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offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

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The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
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offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Warm Keir Starmer Just Looked Out? Wed Dec 25, 2024 11:00 | Henry Goodall
'Warm King Starmer just looked out, On the feast of Reeves, then...' Read Henry Goodall's version of 'Good King Winceslas' updated for Starmer's Britain, exclusive to the Daily Sceptic.
The post Warm Keir Starmer Just Looked Out… appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Declined: Chapter One Wed Dec 25, 2024 09:00 | M. Zermansky
Introducing Declined: a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the U.K. that's going to be published in serial?form?in?the Daily Sceptic. Read episode one here.
The post Declined: Chapter One appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Lobbyists Behind the Climate and Nature Bill Wed Dec 25, 2024 07:00 | Charlotte Gill
The Climate and Nature Bill threatens to decimate the UK economy by turbo-charging Net Zero. But where did it come from? Charlotte Gill dives in and finds a glut of Left-wing activists working furiously behind the scenes.
The post The Lobbyists Behind the Climate and Nature Bill appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Wed Dec 25, 2024 00:32 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Starmer Doesn?t Have a Feel for Politics and His Team Lacks the Skills to Run the Country, Says Vete... Tue Dec 24, 2024 19:00 | Will Jones
Keir Starmer "doesn?t have a feel" for the Labour Party or politics in general and his team lacks the skills to run the country, veteran Labour MP?Diane Abbott?has said.
The post Starmer Doesn’t Have a Feel for Politics and His Team Lacks the Skills to Run the Country, Says Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en

offsite link Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en

offsite link How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en

offsite link Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en

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Marx And Morality

category international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis author Monday January 11, 2016 20:33author by Paddy Hackett Report this post to the editors

Morality based on materialist conditions

Society determines the character of culture.

Society determines the character of culture, consciousness and morality. Capitalism, then, determines the nature of morality. Consequently it provides the conditions that enable us to condemn the exploitation of labour power as morally wrong. If exploitation is morally wrong then there is a necessity to eliminate it and replace it with social conditions that are exploitation free. In this sense we can say that there is a materialist basis that justifies condemning exploitation and alienation as morally wrong.

author by Mike Novackpublication date Sat Jan 16, 2016 01:44author address author phone Report this post to the editors

To give a simple example (from what you said)

A is immoral (that given as true) is INSUFFICIENT all by itself to derive B is obligated to do something about A (assuming that B personally isn't doing A, etc.)

"A is immoral" is a statement.about fact, an "is" statement. "B should do something about that" is a "ought" sort of statement.

You need an "axiom" here, relating at "is" to the "ought". For example, you COULD have something like "If X is wrong, then even if personally innocent of X, ought to do something about it." Now I'm not going to argue for or against particular axioms of that sort, just going to point out that the moral philosophers of this world aren't in agreement. Lots of "schools" out there.

But you aren't going to get anywhere with pure materialism. All "is" statements". Even Marxist moral philosophy is going to need some "oughts". If this isn't making any sense to you, I suggest going back to Ethics 101. The necessary 'axiom" relating "is" to "ought" is NOT going to be a materialist statement.

.

author by Paddy Hackettpublication date Sun Jan 17, 2016 21:05author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Mike: But you aren't going to get anywhere with pure materialism. All "is" statements". Even Marxist moral philosophy is going to need some "oughts".

Paddy: It is not going to need “an ought” because the conditions for the elimination of a fact that is morally wrong already exist and are developed within capitalism as a social system. This means that objective conditions exist for the replacement of capitalism with communism. In a sense this is a socio-ontological matter.

Morality is just a form of condemnation –that capitalism is wrong. Once it's moral nature is established then the moral fact can be eliminated. The problem is a subjective one: the failure of the working class to develop this moral consciousness –class consciousness. The internal materialist or objective conditions already exist.

author by Mike Novackpublication date Tue Jan 19, 2016 19:47author address author phone Report this post to the editors

But really there may be no help for you but biting the bullet and taking a course of the Ethics 101 sort.

You think you can get from "X is bad" to a REASON why you should do anything about X just from the "X is bad"

WHY? WHY should something being bad be a REASON for you to do anything? Suppose instead we had a statement "X is blue". Does that give you a reason to do anything? Both are stating a factual condition. Neither sasy anything about your actions.

Now suppose you have a statement "If X is Z, you should eliminate X" Do you notice something about that statement, that it has BOTH and "is" and an ought"? That means if you have these statements:

1) If something is bad, you should work to eliminate it.
2) Capitalism is bad.

Conclusion: You should work to eliminate capitalism.

But while statement "2" above is a statement in the realm of factual statements, statement "1" was not. It states a relationship within the moral realm of discourse. It is NOT a "material" statement.

Could I make a suggestion. The left tradition did not come into existence with Marx, it pre-existed. And among the precursors were some who some in ethics. So why don't you look up "utilitarianism. Like I said elsewhere, I suspect you could base morality for Marxists with most schools. But historically, there was a relationship between the utilitarianism and the pre Marx left.

 
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