interest byidentifying the interest of any individual, not that of every; thismethod is appropriate to a state of society which Mill and Marx believeis on the historical agenda. Thirdly, Brenkert imples that the need tocalculate individual utilities would disappear if interpersonal interestsalways coincided. On the contrary: the need to calculate wouldremain if men were free to choose among different possible ends.38Thus, assuming interpersonal identity of interest, we would knowbefore the choice was made that everyone would agree but not what

36 Ibid.37 J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism/' Mill's Utilitarianism, ed. J. M. Smith & E. Sosa(Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1969), p. 45; cf . pp. 58-61. Here is Benthamon the same point: ... in the moral field it cannot be a man's duty to do thatwhich it is his interest not to do. Morality will teach him rightly to estimate hisinterests and his duties; and examination will show their coincidence/' (J.

Bentham, Oentology, ed., J. Bowring (London: Tait, 1834), Vol. I, p. 11.)38 Cf. below, p. 531.

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their choice would be. Which of the ends an individual would preferto any other would need to be determined, although, of course, itwould be necessary only that one, not every, individual perform thecalculation (unless we wanted to know more or less exactly therelative overall utility of the preferred action and were not entitled toassume that everyone would agree on that).(2) Next Brenkert contends that Marx is not a utilitarian becausethe language and spirit of maximization are quite alien to [his]approach. 39 He defends this point in two ways, (a)The judgments inwhich Marx expresses approval of certain acts or policies on theground that they will promote communism, though teleological,are not utilitarian because they are not to the effect that these acts orpolicies will produce more good than would any available alter-native.40 Brenkert believes that some of Marx's moral argumentshave the following form: communist institutions, P, are required bymorality; then one is obligated to promote P; policy Awould promoteP; then A is morally obligatory.41 The reason that communism ismorally required is that under communism individuals perform onlyintrinsically morally right actions, not that more such actions areperformed under communism than under capitalism. Thus, Brenkertinfers, policies conducive to communism are not maximizing policies.This argument is a non sequitur. A deontologist who holds that acertain kind of action is intrinsically morally right may consider a stateof affairs in which such actions are performed (and performed fornon-consequentialist reasons) better than one in which they are not,and prefer policy A to policy B on the ground that A would beconducive to the former state of affairs but Bto the latter. But then hetakes A to be a maximizing policy. Thus even if in Marx'sview moralityrequires communism for the reason Brenkert suggests, it does notfollow that policies conducive to communism are not maximizingpolicies.Brenkert takes Marx's judgment in support of the introduction offree trade by the English bourgeoisie in 1846 to be teleological butnot utilitarian. Marx's argument for free trade, as Brenkert presents it,is non-comparative:42 free trade is not approved on the ground that it

39 Brenkert, p. 431.40 Brenkert appears to take it to be specific to utilitarianism, rather than definitiveof consequentialism, to construe right actions as maximizing actions.41 Brenkert, p. 433.42 Ibid.

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is better than some alternative but simply on the ground that it wouldhasten the social revolution. But Marx's actual argument is that freetrade is preferable to the alternative of continued protection: ingeneral, the protective system of our day is conservative, while thefree trade system is destructive. 43 Thus Marx prefers free trade on theground that it will indirectly promote communism whereas continuedprotection would reinforce capitalism. If he is correct in thisprediction, and in the belief that communism is a better form ofsociety than capitalism, then free trade is a maximizing policy. Marx'sarguments in favour of the other acts and policies that he believedconducive to revolution must be understood similarly.(b) I turn now to Brenkert's other defense of his point that Marx hasno truck with maximization. Marx does not suggest that an individualshould decide what he ought to do depending on which course ofaction would produce the greatest realization of individual capacititesto live and to act in the ways [characteristic of man as man]. 44 Reply:There is no need to provide man as man with this directive because hedoes what it prescribes in any case: he aims at his full development,and the activity in which he secures it is maximizing activity, for he isfree to pursue other ends. I shall develop this point in two stages.(i) The complete realization of an individual's human nature, or hisfull self-development, consists in his developing a totality ofcapacities. 45 The developed individual is versatile. The activities inwhich he achieves his full development are productive, in the sensespecified above, for they consist in the realization of his powers, whichare capacities to produce. To develop fully a man must engage in manydifferent kinds of (productive) activity, to the limit of his powers. But itis unnecessary to enjoin man as man to do so, because he experiencesa need for his complete self-realization as an end-in-itself. On accountof this need he is wealthy. In a socialist perspective, 46 the wealthyman is one whole own self-realization exists as an inner necessity, aneed. 47 Wealth, in this perspective, is the absolute working-out of[man's] creative potentialities, with no presupposition other than theprevious historic development, which makes ... the development of all

43 K. Marx, On the Question of Free Trade/' Poverty, op. cit., p. 224.44 Brenkert, p. 431.45 Brenkert, p. 432; cf. German Ideology, op. cit., p. 83.46 Bottomore, p. 168.47 Ibid., p. 165.

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human powers as such the end in itself. 48 The last point is important:self-realization, as an end-in-itself, becomes a need of man's in thecourse of history. Thus under communism a historically created needhas taken the place of the natural one/'49 The natural need in questionis for labour as a means of producing consumables. The historicallycreated need is forthe development of the rich individuality which is as all-sided in its production as inits consumption, and whose labour also therefore appears no longer as labour, butas the full development of the activity itself, in which natural necessity in its directform has disappeared.50Workers and capitalists as such do not have the need for self-realization as an end-in-itself, but the men who are workers and

capitalists acquire it. Thus Marx refers to the automatic workshop, inwhich labour has completely lost its specialized character. But themoment every special development stops, the need for universality,the tendency towards an integral development of the individualbegins to be felt. 51 However not all the men who are workers acquirethe need for universality while they are workers, if only because notall workers experience a diversity of productive activities. Nor doesthe man who is a capitalist acquire it while he is a capitalist, notbecause he does not produce diversely, but because he does notproduce at all. A capitalist does not exercise the powers of a man butthose of money. He does not act, his money acts for him.52 Thetransformation of the man who is a capitalist into a man who is humaninvolves the substitution of his powers for the power of money: as acapitalist he satisfied, or tries to satisfy, his needs and desires throughmoney, but as he becomes human he satisfies them by exercising thepowers which belong to him as a man. In so doing he will acquire theneed to exercise his powers for the sake of so doing: this prediction is

48 Grundrisse, op. cit., p. 488.49 Ibid., p. 325.50 Ibid.51 Poverty, op. cit., p. 144.52 At least so the capitalist is represented in the Manuscripts and in The HolyFamily, although not in the Communist Manifesto; cf., Bottomore, pp. 191-3,and Cohen (op. cit., pp. 223-8), who elaborates this thesis in detail.

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licensed at least by the experience of those workers whose labour haslost its specialized character.53The individual as man also experience^] a need for the greatestwealth, the other person. 54 X's need for Y is a need for a complex ofhuman manifestations of life/'55 that is, for Y's full development, therealization of all of Y's powers. On account of humanly needing Y, hetreats Y as an end, and thus favours Y's full development because Yhimself aims to be a fully developed individual; and perhaps hefavours it also because he takes the full development of human natureto be good independently of its sat isfactori ness to man as man. Y, forhis part, aims at his full development for its own sake and for X's sake.His self-realization is an end-in-itself insofar as he experiences ahuman need for it; but he also has a human need for X, and one of X'shuman needs is that Y realize all his powers. In virtue of the formerneed, Y would undertake to realize his powers for the sake of so doingeven if he had ho other reason; and in virtue of the latter, he would doso for X's sake even if he had no desire to do so for its own. As ithappens, he undertakes to realize his powers for both these reasons.This a reconstruction. Marx does not present the reasons for which theindividual as man desires that he and every other man realize hispowers, but it seems that these are the reasons he would present.

(ii) Next we must notice when the individual's full development issupposed to occur. The working day in communist society falls intotwo parts,56 socially necessary labour time and disposable or freetime, which is both time for leisure (Mussezeit) and time for higheractivity. 57 Marx seems to believe that self-development will occur to aconsiderable extent, if not entirely, in the time an individual devotesto higher activity, for he protests against Fourier that theindividual's self-realization ... [is not] mere fun, mere amusement ...

53 Here I follow the phenomenological study of the abstract capitalist which wefind in the Manuscripts. Marx is not committed to the claim that actual capitalistswill become human, only to the claim that their descendants will, and that theythemselves will begin to be humanized through, inter alia, engaging inproductive activity in postcapitalist society. (My references here, as at the end ofSection II,are mainly to the Manuscripts because this is Brenkert's main source.)54 Bottomore, p. 157; cf. Brenkert's third kind of higher activity/'55 Bottomore, p. 165.56 Cf. Grundrisse, op. cit., p. 708.57 Ibid., p. 712. Translation corrected; cf. K. Marx, Grundrisse Der Kritik DerPolitischen Okonomie (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953), p. 599; and D. McLellan,Marx's Grundrisse (London: Macmillan, 1971), p. 148.

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Really free working, e.g. composing, is at the same time precisely themost damned seriousness, the most intense exertion. 58 Self-development, then, is not the stuff of leisure hours. The individualdevotes himself to it in his disposable time, not under (social)contraint, but because he humanly needs to do so. Since he is self-determined in his disposable time, at least, he is free to allocate it toleisure and to higher activity in whatever proportion he prefers; todevelop many capacities or only a few. He prefers59 the first of theseoutcomes, and at least partly for its own sake. Thus the ( higher )activity in which he achieves it is to this extent maximizing activity.60

(The use which the individual as man makes of his free time incommunist society shows that he prefers to develop his capacitiesthrough producing diversely than to produce merely for the sake ofsatisfying his subsistence needs.61 To the extent that he satisfies hisdesire to develop, he is better off than he was under capitalistconditions. This claim is not rebutted by the objection that undercapitalism perhaps most men do not have the preference in question,for it is not that they have the opposite preference, but that, in aphrase, they know only one side of the question, or neither; theirempirical conditions of life are such that either they are unable toacquire the desire to develop their capacities fully, or, if they acquireit, to undertake to satisfy it.)

58 Ibid., p. 611.59 His intentional and attitudinal preferences correspond. As Marx presents him,however, he does not deliberate.60 It is irrelevant to inquire here what are Marx's criteria of higher activity/'because Brenkert's list of higher activities is not Marx's. My views on thequestion are in my original article.61 Ido not consider here whether the individual's self-development occurs to anyextent during his socially necessary labour time, but even if itdoes, neverthelessat least some of his capacities - e.g., to compose music - evidently are notrealized then; and if it does not: if for man as man socially necessary labour isonly a means of satisfying subsistence needs and not also an end-in-itself,nevertheless, if wealth, as understood in a socialist perspective, is the aim of

production (cf Grundrisse, op. cit., p. 488) then the ultimate reason that a man asman labours is that he may produce in his free time for the sake of so doing andfor the sake of the other.

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IVBrenkert concludes that the basis of Marx's moral approval ofcommunism ... is the complete fulfillment of man's human nature. 62But Marx does not say so. Neither does he say that under communismmen do moral right, nor prescribe what men under communismmorally ought to do. Rather he typically makes observations like thefollowing. Under communism, the time of production devoted todifferent articles will be determined by the degree of their socialutility/' and as a result these articles will correspond, in the most

useful manner, to the needs of the worker as a man, and not [as undercapitalism] to the man as a worker. 63Again, in Communist society,accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote theexistence of the labourer (whereas in bourgeois society, livinglabour is but a means to increase accumulated labour ).64 Undercommunism the complete elaboration of what lies within man 65willoccur (whereas under capitalism men develop at best one-sidedly).From remarks such as these we must determine whether Marx'sreasons for approving communism are moral, and, if so, whether theyare utilitarian.Secondly, Brenkert supposes that in Marx's view what makes thecomplete fulfillment of man's human nature morally right is that it ischaracteristic of man as man. On the interpretation of characteristicof man as man proposed above, this is to say that it is an end-in-itselffor man as such; then what he does in achieving his completefulfillment is indeed (prima facie) morally right, according toutilitarian principle. It might be objected, however, that what makes itmorally right for a man to fulfil himself is that the capacities he exerciesin so doing are human. But that they are human means that to exercise

62 Brenkert, p. 432. Brenkert emphasizes complete because he is arguing at thispoint that what makes communist institutions morally required for Marx is notthat under communism man's capacities are more fulfilled than under any othersystem, although they are, nor that the individual is more satisfied, although heis, but that man's capacities are completely fulfilled.63 Poverty, op. cit., p. 63.64 K. Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, K. Marx & F. Engels: SelectedWorks (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), Vol. I, p. 121.65 E.J.Hobsbawm, ed., Karl Marx: Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (London:Lawrence & Wishart, 1964), p. 85; cf. Grundhsse, op. cit., p. 488.

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them is, or becomes, an end-in-itself for the man whose they are.66For a man to secure what he values for its own sake is pro tanto morallyright on utilitarian principle. Then for him to exercise his capacities asan end-in-itself is prima facie morally right. On this interpretation,then, human capacities are, prima facie, capacities to do moral right,and this is because they are human, not conversely.Furthermore the individual as man exercises his capacities not onlyfor the sake of doing so but also for the reason that his self-realizationis an end for which every other man experiences a need; and one ofhis reasons for desiring that every other man exercise his capacities isthat the other so desires. These are moral and utilitarian reasons.(There is no evidence, however, that a man as man engages in moraldeliberation; but he lacks the desire to do the other person wrong,insofar as he has a need for the other. Since this need is human itsobject is an end-in-itself for him; but since its object is another person,it is a need that, at least partly for the other's sake, the other secure hisends, and thus to this extent it is a moral human need. A man as mandoes not undertake to wrong others because he could not wrongthem consistently with securing his end that they secure theirs.)It will be apparent that Marx would accept the followingproposition:

(1) The individual as man,67 in developing his capacities fully,brings about a state of affairs - his full self-realization -which he and everyone else take to be better than the state ofaffairs he would have brought about had he developed themless.Clearly he would also accept:

(2) It is good that the individual as man develops his capacitiesfully,

66 I do not claim that this is the only sense in which Marx uses human in theManuscripts, but that it is one sense. The early writings obviously also contain aFeuerbachian notion of the human essence, which is not to be elucidated simplyin terms of human ends. Doubtless, then, there is a moral point of view in theManuscripts which is not entirely utilitarian.67 The individual as man designates an abstraction. Marx is not committed to

the claim that all men under communism develop all their capacities to theutmost, but to the claim that they become versatile, no doubt some more so thanothers.

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and would take (1) to be a reason, if not the only reason, for (2). It is autilitarian reason; thus, the individual's engaging in the activities inwhich he develops his capacities fully is, given (1), ceteris paribusmorally right, according to utilitarian principle. Moreover, insofar ashis fully developing his capacities consists in his engaging in theseactivities, we may agree with Brenkert that his engaging in them is(ceteris paribus) morally right independently of its consequences.Finally, Marx would evidently accept:

(3) The full development of human nature is intrinsicallygood,because he supposes that full development is an ingredient of humanwell-being ( happiness ), and on this account good in itself. The factthat it is in the interests of human well-being to value full developmentfor its own sake will be apparent under communism, when men findthat their well-being is enriched to the extent that they develop theircapacities. But Marx may also regard full human development asintrinsically good on account of something other than its satisfac-toriness to man as man.68 On this interpretation, (3) is an aestheticjudgment, or analogous to one. If it would be Marx's view that (3), asan aesthetic judgment, together with (1), support (2), then: either (2) isan ideal-utilitarian judgment; or if (3), as an aesthetic judgment, isirrelevant to moral evaluation, then (2) is a hybrid judgment, partlyaesthetic and partly (non-ideal) utilitarian. On the other hand,perhaps it would be Marx's view that (1) alone supports (2), in whichcase (2) is a eudaimonistic utilitarian judgment.69

March 1976

68 Cf. n. 8, sentence 3.69 I have benefited from Dan Goldstick's comments on an earlier version of this

paper and from discussions with Gerald Cohen and Anthony Quinton.

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