A. Stark Place

Several years ago, when I was attending Simon Fraser University, I attended the first lecture of a history of philosophy class. It was the first and the last lecture I attended for that class. During the lecture the professor told us that the problem of evil had pretty much destroyed the credibility of claims that God exists. This he mentioned almost in passing and didn’t give any support for his claim, although I can only assume that he tried later on in the course.

If you don’t know what the problem of evil is, it is the claim that, first, evil exists in the world and, second, that the existence of evil is incompatible with a perfect and all-powerful God. Thus, the theory says, God cannot exist.

One year later, I attended the first few courses of a contemporary meta-ethics course, and then quit that class as well. The first few classes were enough for me to grasp where the course was headed, even if I hadn’t yet fully grasped the concepts involved. Now that I have taken a similar course from the University of Waterloo, I can assure you that my first impressions of this course were not unfounded.

I recognized the professor as the same person I had heard talk about the problem of evil the year before. His sweaters were what gave him away. The few lectures I had with this professor have proved to be the most important of my short academic career. Not because he was wise, but on the contrary, because I understood that he had made an error. It is one that I have since encountered in other classes but have never heard clearly pointed out.

To understand what the error was I will have to tell you a bit about what the point of the meta-ethics course was, and what contemporary ethical theory has to say. I plan on an in-depth analysis of modern ethics on this site, but that will have to wait for the time being. Modern ethics should be understood as a search for a rational basis for determining value. “Good” and “bad” are the prime examples of terms that have to do with value. The problem modern ethics has is that while rational arguments usually have factual claims as premises, philosophers have not been able to outline a mechanism whereby premises that are factual claims can lead to valid conclusions about value. If you don’t get it, don’t worry, I’ll explain the problem in more detail another time.

I had always hoped that I would be able to be able to think of a clear argument against the problem of evil. What I have learned over time, however, is that good arguments are extremely difficult to dream up. It’s when I keep my eyes open that I sometimes see what the answers are to questions, but I have never thought up a good argument with my own ingenuity. In this case I saw how the problem of evil could be refuted, and I did so because this professor presented the problem of evil and modern ethical theory in such a way that the inconsistencies between them were blatant. The strange part is that I probably wouldn’t have been able to see these inconsistencies if I wouldn’t have dropped out of the classes. Go figure.

What the few short lectures I did have with this professor made me see was that the history of modern ethics is the argument against the problem of evil. Modern ethics shows that if you assume that there is no God, you will be left with definitions of value that are based on social construction. Yet it is essential to the problem of evil that, if it is a meaningful problem at all, value terms such as evil must have a factual basis. So my professor in one class asserted that evil is a factual reality in the world, and therefore that God’s existence entails a contradiction, and in the next class asserted that values are human constructions. He has to be wrong somewhere.

I will be discussing these matters further, but I intended this as a short introduction into some of the issues I will be discussing in the coming months. Hopefully, I will be able to clearly present the theories of modern ethics and a full discussion of the concept of value. Some of the things I will discuss, and I think are relevant to any discussion of the problem of evil, are the is-ought gap and the Euthyphro problem, among others. Again, if you haven’t heard of these, I will fill you in, so stay tuned.

When people ask me what I’m taking in university, they are often surprised to hear that it’s philosophy that I’m studying. By their reactions, I can only assume they think I must be some kind of coffee drinking head-case who shuts himself off from the outside world, and devotes his time to the pondering of nonsensical and otherworldly things. While I do drink way too much coffee, I spend most of my time thinking about the same things that everyone else does. Certainly, philosophy has intellectual head-cases in its membership, but it is not unique in this.

Since I intend to do regular posts on philosophical issues, perhaps I should explain why it is that I chose philosophy, and why I think it’s an important endeavour. To do this, I need to explain what I think philosophy can and can’t do, and what I think is its rightful scope.

While some may contend that philosophy is absolutely necessary for determining truths about life, the history of philosophy should prove to anyone who studies it that philosophers are no more likely to be right about anything. The simple fact that they disagree with each other means that they can’t all have it right. Furthermore, since every philosophical view has an equivalent in non-philosophical circles, philosophy can’t be necessary in order to come to those views. Philosophers also don’t hold some special grasp of the issues they deal with. Laymen have opinions about the answers to philosophical questions, just as philosophers do, and for philosophers to pretend they know things that others don’t is just plain arrogant.

However, while I don’t think I’m more likely to know what the truth is because I know about philosophy, it has nonetheless been extremely useful to me.

I first declared philosophy as my major because I had taken, and then proceeded to hate, nearly every other subject. They were much too specific for, and my mind is much more at home when processing general concepts rather than specifics. I am a forest sort of guy, and the other subjects seemed to deal too much with individual trees. The initial reason why I picked philosophy, then, is that it fits better with my personality, but I have gone on to gain understanding from my studies. This understanding has to do with knowing where I, as well as others, stand on issues and why we stand where we do.

It is useful to think about people’s beliefs as lying somewhere on a big branching tree of thought. Everyone has a place somewhere on that tree. You and I might be on the same branch, but on a different twig, or even on the same twig, or we may be on different branches altogether. Everyone rests on some twig or another. Too often, someone on a twig on one branch will debate someone on a twig on a different branch, without realizing that their disagreement results from their lying on different branches, and not from their lying on different twigs. To debate in a meaningful way the discussion must centre on the place where the first split occurred, at the base of the branches. When people are arguing, if they make their arguments too specific and ignore the more general principles, they will likely argue past each other rather than engage with each other. Philosophy helps in understanding the map of this tree, even if doesn’t make you more likely to be on the correct twig on the correct branch. It helps philosophers centre debates in the right places, and helps them get their points across by helping them avoid making assertions that will be meaningless to others.

Like every academic subject, philosophy has its own language and conventions, although so far I have survived my studies without knowing any more about these than I need to. I always try to write my papers in ordinary language, since philosophy is useless to me if it can’t be communicated outside the field. Not that the philosophical language and conventions are useless, but that they don’t help me get out of philosophy what I want to get out of it.

I am also not all that interested in the history of philosophy, and I find it the most exhausting endeavour of them all. I recently had to learn the nuances of the rationalists, and this felt to me like sifting and carefully cataloguing a stranger’s garbage. This brings me back to the reason why I find philosophy useful in the first place: I think the rationalists are on a branch that should be lopped off the tree. Understanding the structure of the twigs on the rationalist branch doesn’t make much sense when I think the whole branch is based on error.

One last thing I should note: philosophy is not a stand-alone subject. To be a good philosopher and to make good philosophical arguments requires that one know a lot of other things, too. No one, and this includes philosophers, has ever proved anything meaningful with the rules of logic and reason alone. An argument can be perfectly structured, but without a true premise, that argument will be useless. The premises of arguments must come from facts about the world, and go on to show some conclusion or other. Without knowledge about the world, philosophers cannot have conclusions at all.

So my answer to the question why philosophy? First, my personality led me to it. Second, it helps me clearly understand what my own opinions are and the assumptions I have made to get to those opinions, and it also helps me understand what assumptions other people have made to get to their opinions. Last, it helps me know where to centre my discussions and to better get my points across. These are more than the other subjects were able to do for me, and that is why I am a philosophy student.

I recently wrote the following paper that discusses the inherent problems with Marxism. It does not discuss all aspects of Marxism, but instead focuses on the problems with economic structuralism. It is also not intended as a discussion of the Marxism of today, but instead focuses on the writings of Marx and Engels only. In the future, I intend discuss free-market theories and how they often make similar assumptions, and how they are also often ridden with the errors of economic structuralism. Please feel free to comment, especially if you think I have made any errors.

Marxist theory has had widespread effects in some parts of the world and it continues to have influences today. The history of this theory is largely evidence of its ineffectiveness. A philosophical evaluation of Marxism will also provide evidence against its legitimacy, as it is inadequate as both an economic and political theory. The theory overestimates the significance of economic structure, material distribution and class struggle in terms of their effects on other facets of human life. Therefore, Marxism, like all theories of economic structuralism that claim to be complete theories of social interaction, is false.

Central to Marxism is the idea that economic factors are the most important factors in human life, and are also the factors that determine the character of societies. Marx’s theory of Historical Materialism states that history is to be understood in terms of people acquiring their material needs. All other concepts that are normally thought of as being essential to the understanding of history—for example religion, morality, and warfare—are all to be understood as being brought about by economic factors. Marx believed that the end result of history must be socialism, because economic factors will eventually and inevitably bring about a social revolution.

Given Marx’s theories about economic structure and causation, however, his theories about the historical nature of economics cannot be correct. He believed society to be divided into two major parts: the base and the superstructure. The base is made up of the material forces of production, such as labour and infrastructure, and the social relations of production which are the way society is organized around those material forces. The social relations are, more specifically, the class structure of society, with different classes having different relations to production. The superstructure contains the other areas of social life such as religion and culture. In Marx’s opinion, material forces of production are what cause the social relations of production and the superstructure to be as they are at any given time. The way people are, he says, merely results from the material forces of production; and therefore, culture, religion, morality, philosophy, and state laws are all direct results of the economic structure.

Yet, if social factors are said to be determined by economic factors, and the history of societies are also based on economic factors, it is difficult to see how history could involve any sort of progression. The material forces of production cannot act, and cannot, therefore, bring about change. The result is that without the intervention of people who act contrary to Marx’s own theories about the causation of ideology, Marxism can never be put into practice. Therefore, historical materialism cannot be correct.

A brief scan of real world societies will show that Marx was wrong in thinking that ideology is a mere product of material forces. Ideology, for instance, determines such things as which products among alternatives to produce, whether to build schools or churches, even what foods are permissible to eat. Even societies that earn subsistence from a few scarce resources, such as the Inuit in parts of the far north who have been almost entirely dependent on caribou hunting for their material needs, are not entirely ideologically dependent on these productive forces. Furthermore, there can be great cultural differences between societies with very similar material forces, such as the United States and Japan, who have similar economies and quite distinct cultures.

A more direct example of how ideology is not entirely determined by material forces is the following example. The !Kung San of Botswana are a largely egalitarian society, and when wage labour became available to them, it allowed them to buy goods they would not have been able to acquire through their normal hunting and gathering economy. While their cultural activities were effected somewhat by this change—they were, for instance, now able to purchase alcohol and hire prostitutes—the structure of their society remained largely static. Richard Lee describes a young man returning from a stint of mining for wages:
In this example, the cultural institution of egalitarianism remained static, while the social relations of productions changed drastically. Therefore, culture is not necessarily dependent on economic structure; but rather, culture is more likely to determine the economic structure, and, as the illustration shows, the system of distribution of wealth.

Marx believed that the capitalist economic system caused certain ill effects that a socialist state would not cause. It is not clear how he could have held opinions as to the value of any particular economic system, since judgements about value are said to be direct results of material forces and, thus, theoretical discussions of value ought to be ruled out. However, his assertions about the negative aspects of capitalism and the positive aspects of communism make up the bulk of Marxism and are, therefore, important to this discussion.

First of all, capitalism is said to bring about a class struggle between exactly two classes. These classes result directily from there being two main relations of production. There are owners of capital, who are also employers; and there are workers, who are employed by the owners of capital for wages. The owners of capital are the bourgeoisie, and the workers are the proletariat. The character of each class is determined entirely by their relations of production. The bourgeoisie are interested in exploiting the worker for their own personal gain, and all their cultural activity is intended to perpetuate their advantage over the proletariat. The proletariat are exploited and down-trodden by their capitalist oppressors. All this is a direct result of the existence of private ownership of capital, and, according to Marx, will not be evident in a Marxist state.

This theory, however, runs contrary to reality. First, there is overlap between workers and owners of capital in terms of wealth; hence, that workers are necessarily exploited by employers seems unlikely. Second, many people will be a member of both groups during their lives, and some will even switch between classes many times; and they may do so without changing their ideologies. Third, there is overlap in ideology between the groups, and often no coherent or distinct ideology can be attached to either class. Fourth, the division of society into two distinct groups in conflict with each other is not the norm for societies; and in societies where there is conflict between two groups, they are more often culturally or religiously opposed, with each group containing both workers and capitalists. Last, there is no reason why class struggle will be eliminated alongside the elimination of private property.

Another negative effect of capitalism, according to Marx, is that the worker will be alienated. He will be alienated, firstly, from his work. This is because he will not be making goods for himself, but for the capitalist; and he will not be making the goods that he would prefer to make, but what the capitalist directs him to make. This idea is not necessarily consistent with the general consensus of the working class, and this is not surprising, for Marx himself was not of this class. Even in areas where workers are paid very low wages to manufacture goods, such as China, the quality of the goods produced can be quite high, and the workers may be satisfied with their work, even if they are not pleased with their wages. This is because members of the working class often take pride in their work. That the worker will never own the goods he produces does not seem to effect this, as industries such as yacht and coach building show. The workers in these fields almost never grow wealthy enough to purchase the products of their labour, and yet are well-known for being satisfied in their work. This is also true of assembly line manufacturing, with companies such as Saturn and Caterpillar having reputations for having satisfied employees. Furthermore, Marx has no justification for thinking that the alienation of the worker is a negative thing, if historical materialism is true, for there is no material basis to give this alienation a value judgement.

Further, Marx believed that these negative effects of capitalism will inevitably lead to a social revolution. As was discussed above, revolution is the end result of history, according to his theory of historical materialism. This revolution will occur as the material forces of production progress and the proletariat grow increasingly fed up with the exploitation and alienation that are handed to them by the bourgeoisie. Yet, how it is that the material forces can cause this is uncertain, for without outside determining factors, the material forces of production cannot change, and so they cannot be the reason for a socialist revolution. The record of history gives evidence for this, for Marx brought about the change in material forces—the change to a communists economic structure—through his ideology. Moreover, the Marxist revolution was by all accounts a bloody revolution by a small minority. This shows that it was not that the large proletariat group was fed up, but that a few Marxists were fed up. Historical material forces were, then, not what would bring about the existence of Communist state, as Marx believed.

Marx had high hopes for his socialist state that did not come to fruition. These hopes were the end of the alienation of the worker, the end of class struggle, and the eventual end of a need for a state at all. Thus Engels (Marx’s follower) writes:

The proletariat seizes political power… but in doing this abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, abolishes also the state as a state [2].

In other words, after the state has fully established communism, it will no longer be needed. Engels seems to suggest that the harmony brought about by this new economic structure will have the further effect of bringing about good behaviour on the part of its citizens, at least its sane ones.

In a society in which all motives for theft have been done away with, in which therefore at the most only lunatics would ever steal, how the preacher of morals would be laughed at who who…proclaim[ed] the eternal truth: Thou shalt not steal! [3].

Here Engels suggests that communism will bring about good moral actions on the part of its members, while at the same time, he argues against morality itself. It is therefore unclear exactly what Marxism says on the subject of morality. It is clear, however, that Engels is saying that bad actions are caused by bad economic structure. Of course, this was not the way that things played out in history, for when the Soviet Union and other communist states were abolished, it was only so that a new economic and governmental structure could take their place.

The story of communism is at all points consistent with the criticisms put forward in this discussion, for the communist system did not remedy the apparent alienation of the worker, since they still did not get to keep what they made, and could not make their own decisions about which things they made. Harmony between classes was, if anything, less evident in communism as the communist leaders enjoyed lavish lifestyles at the expense of other less fortunate citizens. People did not stop stealing, as Engels predicted, and the need for codified laws did not cease either. The state did not become less needed as time went on and citizens enjoyed the fruits of communism, but instead had to persist in with opressive policies in order to perpetuate the economic structure.

All these things occurred because Marxism is false. It has the causal relationship between ideology and economic structure wrong, for the economy is nothing more that a tool for people to acquire their material wants and needs. If anything the economic structure is a reflection of ideology, rather than what determines it. This is evidenced by the fact that in any social democracy there exist many economic structures as people employ the type they find most useful. Modern social democracies contain more than one type of economic structure: there are co-operatives that are socialistic in nature; there is a free market that is the usual choice for acquiring most consumer products; and there is publicly owned and publicly useful infrastructure, such as power plants. Outlawing all but one economic structure will be necessarily exploitive. This is especially true for Marxism, for it rests on the fallacies and errors discussed here.