Friedrich Engels’s Contribution to Marxist Moral Theory

Abstract

Scholars have largely ignored Engels’s views on morality, even though there is an extensive literature on Marx’s statements, or implicit positions, on moral matters. Yet Engels’s comments on moral questions also deserve our attention, for his writings help to elucidate the class character and ideological nature of moral views; explain why Marxists hold that the moral outlook of the proletariat represents the most advanced morality; and provide grounds for rejecting the overly reductionistic explanations of moral phenomena often associated with Marxism. Taken together, Engels’s ideas lay the groundwork for a distinctively communist outlook on morality and moral questions.