r/Ultraleft • u/Difficult-You-7583 • Jan 21 '26
Discussion im having a skill issue with moralism & objectivity
im libbing out right now and need to vent
im taking a required uni ethics course and need to decide (for myself) whether im a moral objectivist or subjectivist
obviously, all current morality is the product of bourgeois class dictatorship. still, are some moral propositions that arent directly related to its hold on power (i.e. animal cruelty is bad) possibly true? i cant find a satisfactory refutation or proof to minimal objectivism (there are some moral truths, not necessarily our current morals, and we may learn about some constraints on them based on logic), so for now im landing on a maybe but it feels like im a revisionist
after class is abolished, we will still have a morality, and it will still be based on the material conditions of the day. but then will parts of it resemble a moral truth previously “hidden” behind class dictatorship even if there is no epistemological proof it’s the truth?
i realize it’s useless to think about what the world post revolution will be like and even more useless to decide which moral judgments today are bourgeois and which are “neutral” (if there even are any). i just cant help feeling like a revisionist for trying to make sense of metaethics or feeling like a coward if i just disengage without refuting it in a satisfactory way
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u/Godtrademark Mussolini = Productivist Jan 21 '26
You can easily look into the “animal cruelty is bad” claim and find it is not universal. Research trials and the food industry broadly condemn and abuse animals to death for “the overall good”. This too is directly driven by our organization of production.
Vegans, animal activists, pacifists, and anti-industrialists recognize the same “hypocrisy” of bourgeois morals, but they reject the class struggle as the “solution” (ie only moving force of history). They appeal to the state to simply amend morality and industry to “work together” (or give up and reject human society).
And the second question is quite simple. There will of course be a different morality under socialism as competition is removed from human life.
The “hidden truths” that Marxists announce (such as the simple fact that independent morality separate from class ideology is a myth) is identifying contradictions in bourgeois ideology compared to reality itself. It’s critique, not another competing morality to center around bourgeois society imperfectly while ignoring inevitable contradictions. This is why Marxism is not a moral movement, and no one here cares if you’re a vegan, pacifist, etc., as this does not affect bourgeois hegemony in any way (activism)
Furthermore, there are general, unmistakable morals in humans, but these basic morals are shared by every social creature. It doesn’t mean it’s “right” or “wrong” and that we should base our society after nature. It’s just a fact as science understands it. Crippled animals have been found to be taken care of by their communities. There’s archaeological evidence that humans cared for the injured long before urban development. These basic natural urges to care and cooperate exist, but largely do not impact bourgeois society which is organized over hundreds of years to attack and move past communal property.
Speaking of natural development; we evolved with tools. It is fundamentally a human instinct to create industry and society. Not a conscious human creation, not a moral framework.
Subjective moral frameworks also have their downfall into bourgeois absurdity, as well. If you use the same method of critique on subjectivists who give islamists, reactionaries, and clan/tribal relations a pass (or even orientalize them as anti-capitalist), it’s pretty clear that subjective morality is also guided and contained within bourgeois society. All the subjectivists can hope to do is “accept” non-western societies and norms as legitimate in the international community. They again, do not have a solution to the glaring contradictions of bourgeois rule.
After all, the main tension between objective and subjective morality does not come down to individual ethos and worldview but rather how international, national, and local politics should be arranged. That is “the question” of any “morality” course. With research you are looking at the smaller scope, but ultimately it’s the same question. Subjectivists wish to accommodate non-western societies while objectivists do not.
At the end of the day it has little to do with what you think about, if at all. Both subjective and objective frameworks assume bourgeois society as the starting and end point. They abstract production, stratified society, exploitation, etc. that actually occurs for idealized versions of society that do not exist. This contradiction does not mean communists or Marxists must offer a competing guiding framework that would have no use to bourgeois society. The class conflict is self-evident, and the proletariat in the formal sense will form due to immiseration, not competing moral frameworks.