The author believes that one all-inclusive assessment of Marx’s philosophy is inevitably misleading. Although Marx constructed one theory that has a texture of a uniform fabric, the fabric has been woven with threads of two very different qualities. His presentation of capitalist instability, exploitation and alienation has the quality of scientific explanations. But his treatment of dialectic, economy formulated in terms of priceless commodities and his vision of communism is fantastic and arbitrary.
The author argues that the philosophical position of Karl Marx was primarily shaped by three determinants. The first was the traditional Jewish culture, with its high esteem for intellectual effort, for the genius reflected in intellectual discoveries, and for the ambition that influenced interesting life plans and culminated in some visions of an ultimate end in life. The second was neo- -Hegelianism, which Marx himself recognized as a dominant factor in his thought. Thirdly, Marx was affected by Martin Luther, and this influence is in the focus of this paper. The author clams that both Luther and Marx believed that the essential trait of specifically human existence arises from hard work of any kind except the dullest. Both were bewildered by ideological gullibility and blindness of the masses. Both were convinced that this boundless credulity was sustained by fear of eternal damnation spread by the official church and by slave mentality. Finally both claimed that this noxious influence could only be overcome by a revolution in life conditions and by new social ideas. Each, however, entertained a different conception of that desirable revolution.
The author tries to explain what consequences for social morality ensue from the assumption that moral attitudes are expressed not only in words but also in reactive attitudes. P.F. Strawson assumes that acts of resentment can alter attitudes of those who have triggered them by their behavior. On the other hand, we are ready to control our outbursts of short temper and anger to a certain degree if we take into account agents’ motives and their limited ability to exercise self-control. Moreover, it seems that reactive attitudes – though less precise than verbal rebuke – are more frank and straightforward. Nevertheless, why must I, when I hear a mediocre academic researcher brag over and over again about his apparently essential contribution to philosophy, curb my moral assessment of his self-importance to the level of my irritation? Why should I feel constrained to keep my moral disgust in tune with my impatience mixed with amusement? Why shouldn’t I continue to believe that I can be an amiable character and a rigorous moral person at the same time?
Roger Scruton repudiates the idea that civil liberty is a natural and unconditionally desirable state of citizenry, while subjection is something degrading and unnatural. He characterizes the conservative political system as a ‘rule by institutions’ supported by a theory of nature and a theory describing the functioning of institutions. National politics results from operations of social and political institutions which have grown out of traditional arrangements, respect raison d’État, and are governed by offices. The author argues that this is a sound interpretation of essential political arrangements, if it can solve the problem of political reconstruction after a period of decline or disintegration. As a matter of fact Scruton offers such a solution in his analysis of various forms of liberalism, one of which he seems to identify with conservatism.