from Ercan Gündoğan, A Theory of Capitalist Society and Social Dialectics, (2011 December, Lap Lambert), pp: 396-9

Dialectics of morality and ethics

As morality is related with values, ethics, which is also a part of philosophy, expresses more than them as it also includes principles and altruistic characteristics of an individual who is not interested only in his/her interests and personal individual conditions.  Both of them are other two mediums through which individuals are connected to the social whole. Morality is given by society and can be modified by individuals for their own isolated conditions. Sexual morality is a social morality and adopted and modified, adjusted by individuals for their limited private life spheres.

Although morality exists for any individual, ethics rarely develops since it is not imposed by society but is developed and advocated by few of individuals. Actually, the ultimate stage of individual development is the acquisition of an ethical behaviour.

Ethical behaviour rarely develops since it requires a social consciousness that is not limited to individual interests and hence belongs to the ones who are capable of thinking of other individuals even without having a direct personal relation. It is the pure connection of human to other humans simply because they are humans in themselves. As Kant suggests, human is valuable in him/herself rather than being valuable for something.

Therefore, ethics and ethical behaviour is closely related with humanist philosophy as a prerequisite of socialism and then communism. The latter two, however, defines human concretely, historically and as the constitutive parts of society. However, for those lines, social whole are not composed of individual humans, but their reciprocal relations as constitutive elements. The question of human is changed into the human relations since they are not isolated, abstract, non-historical beings.

When humans are conceived in terms of their concrete and historical relations, which form their social whole, morality is seen as moralities of social relations and ethics becomes the self- morality of few of individuals who do not consider only themselves.

Ethics and ethical behaviour, for this reason, starts with a love for humans and a critique of the current social relations and human conditions. Loving and criticism of humans and their social whole lead into such behaviour and hence ethics refers to one of the most dialectical dualities in our social life.

Ethics stems from the situation in which an individual first has to love something by simultaneously criticising it. Duality is not simply between love and hate, but between criticism, rejecting and loving and embracing.  For this reason, real lovers show the most ethical behaviours and feel the dialectical unity most. Examples are plenty. A patriot is the one who does not only love his/her country most but also the one who criticises it most. The phenomenon is seen in the most ethical professionals who criticise bribed and corrupted fellows most.

Socialists and communists are the candidates for the most ethical individuals, showing a deep faith towards and respect for their people and country while they try to elevate them to a better level and condition. Only their love, faith and respect to social whole can produce so much criticism, struggle and fight.

Morality is based on dualities whereas ethics on dialectics. Morality differentiates socially accepted good and socially accepted bad and reproduces itself through coercive measures and punishment. Ethics develops when an individual sees and tries to supersede good-bad dichotomy.

Ethics as critical faithfulness is the best form of social individual or full simultaneity of individualism and altruism and collectivism. It supersedes the extremes of individual egoism and over-socialisation of an individual. When and where this social individualism develops is the main problem of socialist and communist theory and movement, which creates the conditions of ethical human behaviours. Marxist theory is concerned with the conditions upon which ethical individual can develop rather than being interested with the abstract principles of morality and ethics about future just as it does not formulate the details of future communist society as is done by the utopians.