Nielsen’s Reconstruction of Marx’s Moralism: A Contextualist Perspective and the Absence of the Dialectical Dimension

In contemporary Western Marxist scholarship, Kai Nielsen is a “vanguard” opposing the interpretation of Marx’s moral views as moral relativism. He disagrees with the theoretical tendency of some scholars to separate Marx’s factual statements about capitalism from his moral critique, and strives to provide a theoretical defense of Marx’s moralism while preserving Marx’s “orthodox concepts.” This theory is contextualism. Nielsen attempts to achieve a theoretical reconstruction of Marx’s moralism through a method of reduction, ultimately realizing the “compatibility” of historical materialism and contextualism. Because Nielsen’s contextualism plays a “positive” defensive role for Marx’s moralism, it has attracted increasing attention from domestic Chinese scholarship, and research on his theory is gradually heating up. Judging from existing research results, approval outweighs criticism, and borrowing outweighs reflection. This is likely detrimental to our comprehensive and objective grasp of Nielsen’s theory. This article will take Nielsen’s contextualism as its object of investigation, focusing on reflecting on the “absence” of dialectics in his contextualist defense, with the aim of prompting the academic community to rethink and reassess the theoretical value of Nielsen’s contextualist defense at the theoretical level.

在当代西方马克思主义学界，凯·尼尔森（Kai Nielsen）是反对将马克思的道德观理解为道德相对主义的“急先锋”，他不同意一些学者主张将马克思主义对资本主义的事实陈述与道德批判相分离的理论倾向，力图在维护马克思的“正统概念”的前提下为马克思的道德主义提供理论上的辩护，而这一理论就是语境主义。尼尔森试图通过还原的方式来实现对马克思的道德主义的理论重构，最终实现历史唯物主义与语境主义的“兼容”。由于尼尔森的语境主义对马克思的道德主义起到了“正向”的辩护作用，因而引起了当前国内学界对尼尔森的更多关注，对其理论的研究也在逐步升温。从现有的研究成果来看，认同多于批判，借鉴大于反思，这恐怕不利于我们对尼尔森的理论进行全面且客观的把握。本文将以尼尔森的语境主义作为考察对象，重点反思其语境主义辩护中辩证法的“不在场”，意在引起学界在学理层面上重新反思和评估尼尔森的语境主义辩护的理论价值。

I. Nielsen’s Contextualism and His Defense of Marx’s Moralism

一、尼尔森的语境主义及其对马克思的道德主义的辩护

Nielsen’s main polemical targets are those scholars who interpret Marxist moral views as moral relativism. They believe that the moral theory within historical materialism is a form of “meta-ethical relativism.” “Meta-ethical relativism” holds that, in historical materialism, moral concepts as a form of social ideology are linked to specific modes of social production; they are subjective and relative, and changes in the specific mode of social production will cause changes in people’s moral concepts. Thus, they assert that the moral views in historical materialism are relativistic. However, Marx and Engels, within historical materialism, also used morality as a standard to criticize the anti-human mode of production of capitalist society, thereby treating morality as an objective, absolute standard. Consequently, a contradiction between moral relativism and absolutism exists within historical materialism. This has sparked debates in contemporary Anglo-American Marxist scholarship over issues such as morality, justice, and fairness. It is within these debates that Nielsen counterattacked “meta-ethical relativism” and proposed his own “contextualist” solution. Contextualism occupies a pivotal core position in Nielsen’s “defense theory.” It is not only a powerful weapon for Nielsen to refute moral relativism but also his indispensable “magic weapon” for reconstructing Marx’s moralism.

尼尔森论战的主要对象是那些将马克思主义道德观解读为道德相对主义的学者，他们认为唯物史观中的道德理论是一种 “元伦理的相对主义”。“元伦理相对主义”认为，在历史唯物主义中，作为社会意识形态的道德观念是与特定的社会生产方式联系在一起的，是主观的和相对的，具体的社会生产方式的变化会引起人们道德观念的变化。如此，他们便断言，历史唯物主义中的道德观是相对主义的。然而，马克思恩格斯在历史唯物主义中又以道德作为标准批判了资本主义社会反人性的生产方式，从而将道德视为一个客观、绝对的标准。于是，历史唯物主义中就存在着道德相对主义与绝对主义的矛盾。这就引发了当代英美马克思主义学界关于道德、公正、正义等问题的争论，正是在这些争论中，尼尔森向“元伦理相对主义”发起了反击，提出了自己的“语境主义”解决方案。语境主义在尼尔森的“辩护理论”中具有举足轻重的核心地位，它不仅是尼尔森驳斥道德相对主义的有力武器，也是他重建马克思道德主义的不二“法宝”。

In Nielsen’s view, the common theoretical flaw of moral relativists is that they oppose the mode of production in historical materialism to moral concepts, insisting on the separation of facts and values, and thus cannot escape the mindset of “subject-object dualism.” To this end, Nielsen believes his task is to bridge this “gap” in historical materialism, advocating a return to contextualism to re-understand Marx and Engels’ historical materialism. Nielsen’s contextualist theory generally includes three aspects. First, it emphasizes the objectivity of the content of people’s actual moral concepts as determined by the situation, so as to prevent moral concepts from becoming relative and pluralistic due to subjectivity. Nielsen believes that what determines the rightness or wrongness of people’s actions is their objective needs under specific conditions. The legitimacy of needs determines the legitimacy of actions, and the standard and basis of morality are embedded in the situation of these objective needs. “Rightness or wrongness is primarily determined by the needs people have, by the objective situations in which they find themselves.” [1]1 G.W.F. Hegel, *The Science of Logic*, trans. A.V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), p. 601. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation; the original Hegel passage is from the “Doctrine of the Concept.”] Second, people’s moral concepts change with changes in specific objective situations; the change between situation and concept occurs within the whole of the situation, and there is no separation between the two. “For a contextualist, it is an already changed objective situation that justifies the change.” [2]2 G.W.F. Hegel, *The Encyclopaedia Logic*, trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991), §214, p. 286. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation.] The overall moral concepts of people in a particular society are determined by their common living situation. In the same living situation, it is impossible to produce mutually different and opposing moral concepts. Thus, the claim that historical materialism separates morality from the mode of production is untenable. Third, it proposes contextualist moral principles. Although contextualism acknowledges that moral concepts change with the specific situation in which they exist, people can reach a universal moral consensus through rational reflection within this changing situation, thereby forming moral concepts with stable content. Once formed, these concepts possess cross-cultural, cross-class conceptual validity, thus avoiding the theoretical danger of sliding into moral relativism by acknowledging “change.” “Contextualists insist that there are correct ways of viewing the world and acting in it, although what the correct way is involves a complex, context-based specific description.” [3]3 Arnold Ruge, quoted in Shlomo Avineri, *Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 127. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation.] In this way, Nielsen proposes his own contextualist moral axioms. They are not eternal moral principles precisely demonstrated and established by philosophers, but rather reasonable, trivial “moral common sense” reached by people after careful rational deliberation. “It is in this sense that they are axioms, and it is in this sense that they are not trivial, although we blurt them out so often that we feel we are saying ordinary, insignificant things.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 276. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation.]

在尼尔森看来，道德相对主义者的共同理论缺陷是将历史唯物主义中的生产方式与道德观念对立起来，坚持事实与价值的分离，从而无法走出“主—客二元论”的思维定式。为此，尼尔森认为自己要做的工作就是弥合历史唯物主义中的这个“裂缝”，主张回到语境主义中重新理解马克思恩格斯的历史唯物主义。尼尔森的语境主义理论大体包括三个方面。一是强调情境决定人们现实道德观念内容的客观性，以免让道德观念因主观而流于相对和多元。尼尔森认为，决定人们行为对错的是其在特定条件下的客观需求，需求的正当性决定了人们行为的正当性，而道德的标准和根据就蕴含在这种客观需求的情境之中。“对或错主要是由人们具有的需求决定的，是由他们能在其中发现自我的客观情境决定的。”二是人们的道德观念会随着特定的客观情境的变化而发生变化，情境与观念之间的变动是在情境整体中的变动，不存在二者之间的分离。“对语境主义者来说，是一种已然改变的客观情境在证明着改变。”特定社会中人们整体性的道德观念是由他们共同的生存情境决定的，在相同的生存情境中不可能产生相互差异和对立的道德观念。由此，那种认为历史唯物主义将道德与生产方式相脱离的主张就是站不住脚的。三是提出了语境主义的道德原则。语境主义虽然承认道德观念会随着其生存的特定情境而发生变化，但人们会在这种变化的情境中通过理性反思达到普遍的道德共识，从而形成具有稳固内容的道德观念。这些观念一经形成，就具有跨文化、跨阶层的观念有效性，从而避免了因承认“变化”而滑向道德相对主义的理论危险。“语境主义者坚持认为，存在着看待世界并在其中行动的正确方式，尽管何为正确方式涉及到一种复杂的、基于语境的特定描述。”这样，尼尔森就提出了自己的语境主义道德公理，它并非一些被哲学家精密论证并确立的永恒道德原则，而是经过人们理性的深思熟虑之后达成的具有合理性的琐碎的“道德常识”。“正是在这个意义上，它们是公理，也正是在这个意义上，它们并非琐碎，尽管我们对它们总是脱口而出，所以觉得是在说些平常话语和无足轻重的东西。”

Nielsen believes that only by reducing historical materialism in the direction of contextualism can one respond to the unwarranted accusations against Marx’s moralism, and can one defend Marx’s moralism without violating the basic stance of historical materialism. Therefore, it can be said that Nielsen’s “defense” of Marx’s moralism is precisely his contextualist reduction of historical materialism.

尼尔森认为，只有将历史唯物主义向语境主义的方向还原，才能应对那些对马克思的道德主义的无端指责，也才能在不违背历史唯物主义基本立场的前提下为马克思的道德主义辩护，因此可以说，尼尔森为马克思的道德主义所做的“辩护”就是他对历史唯物主义进行的语境主义还原。

First, Nielsen reduces the mode of production in historical materialism to the specific situation of a particular society in contextualism. In Nielsen’s view, historical materialism should be interpreted as follows: in any specific society, people establish the economy, politics, and culture of society through productive activities, which together constitute the social situation as a whole. Within this social situation, people generate moral concepts that correspond to it. Thus, moral concepts naturally contain the objective content of that social situation. In this way, Nielsen transforms the “historical materialist proposition” that the mode of production determines moral ideology into the contextualist judgment that “the specific social situation determines people’s moral concepts,” making the contextualist reduction possible. “Nielsen discovered a space within it that accommodates (rather than dissolves) the rationality and objectivity of morality. His core view is: in historical materialism, morality indeed has dependence, subjectivity, and fluidity, but the material basis and real life that determine the specific content and form of morality constitute an undeniable existential context. The objectivity and rationality of the context, as well as its priority and determining power over morality, promise that even as a subjective, determined element of the superstructure, morality possesses objectivity and rationality. Therefore, Marxist moral concepts are neither purely objectivist nor purely subjectivist, but a kind of contextualism.” [5]5 This passage appears to be a paraphrase or summary by the Chinese authors of a standard Marxian formulation; no direct source is given in the original text.

首先，尼尔森将历史唯物主义中的生产方式还原为语境主义中的特定社会的具体情境。在尼尔森看来，应该对历史唯物主义做这样的解读：在任何一个具体的社会中，人们都是在生产活动中建立起社会的经济、政治和文化，它们共同构成了作为一个整体的社会情境。人们在这种社会情境中会产生一些与之相适应的道德观念，如此，道德观念中也就自然包含了该社会情境中的客观内容。这样，尼尔森便将生产方式决定道德意识形态的“历史唯物主义命题”转变为“特定社会情境决定人们的道德观念”的语境主义判断，让语境主义的还原成为了可能。“尼尔森发现了其中容纳(而不是消解)道德之合理性与客观性的空间。他的核心观点在于: 在历史唯物主义中，道德确实具有依附性、主观性和流变性，但是，那些决定道德的具体内容和形态的物质基础与现实生活却构成了不可忽视的存在语境。语境的客观性与合理性，以及它对于道德的优先地位和决定能力，承诺了道德即便作为一种主观的、被决定的上层建筑要素，也是存在客观性与合理性。所以，马克思主义的道德观念既非纯粹客观主义，也非纯粹主观主义，而是一种语境主义(contextualism) 。”

Second, contextualism reduces the material needs in historical materialism to survival needs in social situations. Contextualism emphasizes that it is because people have survival needs in specific situations that moral concepts arise; historical materialism likewise emphasizes that “needs” determine that people must necessarily engage in material production activities. “Therefore the first historical act is the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself, and indeed this is a historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must be accomplished every day and every hour merely in order to sustain human life.”[6]6 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx & Engels Collected Works*, Vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 42. [Translator’s note: The English text follows the standard MECW translation.] In this way, Nielsen reduces the material needs of people’s survival in historical materialism to the objective needs of social situations in contextualism, thereby reducing the determination of moral concepts by the mode of production in historical materialism to the generation of moral beliefs by specific social situations. “Historical materialism will regard the morality dominant in a society as a tool for the cultural ‘legitimation’ and stabilization of that society. They belong to those tools that are ‘functionally required by the given mode of production.’”[7]7 Kai Nielsen, *Marxism and the Moral Point of View* (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), p. 98. [Translator’s note: The English text is a back-translation from the Chinese source, as the original English work was not available for direct citation.] Thus, through contextualist reduction, Nielsen merges the mode of production and moral concepts into one within specific social situations, realizing a “contextualist monism” of Marxist moralism.

其次，语境主义把历史唯物主义中的物质需求还原为社会情境中的生存需要。语境主义强调，由于人们在具体的情境中有了生存需求，才产生了道德观念；历史唯物主义同样强调，“需求”决定了人们必然要从事物质生产活动。“因此第一个历史活动就是生产满足这些需要的资料，即生产物质生活本身，而且，这是人们从几千年前直到今天单是为了维持生活就必须每日每时从事的历史活动，是一切历史的基本条件。”这样，尼尔森便将历史唯物主义中人们生存的物质需求还原为语境主义中对社会情境的客观需要，从而将历史唯物主义中的生产方式决定道德观念还原为具体的社会情境生成道德信念。“历史唯物主义会把在一个社会里占统治地位的道德看作是该社会的文化‘合法化’和稳定化的工具。它们属于那种‘被既定的生产方式在功能上所需要’的工具。”于是，尼尔森通过语境主义的还原将生产方式与道德观念在特定的社会情境中融合为一体，实现了马克思道德主义的“语境一元论”。

Finally, contextualism reduces the eternal moral principles in historical materialism to “moral axioms” adapted to specific social situations. Moral relativists hold that historical materialism contains a contradiction between relative moral concepts and eternal moral principles. Nielsen also opposes the notion of perpetual upward progress inherent in historical materialism due to dialectics, and instead advocates for a contextualist reduction of its social function. In historical materialism, morality has the social function of protecting the existing mode of production, which can be reduced to the function of contextualist moral concepts in maintaining the existing social situation. “For their respective societies, at their respective historical levels, they are functionally appropriate, historically necessary, and socio-economically inevitable.”[8]8 Ibid., p. 102. In this way, the eternal moral principle of communist justice in historical materialism is reduced to an “ethical concept” within a specific social situation, that is, a “moral common sense” fused with a concrete social situation. “Historical materialism acknowledges only contextualism, but it can be well compatible with an objectivist conception of ethics.”[9]9 Ibid., p. 104. In this manner, Nielsen resolves the “theoretical challenge” asserted by moral relativists that historical materialism rejects eternal moral principles.

最后，语境主义将历史唯物主义中的永恒道德原则还原为与特定的社会情境相适应的“道德公理”。道德相对主义者认为，历史唯物主义中蕴含着相对的道德观念与永恒的道德原则之间的矛盾。尼尔森也反对历史唯物主义中存在的因辩证法而带来的永远向上的进步观念，而主张对其进行社会功能的语境主义还原。在历史唯物主义中，道德具有保护现有生产方式的社会功能，这就可以还原为语境主义道德观念具有维护现有社会情境的功能。“对它们各自的社会而言，在它们各自的历史水平上，在功能上都是恰当的，在历史上都是必要的，在社会经济上都是不可避免的。”这样，历史唯物主义关于共产主义永恒正义的道德原则就被还原为特定社会情境中的“伦理概念”，即与具体的社会情境相融合的“道德常识”。“历史唯物主义所承认的仅仅是语境主义，不过，它可以跟一种客观主义的伦理学概念很好地兼容起来。”以这种方式，尼尔森就破解了道德相对主义者断言历史唯物主义拒斥永恒道德原则的“理论诘难”。

Through the contextualist reduction of historical materialism, Nielsen reduces the concrete social formations in historical materialism to a holistic system of social situations, achieving an “integration” of the mode of production and moral concepts within the contextualist perspective. Undeniably, this to some extent resolves the “hermeneutic crisis” that Western Marxist moral relativists have brought to historical materialism. It is not difficult to see that the focus of the debate between Nielsen’s contextualism and the moral relativists centers on the understanding of historical materialism itself: is the relationship between the mode of production and moral concepts in historical materialism a “dualistic split” or a “monistic unity”? What Nielsen does is to use contextualist “monism” to bridge the “dualism” of moral relativism. Thus, before evaluating the value of Nielsen’s contextualist reduction theory, we must ask: in the historical materialism founded by Marx and Engels, is the relationship between the mode of production and moral concepts a mutually separate “subject-object dualism,” or an unseparated unified whole? If the answer is the latter, then the accusations of moral relativism are groundless and meaningless. The same answer applies to Nielsen’s contextualism: if the mode of production and moral concepts in historical materialism form a unified whole, then the value, and even the legitimacy, of Nielsen’s contextualist “monism” needs to be reassessed. Of course, clarifying these issues requires that we turn to the theoretical nature of historical materialism “itself,” particularly to discuss and elucidate in advance whether there exists within it a unified structure integrating the mode of production and moral concepts.

通过对历史唯物主义的语境主义还原，尼尔森将历史唯物主义中的具体社会形态还原为一个整体性的社会情境系统，实现了生产方式与道德观念在语境主义视域中的“一体化”。不可否认的是，这在一定程度上化解了西方的马克思道德相对论者给历史唯物主义带来的“诠释学危机”。不难看出，尼尔森的语境主义与道德相对主义者们争论的焦点问题主要集中在对历史唯物主义理论本身的理解上，即历史唯物主义中生产方式与道德观念之间的关系究竟是“二元分裂”的，还是“一元统一”的？尼尔森所做的工作是用语境主义的“一元论”来弥合道德相对主义的“二元论”。如此，在对尼尔森的语境主义还原理论的价值进行评估之前，我们需要追问的是：在马克思恩格斯所创立的历史唯物主义中，生产方式与道德观念之间究竟是相互分离的“主客二元”，还是并未分离的统一整体？如果答案是后者，那么道德相对主义的指责就是无根据和无意义的。同样的答案也适用于尼尔森的语境主义，如果历史唯物主义中生产方式与道德观念是统一的整体，那么尼尔森的语境主义“一元论”的价值、甚至合法性都需要被重新评估。当然，以上这些问题的澄清要求我们必须面向历史唯物主义的理论性质“本身”，特别是对其中是否存着生产方式与道德观念相统一的整体结构予以“事先”的讨论和阐明。

II. The Dialectically Unified Holistic Structure in Historical Materialism and Its Theoretical Origins

二、唯物史观中辩证统一的整体性结构及其理论来源

In Nielsen’s view, it is precisely because Marxist moral relativists “have accepted the Kantian dualism of facts and values” and resolutely defend the philosophical tenet that “values cannot be derived from facts” that they ultimately conclude that Marx’s historical materialism is incompatible with morality. However, the philosophical lineage from Kant, through Hegel, to Marx does not support this reasoning. Kant indeed drew an insurmountable “epistemological” boundary between phenomena and noumena, and his transcendental philosophy indeed contains a separation of “factual judgment” and “value judgment.” But when Hegel used dialectics to break down Kant’s “dualistic” boundary, the dialectical unity of facts and values was dialectically completed within his speculative philosophical system. With Marx’s inheritance and application of the “rational kernel” of Hegel’s dialectics, the dialectical structure of the unity of facts and values was also fully preserved in the theoretical construction of historical materialism. Specifically, Kant strictly divided human cognition and morality into two realms: necessity and freedom. In the phenomenal world, humans follow fixed laws of understanding, imposing the transcendental forms of the categories of understanding onto representations in experience, forming factual judgments of “human beings legislate for nature”; but understanding cannot overstep into the absolute and infinite noumenal realm, otherwise it would cause a “logical illusion” of reason. The foundation of human morality cannot be established on actions in the empirical world, but should be established on the subject’s will that governs actions; the subject’s will exists in the non-empirical noumenal realm. Free will is free because it is not controlled by natural laws and can legislate for itself through reason; thus, all human moral laws are the moral imperatives that humans set for themselves. In this way, in Kant’s transcendental philosophical system, factual judgments belong to the realm of necessity governed by understanding, while value judgments belong to the realm of freedom governed by reason. Since there is a strict boundary between understanding and reason, and between necessity and freedom, we certainly cannot derive value judgments of reason from factual judgments of understanding. “Kant had accepted the separation of facts and values and attempted to construct a moral system that is self-justifying and unrelated to the (material) world.”[10]10 Ibid., p. 56.

在尼尔森看来，正是因为马克思主义的道德相对论者们“接受了关于事实与价值的康德主义二元论”，坚决捍卫“不能由事实推出价值”的哲学信条，才最终得出了马克思的历史唯物主义与道德不相容的结论。然而，从康德、经黑格尔、再发展到马克思的哲学谱系却不支持这个理由。康德的确在现象与本体之间划出了不可逾越的“认识论”界线，其先验哲学中也确实存在着“事实判断”与“价值判断”相分离的理论。但是，当黑格尔用辩证法破除了康德的“二元”界线以后，事实与价值之间的辩证统一就在其思辨哲学体系中得到了辩证的完成。随着马克思对黑格尔辩证法的“合理内核”的继承与运用，事实与价值统一的辩证结构也完整地存留于历史唯物主义的理论建构之中。具体来说，康德将人类的认识和道德严格地区分为必然与自由两个领域，其中，在现象世界，人类遵循固定的知性法则，将知性范畴的先验形式赋予了经验中的表象，形成了“人为自然立法”的事实判断，但知性却不能僭越到绝对和无限的本体界，否则就会造成理性的“逻辑幻象”；人类道德的基础不能建立在经验世界的行动之上，而应建立在支配行动的主体意志之中，主体意志存在于非经验的本体界中。自由意志之所以是自由的，是因为它不受自然法则的控制，可以按照理性自我立法，因而人类的所有道德法则就是人类为自我设立的道德律令。这样，在康德的先验哲学体系中，事实判断隶属于知性的必然领域，而价值判断则归属于理性的自由之境，由于在知性与理性、必然与自由之间具有严格的界线，我们当然就无法从知性的事实判断中推导出理性的价值判断。“康德已经接受了事实与价值的分离，并试图建构一个无关乎（物质）世界而能够从自身得到证明的道德体系。”

In Hegel’s view, the reason Kant insisted on the separation of phenomenon and noumenon, of fact and value, was determined by his mode of understanding [Verstandesdenken]. The so-called mode of understanding is one that insists on the strict opposition between thought and being, subject and object. “The merely abstract thinking of the understanding remains confined within the form of abstract universality and cannot advance to the particularization of this universality.” [1]1 G.W.F. Hegel, *The Science of Logic*, trans. A.V. Miller (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), p. 601. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation; the original Hegel passage is from the “Doctrine of the Concept.”] Hegel used dialectics to break through the boundary between Kant’s phenomenal world and noumenal world, for the first time elevating human cognition from the mode of understanding to dialectical thinking, and thereby advancing philosophy itself from “dualistic” philosophy to “monistic” speculative philosophy. Hegel used the absolute Idea to achieve the unity of nature and human society, and also constructed a tripartite dialectical-unity structure of Idea, nature, and spirit. Here, the Idea is pure content itself, while nature in reality and spirit in human society are the mediating vehicles through which the Idea realizes itself. Nature allows the Idea to manifest itself through the movement of matter, while human society realizes the Idea through the movement of spirit. The absolute Idea is “content” existing in a potential mode, while nature and spirit are the actualization of the Idea’s “content.” Thus, the process by which the Idea realizes itself in nature and the human spirit is precisely the process of the Idea’s development from potentiality to actuality, which constitutes the dialectical movement of the Idea’s transition and development into nature and spirit. “And the Idea is at the same time that which, by positing itself in opposition to itself, realizes itself, and in this opposition is only activity within itself.” [2]2 G.W.F. Hegel, *The Encyclopaedia Logic*, trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, and H.S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991), §214, p. 286. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation.] In this way, Hegel, on the basis of the Idea, completed the dialectical unity of subject and object. This “unity” includes both the unity of nature and human society and the unity of the human subjective spirit and the objective spirit. It is concretely manifested as follows: nature and the human spirit are merely different ways in which the same content of the Idea actualizes itself, while a person’s subjective consciousness and external behavior are equally the internalization and externalization of the same Idea. As Arnold Ruge pointed out in his evaluation of Hegel: “All theory is itself praxis; the distinction between theory and practice lies only in whether the spirit turns inward or outward.” [3]3 Arnold Ruge, quoted in Shlomo Avineri, *Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 127. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation.] Thus, a person’s subjective moral concepts and objective moral behavior are merely the potential form and actual form of the same Idea. We can fully derive the value judgment that “he is a good person” from the “factual judgment” of his moral behavior. Consequently, Hegel, on the basis of the Idea, achieved the dialectical unity of fact and value, and also established the principle that development from “potentiality” to “actuality” is dialectical unity. Therefore, when Hegel elevated the mode of thinking from understanding to rational dialectical thinking, the subject and object, fact and value, which were originally separated in the understanding, achieved a holistic dialectical unity.

在黑格尔看来，康德之所以坚持现象与本体、事实与价值的分离，是由于他的知性思维方式决定的。所谓知性思维方式，就是坚持思维与存在、主观与客观的严格对立。“那单纯抽象的知性思维局限在抽象共相的形式里，不能进展到对这种共相的特殊化。”黑格尔用辩证法打通了康德的现象界与本体界之间的界线，第一次将人类认识由知性思维提升到辩证思维，也将哲学本身由“二元论”哲学推进到“一元论”的思辨哲学。黑格尔用绝对理念实现了自然界与人类社会的统一，也建构出理念、自然和精神“三位一体”的辩证统一结构。其中，理念是纯粹的内容本身，而现实中的自然界和人类社会中的精神则是理念实现自身的中介和载体。自然以物质运动的方式让理念显现出来，而人类社会则以精神运动的方式实现理念。绝对理念是“内容”以潜在的方式存在，而自然和精神则是理念“内容”的现实化，这样，理念在自然和人类精神中实现自身的过程也就是理念由潜在向现实发展的过程，这就构成了理念向自然和精神过渡与发展的辩证运动。“并且理念同时又是借自己与自己对立以实现自己，而且在这个对立里只是在自己本身内的活动。”由此，黑格尔便以理念为根据完成了主观与客观的辩证统一，这种“统一”既包括自然界与人类社会的统一，也包括人类主观精神与客观精神的统一。它具体表现为：自然界和人类精神就是同一理念内容现实化自身的不同方式，而人的主观意识和外在行为同样也是同一理念的内化和外显。正如阿尔诺德·卢格（Arnold Ruge）在对黑格尔进行评价时所指出的：“一切理论本身就是实践（Praxis），理论和实践的区别仅仅在于精神是向内转还是向外转。”这样，一个人的主观道德观念与客观道德行为就是同一理念的潜在形式和现实形式，我们完全可以根据其道德行为的“事实判断”推导出“他是一个善良的人”的价值判断。于是，黑格尔就以理念为根据实现了事实与价值的辩证统一，也确立了从“潜在”到“现实”就是辩证统一的发展的原则。所以，当黑格尔将思维方式由知性提升到理性的辩证思维时，原本在知性中分离的主观与客观、事实与价值就此达成了整体性的辩证统一。

Marx transformed Hegel’s “absolute Idea” through practice, taking the practical activity of human beings as subjects and objectified social productive forces as the foundation of all real existence in human society. “The species-character of a genus, its generic being, lies in the nature of its life-activity, and free, conscious activity is precisely the species-character of human beings.” [4]4 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 276. [Translators’ note: The English rendering follows the Chinese text’s citation.] In Marx’s view, all real existence in human society is the result of human material production, including both material means of subsistence and spiritual social ideology; the two are unified in practice. Thus, Marx provides us with a social structure possessing dialectical holism: practice is the ground and content of human society; labor products and social ideology are the appearances of society; between practice and products, and between practice and social ideology, there exists a dialectical-unity relationship of potentiality and actualization. This dialectical unity is manifested in two aspects. First, in human productive activity, the “species-nature” of humans is a “potential” nature residing within the subject that has not yet been actualized; it must actualize itself into products through the practical activity of production. “Humans do not directly appropriate objects, but in a practical manner objectify their own essential powers, turning nature into the ‘inorganic body of man,’ and thereby forming a new type of negative unity-relationship with nature mediated by practical activity.” [5]5 This passage appears to be a paraphrase or summary by the Chinese authors of a standard Marxian formulation; no direct source is given in the original text. Thus, the labor product becomes the objectified product of the human essence, thereby achieving a dialectical-unity relationship between the human species-essence and the labor product. Second, in a specific social formation, the practical activity of humans transforming the world is concretized into a specific mode of production, which is the real ground for the existence of that social formation, while social ideology is the “consciousness-appearance” presented within the concepts of human society. Thus, the objective mode of production and the subjective social formation constitute a dialectical-unity relationship of “content and appearance.” That is to say, within a specific social formation, the mode of production determines the ideology of the people in that society in the manner of development from “potentiality to actuality”; the conceptual consciousness of the people necessarily contains the “objective content” of that society’s mode of production. Similarly, the ideology of a society’s people reflects that society’s mode of production in the manner of “appearance based on content.” Therefore, with respect to the ideology of a specific society, it is both a factual reflection of whether the mode of production at a specific socio-historical stage is “true” and a value confirmation for judging whether the mode of production at that specific historical stage conforms to human development. Hence, the “factual judgment” and “value judgment” concerning a specific social formation are unified within the foundation of human practice.

马克思用实践变革了黑格尔的“绝对理念”，将人作为主体的实践活动以及客观化的社会生产力作为人类社会一切现实存在的根基。“一个种的整体特性、种的类特性就在于生命活动的性质，而自由的有意识的活动恰恰就是人的类特性。”在马克思看来，人类社会的一切现实存在都是人类进行物质生产的结果，其中既包括物质性的生活资料，也包括精神性的社会意识形态，二者统一于实践。这样，马克思为我们提供了一个具有辩证整体性的社会结构：实践是人类社会的根据和内容，劳动产品和社会意识形态是社会的表象，实践与产品、实践与社会意识形态之间构成了潜在与实现的辩证统一关系。这种辩证统一表现在两个方面。首先，在人类生产活动中，人的“类本性”是处于主体之中的、还没有实现出来的“潜在”本性，它要通过生产的实践活动将自身现实化为产品。“人不是直接地占有对象，而是以实践的方式，把自身的本质力量对象化，把自然变为‘人的无机身体’，并因此形成与自然的以实践活动为中介的新型的否定性的统一性关系。”这样，劳动产品就成为人的本质对象化的产物，从而在人的类本质与劳动产品之间达成了辩证统一关系。其次，在具体的社会形态中，人类改造世界的实践活动会具体化为特定的生产方式，它是人类社会形态存在的现实根据，而社会意识形态则是呈现于人类社会观念之中的“意识表象”，于是，客观的生产方式与主观的社会形态就构成了“内容与表象”的辩证统一关系。也就是说，在一个特定的社会形态中，生产方式是以“潜在向现实”发展的方式决定着这个社会中人们的意识形态的，人们的意识观念中必然包含着该社会生产方式的“客观内容”。同样，一个社会中人们的意识形态会以“表象依据内容”的方式映现着该社会的生产方式。因而，就一个特定社会的意识形态来说，它既是处于某个特定社会历史阶段的社会生产方式是否为“真”的事实反映，同时也是我们判断这个特定历史阶段的生产方式是否符合人性发展的价值印证。所以，针对一种特定社会形态的“事实判断”与“价值判断”是统一于人类实践的根基之中的。

Thus, in historical materialism, there is fundamentally no separation between the mode of production and social ideology, let alone a split between fact and value. The mode of production is the objective social ground, while ideology is the subjective social “appearance” of consciousness; the two are a relationship of original nature, a dialectical unity of potential content and actual appearance. Therefore, in the historical materialism of Marx and Engels, the relationship between the mode of production and moral concepts is not a subject-object separated “dualism,” but a “monism” constructed upon the holism of dialectics. In fact, both Hegel and Marx, standing at the theoretical height of dialectical thinking, transcended Kant’s dualism and achieved the dialectical unity of factual judgment and value judgment. The ground of Hegel’s dialectical unity is the absolute Idea, while the ground of Marx’s dialectical unity is practice. In this way, the “dualism” accused by Western Marxist moral relativists collapses of its own accord. Their practice of using Kant’s dualism to reform and criticize Marxian moralism loses its rationality, because they fundamentally fail to see the destruction of the mode of understanding by the dialectics of Hegel and Marx, and even more so ignore that the holism of dialectical unity has already accomplished an immanent transcendence of the “dualism” of the understanding. As for Nielsen’s contextualism, since a dialectically unified “monism” originally exists within historical materialism, it is very necessary to examine whether the “monism” presented in his contextualism conforms to “dialectical monism.”

如此说来，在历史唯物主义中根本不存在生产方式与社会意识形态的分离，更不存在事实与价值的分裂，生产方式是客观的社会根据，而意识形态则是主观的社会意识“表象”，二者是本然关系，是潜在内容与现实表象的辩证统一。因此，在马克思恩格斯的历史唯物主义中，生产方式与道德观念之间的关系并不是主客分离的“二元论”，而是建构在辩证法的整体性之上的“一元论”。事实上，黑格尔和马克思都站在辩证思维的理论高度超越了康德的二元论，实现了事实判断与价值判断的辩证统一。黑格尔的辩证统一的根据是绝对理念，而马克思的辩证统一的根据是实践。这样，西方马克思主义的道德相对论者们所指责的“二元论”就不攻自破了，他们用康德的二元论来改造和批判马克思的道德主义的做法就失去了合理性，原因在于他们根本没有看到黑格尔和马克思的辩证法对知性思维方式的破除，更无视辩证统一的整体性已然完成了对知性“二元论”的内在超越。就尼尔森的语境主义来说，既然历史唯物主义中原本就存在着辩证统一的“一元论”，那么考察其语境主义中所呈现出来的“一元论”是否符合“辩证一元论”，就是十分必要的。

III. The “Absence” of Dialectics in the Contextualist Reduction of Historical Materialism

三、历史唯物主义的语境主义还原中辩证法的“缺场”

Although Nielsen opposes moral relativism, in his attitude toward dialectics he is no different from moral relativism. Both acknowledge that “Marx’s concept of dialectics clearly comes from Hegel.” However, overall, they hold an obvious prejudice against the dialectics in Hegel’s and Marx’s philosophy. This manifests itself in their refusal to recognize dialectics as a rational law by which humanity transcends intellectual cognition, their rejection of the critique that dialectical thinking directs at intellectual thinking, and their firm denial that dialectics can achieve the unity of the subjective and the objective, or that dialectical logic is the intrinsic logic of things themselves. In their view, dialectics is nothing special; it is merely a set of subjective conceptual frameworks people use to observe the world. “Whether in Hegelian or Marxist form, dialectics should be understood as a universal concept concerning a certain kind of intellectual structure that people can discover in the world, while the dialectical conceptual system or dialectical method should be regarded as a set of procedures for a certain theoretical structure that best reflects the aforementioned intellectual structure.” They also share the view that dialectics is no superior to other philosophical methods, and that its progressive view of stages may even bring people blind optimism, passionate fanaticism, or even utopian imaginings. Hence Nielsen’s contextualist reduction of historical materialism is both legitimate and necessary, and the dialectics within historical materialism becomes the “conceptual system” most in need of such reduction. Here we can see that it is precisely the “incompatibility” between Nielsen’s contextualism and dialectics that ultimately leads to dialectics’ conspicuous “departure” from the contextualistically reduced historical materialism.

尼尔森虽然反对道德相对主义，但在反对辩证法的态度上，他却与道德相对主义别无二致。他们都承认“马克思的辩证法概念明显来自黑格尔”。但是，总的说来，他们对黑格尔和马克思哲学中的辩证法持有明显的偏见。这表现为他们不承认辩证法是人类超越知性认识的理性法则，更不认可辩证思维方式对知性思维方式的批判，而且坚决否认辩证法能够实现主观与客观的统一，以及辩证逻辑是关于事物本身的内涵逻辑。在他们看来，辩证法并无特别之处，只不过是一套人们用来观察世界的主观概念体系框架。“无论是采取黑格尔主义的还是马克思主义的形式，辩证法都应当被理解为一种有关某类理智结构的普遍概念，人们可以在世界中发现这种结构，而辩证的概念体系或辩证的方法则应当被视为一套关于某种理论结构的程序，该结构可以最好地反映上述理智结构。”他们还共同认为，辩证法并不比其他哲学方法优越，其层级进步观甚至有可能给人们带来盲目的乐观、激情的狂热、甚至乌托邦的想象，于是尼尔森对历史唯物主义进行语境主义的还原就是正当且必要的，而历史唯物主义中的辩证法则成为了其中最应该被还原的“概念体系”。在这里，我们可以看到，正是尼尔森的语境主义与辩证法之间的“不兼容”最终导致了辩证法在语境主义还原的历史唯物主义中黯然“离场”。

First, contextualism eliminates the dialectical social structure of the “ground and content” of historical materialism. Nielsen uses contextualism to reduce the various social formations in human history as expounded by historical materialism to social situations in specific times and spaces. In these situations, production, needs, culture, and moral concepts are all constituent elements of the social situation; they coexist and co-generate, forming a natural social system. Within this system, production determining people’s ideas and ideas reflecting production are both entirely legitimate and reasonable. Nielsen believes that only such a contextual reduction can effectively overcome the split between production and ideas in historical materialism. However, in Nielsen’s contextual system, there is no determining social ground, let alone “social appearances” determined by that “ground.” All constituent elements of society are artificially pulled back to the “surface” of the empirical world and reduced to “social appearances.” Thus contextualism constructs an ecosystem composed solely of numerous empirical appearances, while “practice,” which originally played a determining role in social formations within the materialist conception of history, is illegitimately suspended. The “essential objectification” relations of other social existences produced by “practice” are also reduced to symbiotic relations of interaction among various elements within the contextual system. Clearly, contextualism illegitimately severs the dialectical movement from “potential” to “actual” between the content-ground and empirical appearances within dialectics, thereby “expelling” the dialectical thinking and dialectical method originally contained in historical materialism from its contextualist reduction. Without dialectics as its foundation, contextualism becomes a “phenomenal” union of interactions among appearances. Although appearances are concrete and vivid within the context, they become floating, rootless, and disorderly “manifold” of appearances. As Lenin pointed out in expounding the relationship between form and content in dialectics: “Form is form that is rich in content, form of living, real content, form inseparably connected with content.” [11]11 V. I. Lenin, “Conspectus of Hegel’s *Science of Logic*,” in *Collected Works*, vol. 38 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 89.

首先，语境主义取消了历史唯物主义“根据与内容”的辩证社会结构。尼尔森用语境主义将历史唯物主义所阐述的人类历史上的各种社会形态还原为特定时空中的社会情境，其中生产、需求、文化以及道德观念等都是社会情境的构成要素，它们共在共生，是一个天然的社会系统。在这个系统中，生产决定人们的观念和观念反映生产都是完全正当且合理的。尼尔森认为，只有如此的语境式还原，才能有效地克服历史唯物主义中生产与观念的分裂。然而，在尼尔森的语境系统中，并不存在起决定作用的社会根据，更不存在被“根据”决定的“社会表象”，一切社会构成要素都被人为地拉回到经验世界的“表层”，被还原为“社会表象”，由此，语境主义就构造起了一个只由众多经验表象组成的生态系统，而唯物史观中原本在社会形态中起决定作用的“实践”则被非法地悬置起来，由“实践”生产出来的其他社会存在的“本质对象化”关系也被还原为语境体系内各要素之间相互作用的共生关系。显然，语境主义非法地切断了辩证法中内容根据与经验表象之间从“潜在”到“现实”的辩证运动方式，将原本包含在历史唯物主义中的辩证思维和辩证方法从其语境主义的还原中“清退”。没有了辩证法作为根基的语境主义成为了表象之间相互作用的“现象”联合体，表象在语境中虽然具体而生动，但却变成漂浮无根、游离无序的表象“杂多”。正如列宁阐述辩证法中形式与内容的关系时所指出的：“其中形式是富有内容的形式，是活生生的实在的内容的形式，是和内容不可分离地联系着的形式。”

Second, contextualism only recognizes moral beliefs that conform to specific social situations, denying the “eternal moral principles” of historical materialism that accord with the progress of the mode of production. Nielsen believes that historical materialism contains a contradiction between relative moral concepts and absolute moral principles. His way of resolving this contradiction is to abolish the progressive notion of the successive evolution of various historical stages of human society, reducing each link’s social formation to a concrete, real-life situation, thereby asserting that moral concepts arising from the real needs of concrete situations are the truly valid moral principles. The contextualist moral principle Nielsen offers is: “To do one’s utmost to achieve equal consideration for everyone’s needs, while, to the greatest extent possible consistent with such equal consideration for needs, satisfying all people’s needs at the highest level attainable.” However, the contextualist reduction Nielsen makes here likewise violates the dialectical principles of historical materialism. Historical materialism distinguishes human history into links and stages connected by various concrete social formations, but these links are unified within the practical ground of the mode of production; they are “links” immanent within the “whole,” fully conforming to the dialectical principle of the unity of “the necessity of the links” and “the totality of truth.” Therefore, within concrete social formations, historical materialism opposes all moral ideologies that serve specific historical stages and specific classes. At the same time, Marx believes that at the highest stage of human historical development, humanity will ultimately develop eternal moral principles, which is also entirely based on the objective necessity of human historical development. Thus, when we stand on the ground of Marx’s “dialectical” view of history, we find that there is fundamentally no contradiction between relative moral concepts and eternal moral principles within historical materialism. This contradiction is entirely caused by the intellectual reduction of historical materialism through contextualism; it is an “intellectual contradiction” artificially manufactured by contextualism and then imposed on historical materialism.

其次，语境主义只承认符合具体社会情境的道德信念，否认历史唯物主义符合生产方式进步的“永恒道德原则”。尼尔森认为历史唯物主义存在着相对的道德观念与绝对的道德原则之间的矛盾。他解决这一矛盾的方式就是取消人类社会各历史阶段依次演进的进步观念，将各个环节的社会形态还原为具体的现实生存情境，从而认定由具体情境的现实需求源生出来的道德观念才是真实有效的道德原则。尼尔森给出的语境主义道德原则是：“既尽力实现对每个人的需要予以平等的考虑，同时在尽可能地与这种针对需求的平等考虑相协调的情况下，又以人们所能达到的最高水准，对所有人的需要予以最大程度的满足。”然而，尼尔森在此做出的语境主义还原同样违背了历史唯物主义的辩证法原则。历史唯物主义将人类历史区分为由各种具体的社会形态连接起来的环节和阶段，但这些环节是统一于生产方式的实践根据之中的，是内在于“整体”之中的“环节”，它完全符合辩证法中“环节的必然性”与“真理的全体性”的辩证统一原则。因此，在具体的社会形态中，历史唯物主义反对一切为特定历史阶段和特定阶级服务的道德意识形态。同时，马克思认为，在人类历史发展的最高阶段会最终发展出人类的永恒道德原则，这也完全基于人类历史客观发展的必然。因此，当我们站在马克思的“辩证”历史观的立场上，就会发现历史唯物主义中根本不存在相对的道德观念与永恒的道德原则之间的矛盾，这完全是由语境主义对历史唯物主义进行知性式还原所导致的，是其将自己人为制造出来的“知性矛盾”强加给了历史唯物主义。

In sum, Nielsen’s contextualism is a theoretical product of intellectual thinking. Its reduction of historical materialism results in lowering historical materialism, which is built on the theoretical height of dialectical thinking, to the level of intellectual understanding. In fact, whether in the context of classical German philosophy or in the context of Marxist philosophy, intellectual thinking is different from rational dialectical thinking, and the intellectual method cannot replace the rational dialectical method. Nielsen fails to recognize the “incommensurable” heterogeneity between his contextualism and historical materialism, which is built on the theoretical height of dialectical thinking. Therefore, Nielsen’s contextualist reduction can never escape the theoretical predicament of “intellectual interpretation of reason” and is fundamentally unable to interpret the dialectical connotations contained in historical materialism.

总之，尼尔森的语境主义是知性思维的理论产物，其对历史唯物主义进行还原的结果就是将建立在辩证思维理论高度上的历史唯物主义降低为知性的理解。事实上，无论是在德国古典哲学的语境中，还是在马克思主义哲学的语境中，知性思维都不同于理性的辩证思维，知性方法也无法替代理性的辩证方法。尼尔森没有意识到他的语境主义与建立在辩证思维理论高度上的历史唯物主义之间存在着“不可通约”的异质性。因此，尼尔森的语境主义还原始终无法走出“知性诠释理性”的理论困境，根本不能诠释历史唯物主义中蕴含的辩证内涵。

(Authors: Shu Guifeng, Zheng Dongdong, School of Philosophy, Liaoning University)

（作者：叔贵峰、郑东东，辽宁大学哲学院）

(This article is a phased result of the National Social Science Fund Key Project “A Study of Contemporary British and American Marxists’ Moral Critique of Capitalism” [19AKS003])

（本文系国家社会科学基金重点项目“当代英美马克思主义者对资本主义的道德批判研究”（19AKS003）的阶段性成果）

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