Tracing the Historical Emergence of the Moral Dimension of “British Marxism”

For “British Marxism,” or contemporary British left-wing thought more broadly, the five to six years following the rise of the New Left movement in 1956 were the most important period of intellectual explosion. The basic contours and major themes of British left-wing intellectual and academic development over the subsequent half-century were created in these few short years; almost any intellectual debate with a relatively broad British foundation can trace its direct origins to this period. This means that only by more consciously returning to this explosive period can we develop a deeper understanding of contemporary British issues of great practical relevance. During my time as a senior visiting scholar in the UK from 2009 to 2010, I discovered from the literature and academic exchanges that, after the end of the New Left movement in the early 1980s, the focus of the British left-wing camp began to shift. Moral and ethical themes, which had rarely been discussed before, significantly heated up. A previously invisible “moral dimension” of “British Marxism” became clearly discernible and exerted influence on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2014, I visited the UK again as a senior research scholar. After returning to China, I found that the question of Marxism and justice had become a hot topic of debate domestically, but the participants in the debate knew very little about the native intellectual-historical background of this topic and did not recognize its interwoven relationship with the moral dimension of “British Marxism.” At a seminar in 2019, I was asked to state my position on the relevant debates. This prompted me to first briefly outline my basic view of contemporary Anglo-American Marxist political philosophy: understanding the question of justice in Anglo-American academic circles cannot be separated from the moral dimension of “British Marxism,” and the latter directly originates from the early New Left movement’s debate over “socialist humanism.” My view attracted the attention of colleagues and also prompted me, after many years, to return once again to the origins of the British New Left movement, systematically exploring the historical emergence of the moral dimension of “British Marxism,” in order to provide a more complete intellectual-historical background for the relevant domestic debates.

对于“英国马克思主义”或者更广义的当代英国左翼思想而言，1956年新左翼运动兴起之初的5—6年是最为重要的思想大爆发时期。此后半个多世纪英国左翼思想学术发展的基本轮廓、重要论题在这短短的几年间被创造出来，凡是具有较为广泛的英国基础的思想学术争论几乎都可以在这一时期找到自己的直接起源。这意味着，只有更自觉地回到这一大爆发时期，才能对具有重大现实性的当代英国课题形成更深入的理解。2009—2010年在英国做高级访问学者期间，我从文献和学术交流中发现，1980年代初新左翼运动终结之后，英国左翼阵营的关注焦点开始发生变化，以往很少讨论的道德伦理主题显著升温，一条此前难见其迹的“英国马克思主义”道德之维变得清晰可见，并在大西洋两岸产生影响。2014年，我以高级研究学者的身份再访英国，回国后发现马克思主义与正义问题在国内已成为一个热门的争论话题，但争论的参与者对这个论题的原生思想史背景却所知甚少，并未认识到该论题与“英国马克思主义”道德之维的相互交织关系。在2019年的一个研讨会上，我被要求对相关争论表明态度。这促使我第一次简单勾勒出我对当代英美马克思主义政治哲学研究的基本看法，即理解英美学界的正义问题不能脱离“英国马克思主义”的道德之维，而后者直接起源于英国新左翼运动初期关于“社会主义的人道主义”之争。我的观点得到同行的关注，也促使我时隔多年之后再次回到英国新左翼运动的起源阶段，系统探讨“英国马克思主义”道德之维的历史生成，以为国内相关争论提供更完整的思想史背景。

I. Why Did Edward Thompson Seek to Restore the British 19th-Century Ethical Socialist Tradition?

一、爱德华·汤普森为什么要恢复英国19世纪的伦理社会主义传统

In the summer of 1957, Edward Thompson and John Saville, New Left historians who had just left the Communist Party of Great Britain, jointly founded the journal *The New Reasoner*. The journal’s subtitle was “A Quarterly of Socialist Humanism.” The lead article in the first issue was Thompson’s lengthy work, “Socialist Humanism: An Epistle to the Philistines.” This article not only launched a comprehensive theoretical critique and challenge to the dogmatic Marxist tradition upheld by the Communist Party of Great Britain, but also developed a theory of socialist humanism closely related to the British 19th-century ethical socialist tradition. This immediately sparked heated discussion within the New Left, ultimately contributing to the historical emergence of the moral dimension of “British Marxism.”

1957年夏，刚刚退出英国共产党的新左翼历史学家爱德华·汤普森（Edward Thompson）和约翰·萨维勒（John Saville）共同创办《新理性者》杂志，杂志的副刊名是“‘社会主义人道主义’季刊”。第1期的重头文章是汤普森的长篇力作《社会主义的人道主义：致非利士人书》。该文不仅对英国共产党所坚持的教条主义的马克思主义传统进行了全面的理论质疑与批判，而且发展出一种与英国19世纪的伦理社会主义传统密切相关的社会主义的人道主义理论，随即在新左翼内部引发热烈讨论，最终促成了“英国马克思主义”道德之维的历史生成。

So, what is the British 19th-century ethical socialist tradition? As the birthplace of the First Industrial Revolution, 19th-century Britain naturally formed and developed its own socialist tradition from its social reality. A significant feature of this tradition was its rather stubborn refusal to accept the beneficial influence of other socialist ideas. Therefore, when Marx went into exile in Britain after the failure of the 1848 revolutions, British socialists not only failed to welcome him with open arms, but instead treated the scientific socialism he and Engels founded with neglect or even hostility. In his later years, Engels sharply criticized the Fabian socialists, denouncing “their frantic hatred of Marx and all of us, precisely because of the question of class struggle.” [1]1 Engels’s critique of the Fabian Society, a British socialist organization founded in 1884 that advocated gradual, reformist change rather than revolutionary class struggle. At the same time, this tradition maintained close ties with “feudal socialism,” which criticized modern capitalism from the standpoint of traditional society. In the era of Marx and Engels, the main representatives of British “feudal socialism” were Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin. Both condemned modern capitalism’s destruction of morality, human nature, and freedom based on moral or religious sentiment, calling for the advent of a more humane society. In 1883, the renowned British designer and social activist William Morris turned to socialism under the influence of Marxism, subsequently working to combine Marxism with the critical theories of Carlyle and Ruskin, developing a critique of capitalist morality and aesthetics with a distinct Marxist coloring. Academia generally identifies this tradition as the British ethical socialist tradition.

那么，什么是英国19世纪的伦理社会主义传统？作为第一次工业革命的发源地，19世纪的英国从其社会现实中自然而然地形成、发展出了自己的社会主义传统。较为顽固地拒绝接受其他社会主义思想的有益影响，是这一传统的重要特征。因此，当马克思因1848年革命失败流亡英国后，英国的社会主义者不仅没有张开双臂欢迎他，反而以忽视甚至敌视的方式对待他和恩格斯创立的科学社会主义。恩格斯晚年曾尖锐地批评费边社的社会主义者，抨击“他们之所以疯狂地仇视马克思和我们大家，就是因为阶级斗争问题”。与此同时，这一传统却与站在传统社会立场来抨击现代资本主义的“封建的社会主义”保持着密切联系。在马克思恩格斯那个时代，英国“封建的社会主义”的主要代表是托马斯·卡莱尔（Thomas Carlyle）和约翰·罗斯金（John Ruskin），他们都基于道德或宗教情感谴责现代资本主义对道德、人性和自由的破坏，呼唤一种更加人道的社会的来临。1883年，英国著名设计师、社会活动家威廉·莫里斯（William Morris）在马克思主义的影响下转向社会主义，随后致力于将马克思主义与卡莱尔、罗斯金的批判学说结合起来，发展出一种具有明显的马克思主义色彩的资本主义道德和审美批判学说，学术界通常将这种传统指认为英国伦理社会主义传统。

The British ethical socialist tradition established by Morris is, to a large extent, a recent “invention,” and this “invention” was primarily accomplished by Thompson in his 1955 book *William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary*. In 1955, before the great upheavals in the international communist movement, why did Thompson, as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, seek to “invent” this British ethical socialist tradition, which was quite different from the scientific socialist tradition?

由莫里斯确立的英国伦理社会主义传统在很大程度上是一种晚近的“发明”，而这一“发明”主要是由汤普森在1955年出版的《威廉·莫里斯：从浪漫主义到革命》一书中完成的。在国际共产主义运动尚未发生大变动的1955年，作为英国共产党员的汤普森为什么要去“发明”这一与科学社会主义传统颇为不同的英国伦理社会主义传统呢？

First, within the Communist Party of Great Britain, there had always existed a “bourgeois tendency” that valued and cherished the British native romantic tradition. In the early 1950s, this tendency began to revive after a long period of suppression under Stalinism. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Communist Party of Great Britain led the anti-fascist struggle domestically and actively supported the left-wing alliance in the Spanish Civil War externally, thereby greatly enhancing its political appeal and moral influence. Numerous intellectuals from various fields joined the party. A group of talented young writers, including Wystan Hugh Auden, Christopher Caudwell, and George Orwell, also joined or became close to the party during this period; they are often referred to as the “Auden Generation.” [2]2 A group of British writers and intellectuals, many of whom were left-leaning or communist sympathizers in the 1930s, named after the poet W.H. Auden. Intellectual party members, especially the “Auden Generation,” cherished the 19th-century British native romantic literary tradition of anti-capitalism and the spontaneous struggle tradition of the lower classes, conducting preliminary theoretical explorations that had considerable influence, thereby attracting a younger generation of intellectuals, including Thompson, to join the party. After the late 1930s, Stalinism became dominant within the party, subsequently defining the former as a “bourgeois tendency” and subjecting it to long-term theoretical criticism and suppression. In the early 1950s, the flames of the Cold War spread into the cultural sphere. To oppose the cultural colonization of American mass culture, the mainstream of the party began to extol British culture, especially the parts where the masses spontaneously opposed capitalism. This allowed the criticized and suppressed “bourgeois tendency” to return in a disguised form. The task of reviving the British humanist tradition and seeking a native Marxist imagination thus gained political legitimacy and fell upon “Comrade Thompson.”

第一，英国共产党内部一直存在着重视、珍惜英国本土浪漫主义传统的“资产阶级倾向”，1950年代初，这一倾向在经历了斯大林主义的长期压制后开始复兴。1933年纳粹上台后，英国共产党对内坚持领导反法西斯主义斗争，对外积极支持西班牙内战中的左翼联盟，从而极大提升了自身的政治吸引力和道德影响力，为数众多的各领域知识分子纷纷加入英国共产党。威斯坦·休·奥登（Wystan Hugh Auden）、克里斯托弗·考德威尔（Christopher Caldwell）、乔治·奥威尔（George Orwell）等一批才华横溢的青年作家也在这一时期加入或接近英国共产党，他们通常被称为“奥登的一代”。知识分子党员，尤其是“奥登的一代”，珍视19世纪英国本土反资本主义的浪漫主义文学传统和底层民众自发的斗争传统，并进行了初步的理论发掘，产生了较大影响，从而吸引了汤普森等更年轻一代知识分子加入英国共产党。1930年代末以后，斯大林主义在英国共产党内占据主导地位，随即将前者定义为“资产阶级倾向”，并进行了长期的理论批判与压制。1950年代初，冷战的硝烟延烧到文化领域，为了反对美国大众文化的文化殖民，英国共产党主流派开始颂扬英国文化，特别是其中群众自发反对资本主义的部分，从而使得被批判、被压制的“资产阶级倾向”得以改头换面、重新回归，复兴英国人文主义传统、寻找本土马克思主义想象的任务由此获得政治合法性，并落到了“汤普森同志”的身上。

Second, the British bourgeois academic circles consciously obscured Morris’s late Marxist revolutionary faith, while the British Communist Party hoped to reclaim Morris from the bourgeoisie. As a pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, Morris is hailed as the father of modern design and wields enormous social influence. However, bourgeois scholars, including the author of his standard biography from 1899, clearly disliked or even detested Morris’s late Marxist revolutionary faith, and thus mostly selectively focused on Morris’s artistic, design, and literary thought, consciously avoiding his political thought, especially his late Marxist socialist thought. Since reviving the British humanist tradition and finding a native Marxist imagination had become an urgent political task, it was necessary to reclaim Morris from the bourgeoisie and restore his proper face as a Marxist revolutionary. Thompson was commissioned to study and publish *William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary* with the aim of proving, through an in-depth reading of the “political activities and political writings to which Morris devoted himself fully in his mature years” that bourgeois researchers had “failed to treat completely adequately,” that Morris “was a Marxist, and at the same time a utopian socialist.” [3]3 “Utopian socialist” is the standard translation of 空想社会主义, a term Marx and Engels used to describe pre-Marxist socialist thinkers such as Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, whom they criticized for lacking a scientific basis for revolution. The British Communist Party and Thompson clearly achieved their goal: after *William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary* was published, bourgeois reviewers immediately and sharply commented that the book “takes nearly 900 pages to show that Morris really was a Marxist.”

第二，英国资产阶级学术界有意识地遮蔽莫里斯后期的马克思主义革命信仰，英国共产党则希望从资产阶级那里重新夺回莫里斯。作为工艺美术运动的先驱，莫里斯被誉为现代设计之父，社会影响巨大。不过，资产阶级学者，包括1899年他的标准传记的作者，显然都不喜欢、甚至厌恶莫里斯后期的马克思主义革命信仰，因而大都选择性地聚焦莫里斯的艺术、设计和文学思想，有意识地回避其政治思想，尤其是其晚年的马克思主义的社会主义思想。既然复兴英国人文主义传统、寻找本土的马克思主义想象成为迫切的政治任务，那么就需要把莫里斯从资产阶级那里夺回来，恢复其马克思主义革命者的应有面目。汤普森受命研究、出版《威廉·莫里斯：从浪漫主义到革命》的目的，就是要通过深入解读资产阶级研究者“未能完全充分地对待莫里斯成熟之年全力投入的政治活动和政治著作”，证明莫里斯“是马克思主义者，同时也是乌托邦主义者”。英国共产党和汤普森的目的显然达到了：《威廉·莫里斯：从浪漫主义到革命》出版后，资产阶级评论者立刻敏感而尖刻地评论道，该书“用差不多900页去说明莫里斯真的是一名马克思主义者”。

Third, taking Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1946 essay “Existentialism Is a Humanism” as a starting point, humanist philosophy gradually gained ascendancy in European and American intellectual circles, objectively promoting the formation and diffusion of a humanist Marxist current within the international communist camp. In this essay, Sartre emphasized that his existentialist philosophy was a philosophy of realizing human freedom, a philosophy that links every individual in society through human freedom and responsibility, and thus a humanism. Sartre’s views sparked heated debate; Martin Heidegger, Georg Lukács, and others responded in turn, expressing different positions, thereby promoting the rapid spread of humanist philosophy on both sides of the Atlantic, turning it into an international philosophical trend that directly influenced the Marxist camp of the era. Marxists in France, the United States, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and even the Soviet Union became involved to varying degrees, either directly interpreting and arguing theoretically that humanism was the core content and highest goal of Marxism, or proving through a reinterpretation of Marx’s early works such as the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* that humanism was an inherent part of Marxism. After Stalin’s death in 1953, a de-Stalinization movement emerged within the international communist movement; the Communist Party of the Soviet Union also began to reflect on Stalinism, to a certain extent permitting or even supporting the spread of humanist thought, thereby granting a certain legitimacy to the humanist Marxist current within the international communist movement. It gained relatively broad dissemination and acceptance within European communist parties in France, Britain, and elsewhere in the mid-to-late 1950s. Precisely because of this intra-Party ideological atmosphere, Thompson, as a Party member, consciously excavated the humanist elements in Morris’s thought, realizing an “invention” of the British ethical socialist tradition, [4]4 “Ethical socialist tradition” refers to a current in British socialism, associated with figures like R. H. Tawney and William Morris, that emphasized moral and cultural critique of capitalism rather than purely economic class analysis. attempting thereby to fill the moral void in Marx’s social critique: “The damage caused by advanced capitalism and the market economy reduces human relations to basic economic relations. Marx devoted himself to orthodox political economy, taking the revolutionary economic man as the solution for the exploited economic man. But in Marx, especially in his early works, this is not sufficiently clear… In Blake and Wordsworth, this critique of industrial capitalism is very clear, and it also exists in Morris’s works. Therefore, it is entirely complementary to the Marxist tradition, and not at all in conflict with it.”

第三，以1946年让-保罗·萨特（Jean-Paul Sartre）发表《存在主义是一种人道主义》一文为起点，人道主义哲学在欧美思想界逐渐大行其道，在客观上推动了人道主义的马克思主义思潮在国际共产主义阵营内部的形成与扩散。在《存在主义是一种人道主义》这篇文章中，萨特强调他的存在主义哲学是实现人的自由的哲学，是通过人的自由和责任将社会每个人联系在一起的哲学，因而是一种人道主义。萨特的观点引发热烈争论，马丁·海德格尔（Martin Heidegger）、格奥尔格·卢卡奇（Georg Lukács）等先后做出回应，表达了不同的立场，从而推动了人道主义哲学在大西洋两岸迅速传播，成为一种国际性的哲学潮流，并对同时代的马克思主义阵营产生了直接影响，法国、美国以及波兰、南斯拉夫、捷克、甚至苏联的马克思主义者都不同程度地介入其中，或从理论上直接阐释、论证人道主义是马克思主义的核心内容和最高目标，或通过重新阐释《1844年经济学哲学手稿》等马克思的早期著作，证明人道主义是马克思主义的应有之义。1953年斯大林去世后，国际共产主义运动内部出现了去斯大林化运动，苏联共产党也开始反思斯大林主义，在一定程度上允许、甚至支持人道主义思想的传播，从而使人道主义的马克思主义思潮在国际共产主义运动内部获得了某种合法性，并在1950年代中后期的法国、英国等欧洲共产党内部得到较为广泛的传播和接受。正因为存在这种党内思想氛围，作为共产党员的汤普森才会有意识地发掘莫里斯思想中的人道主义因素，实现对英国伦理社会主义传统的“发明”，试图以此填补马克思社会批判理论的道德空场：“发达资本主义和市场经济造成的伤害把人的关系限定为基本的经济关系。马克思致力于正统的政治经济学，把革命的经济人作为被剥削的经济人的解决方案。但在马克思那里，特别是在他的早期著作中，这还不够清晰……而在布莱克、华兹华斯那里，这种对工业资本主义的批判是十分清晰的，它同样也存在于莫里斯的著作中。因此，它与马克思主义传统完全是互补的，而根本不是冲突的。”

II. Edward Thompson: “Socialist Humanism” Is an Inherent Part of Marxism

二、爱德华·汤普森：“社会主义的人道主义”是马克思主义的应有之义

After the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, [5]5 The 1956 Hungarian Uprising was a popular revolt against Soviet control and the Stalinist regime in Hungary, crushed by Soviet military intervention; it triggered a crisis of confidence among Western communists. Thompson concluded that the British Communist Party could no longer develop in the positive direction that intellectual Party members like him had hoped for, so he chose to leave the British Communist Party and instead devote himself to the non-institutionalized British New Left movement. Thompson and Saville’s journal *The New Reasoner*, together with another New Left publication, *Universities and Left Review*, historically assumed a certain organizational and leadership function, becoming the main public voice of the New Left movement. In the inaugural editorial of *The New Reasoner*, Thompson and others clearly stated that their goal was to uphold and develop Marxism in continuity with British realities and the British Marxist theoretical tradition: “We have no intention of rashly breaking with the British Marxist and socialist tradition. On the contrary, we believe that this tradition, originating from William Morris, Tom Mann, and others, and expressed in the cultural field and later in journals such as *Left Review* and *The Modern Quarterly*, is precisely what we need to discover and reaffirm. To build some bridges between this tradition and those left-wing socialists who have grown up outside these traditions—that is our hope.” It was precisely on the basis of this claim that Thompson published his famous essay “Socialist Humanism: An Epistle to the Philistines,” [6]6 “An Epistle to the Philistines” alludes to the biblical Philistines, used here as a rhetorical device to address those Thompson considered culturally or intellectually hostile to socialist humanism. attempting, through a reflection on Stalinism, to prove that “socialist humanism” is an inherent part of Marxism.

1956年匈牙利事件后，汤普森认定英国共产党已经不再可能像他这样的知识分子党员希望的那样向好的方面发展了，于是选择退出英国共产党，转而投身非体制化的英国新左翼运动，而汤普森和萨维勒创办的《新理性者》与另一家新左翼刊物《大学与左翼评论》一起，历史性地承担起某种组织和领导功能，成为新左翼运动的主要公共代言人。在《新理性者》的创刊社论中，汤普森等人清楚地表明，他们的目标就是要在与英国现实以及英国马克思主义理论传统的接续中坚持和发展马克思主义：“我们无意莽撞地与英国的马克思主义和社会主义传统决裂。相反，我们相信，这种源于威廉·莫里斯、汤姆·曼恩等人，在文化领域、后来又在《左翼评论》和《现代季刊》等杂志中得到表达的传统正是需要我们去发现和重申的。在这种传统与那些在这些传统之外成长起来的左翼社会主义者之间建立一些桥梁纽带，这就是我们的希望。”正是基于这一主张，汤普森才发表了著名的《社会主义的人道主义：致非利士人书》一文，试图通过反思斯大林主义来证明“社会主义的人道主义”是马克思主义的应有之义。

In June 1956, Khrushchev’s secret report, “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,” was made public in the West, provoking a strong reaction in the leftist camp. Vulgar opinion consequently simply negated Stalinism, regarding it as a false, erroneous ideology. Thompson opposed this view, arguing that it not only underestimated the power, logic, and consistency of Stalinism, failing to explain its enormous influence on the ideas and actions of communists, but also fell into the theoretical fallacy of economic determinism, “ignoring the role played by human ideas and moral attitudes in the process of creating history.” In Thompson’s view, Stalinism was indeed an ideology, but one rooted in the specific socio-historical stage of Soviet Russia, possessing an internal historical foundation and legitimacy. Thompson believed that Stalinism was the natural result of Marxism’s localized development in Soviet Russia; in terms of localization, Stalinism could be said to have been successful, but in terms of accurate understanding and interpretation of Marxism, Stalinism was a failure, because in three important respects it ran counter to Marxism born in Western Europe, thereby leading to anti-intellectualism, moral nihilism, and the denial of the historical subject role of the masses. These three important respects, precisely, had been well inherited and developed in the British ethical socialist tradition.

1956年6月，赫鲁晓夫的题为《关于个人崇拜及其后果》的秘密报告在西方被公开，引起左翼阵营的强烈反响。流俗之见因此简单地否定斯大林主义，将其视为一种虚假的、错误的意识形态。汤普森反对这种看法，认为这不仅低估了斯大林主义的力量、逻辑性和一致性，无法解释斯大林主义对共产党人观念和行动的巨大影响，而且陷入了经济决定论的理论谬误之中，“忽略了人的思想和道德态度在创造历史的过程中所发挥的作用”。在汤普森看来，斯大林主义的确是一种意识形态，但却是一种扎根苏俄特定社会历史阶段、具有内在的历史根基和合法性的意识形态。汤普森认为，斯大林主义是马克思主义在苏俄进行本土化发展的自然结果，就本土化而言，斯大林主义可以说是成功的，但就对马克思主义的准确理解与诠释而言，斯大林主义则是失败的，因为它在三个重要方面与诞生于西欧的马克思主义背道而驰，从而导致了反智主义、道德虚无主义和否认人民群众的历史主体作用，而这三个重要方面恰恰在英国的伦理社会主义传统中得到了很好的继承和发展。

First, there is anti-intellectualism, i.e., the loss of rational thinking ability and critical consciousness. The predecessor of *The New Reasoner* was *The Reasoner*, a theoretical debate journal founded by Thompson and others within the British Communist Party, and the title *The Reasoner* originated from a journal of the same name founded by British romantics in the early 19th century to propagate Jacobin radicalism. One hundred and fifty years later, when Thompson and others prominently inscribed “The Reasoner” on their ideological banner, they intended first to highlight the importance of rational thinking, second to oppose the irrational thinking characteristic of Stalinism, i.e., anti-intellectualism, and finally to emphasize the intrinsic connection between the British ethical socialist tradition and rational thinking. Thompson believed that the inevitable result of anti-intellectualism is the prevalence of dogmatism. Taking the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure as an example, Thompson pointed out that this was originally a metaphor of Marx’s; its advantage is intuitiveness and vividness, but its disadvantage is simplicity and stasis, easily causing people to overlook the processual and complex nature of social development. Stalinism accepted and reinforced the literal meaning of Marx, ignoring or even discarding the dialectical interaction between the economic base and the superstructure, and between social being and social consciousness, that Marx consistently advocated, thereby reducing living historical materialism to a rigid, mechanical economic determinism.

首先是反智主义，即理性思考能力和批判意识的丧失。《新理性者》的前身是汤普森等人在英国共产党内部创办的一份理论争鸣刊物《理性者》，而《理性者》的刊名源于19世纪初英国浪漫主义者创办的一份宣传雅各宾派激进主义的同名刊物《理性者》。150年后，当汤普森等人将“理性者”醒目地书写在自己的思想旗帜上时，首先是想凸显理性思考的重要性，其次是为了反对斯大林主义的非理性思考特征，即反智主义，最后是要强调英国伦理社会主义传统与理性思考的内在联系。汤普森认为，反智主义的必然结果是教条主义盛行。以经济基础与上层建筑的关系为例，汤普森指出，这原本是马克思的一个隐喻，它的优点是直观、形象，但缺点是简单、静态，容易让人们忽略社会发展的过程性和复杂性。斯大林主义接受并强化了马克思的字面意思，忽略甚至割舍了马克思所一贯主张的经济基础与上层建筑、社会存在与社会意识之间的辩证互动，从而把鲜活的历史唯物主义简单化为僵硬的、机械的经济决定论。

Second, there is moral nihilism. Thompson pointed out that because Stalinism misunderstood historical materialism, it could not accurately understand real social processes or human nature, resulting in amorality (justifying means by ends) and immorality (abhorring moral means), thereby leading to an abstract understanding of human beings. “But the Roundheads and the Levellers and the Royalists, the Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law Leaguers… did not abandon their creeds because of economic stimuli; they loved, hated, argued, thought, and made moral choices. Economic changes drive changes in social relations, in the relations of real people; these are understood, perceived, and revealed in feelings of injustice, anger, and desire for social change. All of this is resolved through struggle in human consciousness, including moral consciousness.” Thompson pointed out that although the mature works of Marx and Engels rarely discussed moral issues, they resolutely opposed moral nihilism, convinced that “human moral consciousness can profoundly affect the forms taken by social antagonisms, can mitigate or intensify conflicts; similarly, the degree to which theoretical concepts approach reality also influences the historical process.” All this stems from the influence of European humanist thought on them, namely, “Humanism not only runs through their works from beginning to end but also provided the inexhaustible driving force for their epic and magnificent theoretical creation.” As early as writing *William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary*, Thompson was shocked by the degradation of the theoretical vocabulary of dogmatic Marxism, believing that “it takes as its foundation those categories that deny the effective existence of moral consciousness (historically or in the present), compressing the imagination and passion that pervade William Morris’s later works to the point of near non-existence.” In *Socialist Humanism: An Epistle to the Philistines*, Thompson even more unequivocally stated: “For Marxism, William Morris’s insight into the discovery of humanity’s potential moral nature is not the icing on the cake, but a timely help, supplementing Marx’s discovery.”

其次是道德虚无主义。汤普森指出，由于斯大林主义错误地理解了历史唯物主义，因而不能准确认识真实的社会过程以及人的本质，其结果就是无道德性（用目的证明手段）和不道德性（厌恶道德手段），从而导致对人的抽象理解。“但圆颅党人、平等主义者和保皇党人、宪章派、反谷物法同盟成员……并不因为经济刺激而抛弃自己的信条，他们爱，恨，争论，思考，并做出道德选择。经济变革推动社会关系、现实的人的关系的变革；这些都在不公正感、愤怒、对社会变革的渴望中得到理解、感知和揭示。所有这些都在人类意识包括道德意识中通过斗争方式得到解决。”汤普森指出，尽管马克思恩格斯成熟时期的著作很少探讨道德问题，但他们坚决反对道德虚无主义，确信“人的道德意识能深刻作用于社会对抗所采取的形式，能缓和或加剧冲突；同样，理论概念对现实的接近程度也会对历史进程产生影响”，这些都源于欧洲历史上的人道主义思想对他们的影响，即“人道主义不仅贯穿他们的著作始终，而且为他们史诗般雄壮的理论创造提供了不竭的动力”。早在创作《威廉·莫里斯：从浪漫主义到革命》时，汤普森就对教条主义的马克思主义理论词汇的退化问题感到震惊，认为“它将否定（历史上或现在）道德意识的有效存在的那些范畴当作基础，使得威廉·莫里斯的晚期著作中到处洋溢着的想象力和激情被压缩到几乎不存在的地步”。在《社会主义的人道主义：致非利士人书》中，汤普森更是旗帜鲜明地指出：“对于马克思主义而言，威廉·莫里斯关于人类潜在的道德本质的发现这一洞见并不是锦上添花，而是雪中送炭，补充了马克思的发现。”

Third, there is the denial of the subjectivity and creativity of human labor. Thompson believed that moral nihilism prevented Stalinism from seeing that “every person is an intellectual, moral being,” that every ordinary worker who develops themselves through material labor is an “intellectual, moral subject.” Therefore, although Stalinism also advocated that the masses are the creators of history, it was essentially elitist. “In Stalinist ideology, people are appendages of the ‘means of production.’ In fact, people are at the core of labor, from which all means of production, politics, institutions, etc., derive, yet this concept has disappeared from Stalinist ideology.”

再次是否认人类劳动的主体性和创造性。汤普森认为，道德虚无主义让斯大林主义无法看到“每个人都是智力的、道德的存在”，在物质劳动中发展了自身的每个普通劳动者都是“有智力的、道德的主体”。因此，尽管斯大林主义也主张人民群众是历史的创造者，但在本质上却是精英主义的。“在斯大林主义的意识形态中，人是‘生产工具’的附加物。而事实上，人处于劳动的核心，所有生产工具、政治、制度等都由此而来，可这种观念却从斯大林主义意识形态中消失了。”

Thompson’s critique of Stalinism was aimed at establishing “socialist humanism.” Based on Marx and Engels’ discussion of “real individuals” in *The German Ideology*, he emphasized that Marxism must truly adhere to the mass view of history, recognize that workers are the real subjects of historical creation, and that socialism can only become a reality through their historical actions. Therefore, in opposing capitalism’s devaluation of workers, which seeks only to satisfy workers with commodities or physical needs, “‘Socialist humanism’ demands the liberation of people from the enslavement of things, the enslavement of profit-seeking, or the enslavement of ‘economic necessity.’ As a creative being, the liberated person will not only create new ideas but also create an immense abundance of things.”

汤普森批判斯大林主义是为了确立“社会主义的人道主义”。他基于马克思恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中关于“现实的个人”的论述，强调马克思主义必须真正坚持群众史观，承认劳动者是创造历史的真正主体，社会主义只有依靠他们的历史行动才能变成现实，因此，在与资本主义贬低劳动者、仅仅希望用商品或肉体的需要来满足劳动者的时候，“‘社会主义的人道主义’则要求把人从物的奴役、逐利性的奴役或‘经济必然性’的奴役中解放出来。作为一个能创造的人，获得解放的人将不仅创造新的观念，而且创造极大涌流的物。”

III. Charles Taylor: Critique of Stalinism Cannot Solve the Fundamental Problem

三、查尔斯·泰勒：对斯大林主义的批判无法解决根本问题

After the publication of *Socialist Humanism: An Epistle to the Philistines*, it sparked heated discussion within the New Left camp. “Orthodox” Marxists criticized “socialist humanism” as heretical, falling into the quagmire of idealism. Former Communists who had shifted to a “left social democratic” position demanded the establishment of clearer moral principles, denied the reality of “socialist humanism,” and argued that Thompson was merely seasoning Marxism with some diluted Christian condiment, completely unaware that this was a very strange dish. Charles Taylor, a young New Left scholar from Canada, was then pursuing his PhD in philosophy at Oxford University under Isaiah Berlin and Elizabeth Anscombe. Berlin excelled in the history of political thought; his early work *Karl Marx: His Life and Environment* (1939) advanced Western “Marxology” to a new level of standardized research, training a large number of world-renowned Marx scholars. Anscombe excelled in analytic philosophy and moral philosophy and was then writing her representative work *Modern Moral Philosophy*. Based on this highly specialized academic training background, Taylor published the article “Marxism and Humanism” in the second issue of *The New Reasoner*, questioning and debating the accuracy of Thompson’s understanding of the thought of Marx and Engels, although he did not generally oppose “socialist humanism.”

《社会主义的人道主义：致非利士人书》发表后，它在新左翼阵营中引发了热烈讨论。“正统”马克思主义者批评“社会主义的人道主义”离经叛道，落入了唯心主义的泥潭。转向“左翼社会民主主义”立场的前共产党人则要求建立更明确的道德原则，否定“社会主义的人道主义”的现实性，认为汤普森不过是在用某种稀释的基督教调料来调配马克思主义，全然没有意识到这是一盘非常古怪的菜。来自加拿大的新左翼轻年学者查尔斯·泰勒（Charles Taylor）当时正在牛津大学跟随以赛亚·伯林（Isaiah Berlin）和伊丽莎白·安斯康姆（Elizabeth Anscombe）攻读哲学博士学位。伯林长于政治思想史，其早期著作《卡尔·马克思：生平与环境》（1939）将西方“马克思学”推进到一个规范化研究的新高度，培养了一大批蜚声世界的马克思研究专家。安斯康姆则长于分析哲学和道德哲学，当时正在写作她的代表作《现代道德哲学》。基于这种高度专业化的学术训练背景，泰勒在《新理性者》第2期发表《马克思主义与人道主义》一文，就汤普森对马克思恩格斯思想的理解的准确性提出了质疑和商榷，尽管他在总体上并不反对“社会主义的人道主义”。

In Taylor’s view, the relationship between Stalinism and communism is very complex and cannot be simply judged with a “yes” or “no.” Regarding human subjectivity, Taylor believed that Stalinism theoretically seemed to belong to “mechanical economic determinism,” denying human subjectivity; but in political practice, Stalinism seemed to believe in absolute voluntarism, believing that “having ideas, aspirations, and intentions means that the possessor can play an objective historical role.” “In fact, Marx understood people as a complete unity of limitation and breakthrough of limitation, of being determined and being creative. Therefore, the two components of the Stalinist dialectic, extreme economic determinism and absolute voluntarism, are equally irrelevant to Marxism.” Based on this theoretical perspective, Taylor agreed with Thompson’s view that Stalinism had in fact turned subjectivity and creativity into the privilege of the political elite, while turning the flesh-and-blood, concrete working class into a mask for the former.

在泰勒看来，斯大林主义与共产主义之间的关系十分复杂，无法简单地用“是”或“不是”来判断。就人的主体性而言，泰勒认为斯大林主义在理论上似乎属于“机械的经济决定论”，否定人的主体性；但在政治实践中，斯大林主义似乎又相信绝对的唯意志论，相信“拥有观念、志向和意图，就是拥有者能够发挥的客观历史作用”。“事实上，马克思把人理解为限制与突破限制、被决定与能创造的完整统一。因此，斯大林主义辩证法的两个组成部分，极端的经济决定论与绝对的唯意志论，同样与马克思主义不相干。”基于这种理论视角，泰勒赞同汤普森的观点，认为斯大林主义在事实上将主体性、创造性变成了政治精英的特权，而将有血有肉的、具体的工人阶级变成了前者的面具。

The core reason Taylor opposes judging the relationship between Stalinism and communism with a simple “yes” or “no” is that he believes Marx’s theories, positions, and viewpoints changed in works from different periods, thereby making it possible for interpretive traditions including Stalinism to produce distortions and deviations, disagreements and conflicts. Stalinism opposes humanism and refuses to understand communism as an ethical concept; its textual basis lies in *The German Ideology*, which clearly states: “Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.” [21]21 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology* (1845–1846), in *Marx/Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 49. The reason Thompson and others raised high the banner of humanism is that the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* declares to people: “Communism is the positive transcendence of private property, as human self-estrangement, and therefore is the real appropriation of the human essence by and for man; communism therefore is the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e., human) being… This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man — the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species.” [22]22 Karl Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, in *Marx/Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 296. Accordingly, Thompson insisted on reintroducing morality into Marxism and pointed out: “A certain kind of vulgar Marxist amoralism or moral relativism is incompatible with Marxism. The proposition that morality is ‘class-bound’ is not only a historical comment but also an implicit, incomplete condemnation of all previous moral systems. It is also an appeal to a higher, more conscious morality.” [23]23 E. P. Thompson, “Socialist Humanism: An Epistle to the Philistines,” *The New Reasoner*, no. 1 (Summer 1957), p. 123.

泰勒之所以反对用简单的“是”或“不是”来判断斯大林主义与共产主义的关系，核心原因在于他认为马克思的理论、立场、观点在不同时期的著作中发生了变化，从而使得包括斯大林主义在内的解释传统出现扭曲与背离、分歧与冲突成为可能。斯大林主义反对人道主义，拒绝将共产主义理解为伦理观念，其文本依据在于《德意志意识形态》明确指出：“共产主义对我们来说不是应当确立的状况，不是现实应当与之相适应的理想。我们所称为共产主义的是那种消灭现存状况的现实的运动。这个运动的条件是由现有的前提产生的。”汤普森等人之所以高举人道主义的大旗，是因为《1844年经济学哲学手稿》向人们宣称：“共产主义是对私有财产即人的自我异化的积极的扬弃，因而是通过人并且为了人而对人的本质的真正占有；因此，它是人向自身、向社会的即合乎人性的人的复归……这种共产主义，作为完成了的自然主义，等于人道主义，而作为完成了的人道主义，等于自然主义，它是人和自然界之间、人和人之间的矛盾的真正解决，是存在和本质、对象化和自我确证、自由和必然、个体和类之间的斗争的真正解决。”据此，汤普森坚持将道德重新引入马克思主义，并指出：“特定的粗俗的马克思主义非道德论或道德相对主义同马克思主义是不相容的。道德是‘受阶级约束的’这样的命题不仅是历史的评论，而且是对所有此前的道德体系的含蓄的、不完全的谴责。它也是对更高、更自觉的道德的吁求。”

Although Taylor agreed with Thompson’s position, as a philosopher he immediately discovered other problems that were not Stalinist. First, the relationship between ends and means. After *The German Ideology*, Marx and Engels actually transcended the dichotomy of ends and means through the theory of historical laws, but “socialist humanism” reintroduced the problem of the relationship between ends and means, holding that “moral ends can only be achieved through moral means,” which inevitably sparked debate. [24]24 Charles Taylor, “Socialist Humanism,” *The New Reasoner*, no. 10 (Autumn 1959), p. 80. Second, the relationship between justice and rights. Communism must build a new society through violent revolution; this is the most basic social justice. However, does violent revolution violate the rights of those who are unwilling to accept communism? This question is a key one for humanism. Third, the relationship between liberation and freedom. The proletariat pursues the liberation of all humanity and itself: “They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. … The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” [25]25 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party* (1848), in *Marx/Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 519. But do people have the freedom not to accept liberation? Thus, “socialist humanism” seems to have to add one more sentence: “The proletariat cannot liberate itself without depriving some people of their status as human beings.” [26]26 Taylor, “Socialist Humanism,” p. 82. Fourth, the relationship between goals and processes. Taylor cited the example of the collective farms during the Soviet industrialization process to illustrate that the interests of some social groups would inevitably be infringed upon before communism is achieved. [27]27 Taylor, “Socialist Humanism,” p. 83.

尽管泰勒赞同汤普森的立场，但作为哲学家的他立刻发现了另一些并非斯大林主义的问题。第一，目的与手段的关系问题。《德意志意识形态》之后的马克思恩格斯实际上通过历史规律论扬弃了目的与手段的二分法，但“社会主义的人道主义”却再次引入了目的与手段的关系问题，并认为“道德目的只能通过道德手段达到”，这必然会引发争论。 第二，正义与权利的关系问题。共产主义要通过暴力革命建设新社会，这是最基本的社会正义。但是，暴力革命是否侵犯了那些不愿意接受共产主义的人的权利呢？这一问题对于人道主义来说是一个关键问题。第三，解放与自由的关系问题。无产阶级追求全人类和自身的解放，“他们公开宣布：他们的目的只有用暴力推翻全部现存的社会制度才能达到。……无产者在这个革命中失去的只是锁链。他们获得的将是整个世界。”但是，人们是否有不接受解放的自由呢？如此，“社会主义的人道主义”似乎就不得不再加上一句话：“无产阶级如果不剥夺一部分人作为人的地位，就不能解放自身。”第四，目标与过程的关系问题。泰勒举了苏联工业化进程中的集体农庄的例子，以此说明在实现共产主义之前部分社会群体的利益会不可避免地受到侵犯。

In short, Taylor believed that Stalinism was indeed fraught with problems, but merely criticizing Stalinism could not truly solve the problem. In Taylor’s view, Marxist communism “is an unfinished humanism,” [28]28 Taylor, “Socialist Humanism,” p. 84. and Stalinist ideology reflects both the inadequacy of Marxism and a distortion of that inadequacy. Therefore, the critique of Stalinism cannot be merely a return to the original tradition; it must also reconstruct the Marxist theory of communism.

总之，泰勒认为，斯大林主义确实问题重重，但仅仅批判斯大林主义并不能真正解决问题。在泰勒看来，马克思主义的共产主义“是一种未完成的人道主义”，斯大林主义意识形态既体现了马克思主义的不充分性，又体现了对这种不充分性的曲解。因此，对斯大林主义的批判不能仅仅是对原有传统的回归，而且还必须对马克思主义的共产主义理论进行重构。

IV. Alasdair MacIntyre: We Must Walk Out of Our Own “Moral Wilderness”

四、阿拉斯戴尔·麦金太尔：必须走出我们自己的“道德荒原”

Among the many participants, the one who truly pushed the “socialist humanism” debate to a new height was Alasdair MacIntyre. MacIntyre was born in Glasgow, Scotland; during his university years he briefly joined the Communist Party of Great Britain but later left the party due to dissatisfaction with Soviet politics. As an academic philosopher who received systematic training in British native philosophy, MacIntyre spent his life “after virtue,” attempting to resolve the fundamental disagreements among various contemporary Western moral philosophies. In his 1953 book *Marxism: An Interpretation*, MacIntyre sought to integrate Marxism with the British native Christian tradition, proposing a Christianized view of Marxism. Its core idea held that Marxism is a humanist worldview originating from and transcending Christianity, a historical and moral alternative to capitalism that could solve the ethical problems of contemporary capitalism. [29]29 Alasdair MacIntyre, *Marxism: An Interpretation* (London: SCM Press, 1953), pp. 1–10. In this way, MacIntyre arrived at the threshold of “socialist humanism” by a different path that converged with Thompson’s. After the rise of the New Left movement, MacIntyre became a member of the *New Reasoner* circle but did not immediately intervene in the “socialist humanism” debate. As the debate intensified, MacIntyre published a serialized essay, “Notes on the Moral Wilderness,” in the last issue of *New Reasoner* in 1958 and the first issue in 1959, systematically elaborating his views on Stalinism and his support for “socialist humanism.” [30]30 Alasdair MacIntyre, “Notes on the Moral Wilderness,” *The New Reasoner*, no. 7 (Winter 1958–1959), pp. 90–100; no. 8 (Spring 1959), pp. 89–98.

在诸多参与者中，真正将“社会主义的人道主义”之争推进到一个全新高度的是阿拉斯戴尔·麦金太尔（Alasdair MacIntyre）。麦金太尔出生于苏格兰的格拉斯哥，在大学时代曾短暂加入英国共产党，后因对苏联政治不满而退党。作为一名接受了系统的英国本土哲学训练的学院哲学家，麦金太尔一生都在致力于“追寻美德”，试图解决当代西方各种道德哲学之间的根本分歧。在1953年出版的《马克思主义：一种阐释》中，麦金太尔力图将马克思主义与英国本土的基督教传统融合起来，提出了一种基督教化的马克思主义观，其核心思想认为，马克思主义是一种源于基督教并超越基督教的人道主义世界观，是对资本主义的历史和道德的替代，可以解决当代资本主义的伦理问题。这样，麦金太尔就与汤普森殊途同归地抵达了“社会主义的人道主义”的门口。新左翼运动兴起后，麦金太尔成为《新理性者》小圈子的成员，但并没有第一时间介入“社会主义的人道主义”之争。随着争论走向激烈，麦金太尔在《新理性者》1958年最后一期和1959年第1期上连载发表了《道德荒原笔记》，系统阐发了自己对斯大林主义的看法以及对“社会主义的人道主义”的支持。

“Notes on the Moral Wilderness” opens by pointing out that neither Stalinism nor its various types of moral critics realize that their fierce debates and disagreements merely indicate that different moral choices exist in the real world, as if people are each exploring in an unfamiliar moral wilderness. The crux of the problem lies in overcoming their respective limitations and finding a truly realistic moral way out: “To overcome and transcend their limitations, their errors, and their ‘false needs’ in moral matters is our need to find a way out of our own wilderness.” [31]31 MacIntyre, “Notes on the Moral Wilderness,” *The New Reasoner*, no. 7, p. 90.

《道德荒原笔记》开篇即指出，斯大林主义及其各种类型的道德批判者都没有意识到，各方的激烈论战、莫衷一是不过是表明，现实世界中存在不同的道德选择，犹如人们在一片陌生的道德荒原中各自探索，而问题的关键其实在于克服各自的局限性，找到一条真正具有现实性的道德出路：“克服并超越他们的局限性、错误及其在道德问题上的‘虚假需要’，就是我们寻找走出自身荒原的道路的需要。”

In the first part of the text, “Morality and Desire,” MacIntyre summarizes the debate between Stalinism and various types of moral critics from a philosophical height, arguing that both sides are trapped in the “means-ends model of morality,” like two sides of the same coin. Stalinism does not talk about morality or the “ought” because it “identifies what is morally right with what actually turns out to be the outcome of the historical process.” For it, “history is the sphere in which objective laws operate, laws in which the role of the individual is predetermined by his historical situation. The individual can accept his role, play it willingly or unwillingly, but he cannot rewrite the script. The individual is nothing in history but an actor; even his moral judgments on historical facts are part of the performance. The principle of the ‘ought’ is drowned by the ‘is’ in history.” [32]32 MacIntyre, “Notes on the Moral Wilderness,” *The New Reasoner*, no. 7, p. 92. The moral critics of Stalinism, on the other hand, discuss morality and the “ought” from outside history, like God: “All issues are judged by their moral merits. The principle of the ‘ought’ is placed entirely outside the ‘is’ of history. … For the moral critic, the historical process, what actually happened, and what ought to happen are completely irrelevant questions.” [33]33 MacIntyre, “Notes on the Moral Wilderness,” *The New Reasoner*, no. 7, p. 93. The Don Quixote-like struggle of both sides against windmills shows that it is necessary to transcend “the sterile confrontation between moral individualism and amoral Stalinism” and seek a “third moral position.” [34]34 MacIntyre, “Notes on the Moral Wilderness,” *The New Reasoner*, no. 7, p. 95.

在正文第一部分“道德与欲望”中，麦金太尔从哲学的高度总结了斯大林主义与各种类型的道德批判者之间的争论，认为双方都困于“道德观的手段—目的模型”之中，是一枚硬币的正反两面。斯大林主义之所以不谈道德、“应是”，是因为它“将道德上正确的东西等同于真正成为历史发展结果的东西”，对它而言，“历史是客观规律起作用的领域，在这种规律中，个人的作用是由他的历史境遇预先决定的。个人可以接受其角色，情愿或不情愿地扮演，但他不能重写剧本。个人在历史中什么都不是，只是个演员，甚至连他对历史事实的道德判断都是演出的一部分。‘应是’原则被历史中的‘是’淹没了”。斯大林主义的道德批判者则像上帝那样置身历史的事外谈论道德、“应是”，“所有问题都按其道德高下来评判。‘应是’原则完全被置于历史的‘是’之外。……对道德批判家来说，历史过程，实际发生了什么，以及应该发生什么，这些都是完全不相干的问题”。双方堂吉诃德战风车式的斗争表明，必须超越“道德个人主义与非道德的斯大林主义之间的无果对抗”，寻找“第三种道德立场”。

In the second part, “History and Morality,” MacIntyre continues the critical line of Thompson and others against Stalinism, emphasizing that Stalinism is merely a “secondary” Marxism and cannot represent Marxism itself. Therefore, the fact that Stalinism does not discuss or cannot discuss certain issues by no means implies that Marxism cannot provide its own answers. Traditional questions concerning human nature and moral views, namely the relationships among “I am,” “I can be,” “I want to be,” and “I ought to be,” require contemporary Marxists to answer them in accordance with an understanding consistent with Marx’s theory of human nature.

在第二部分“历史与道德”中，麦金太尔延续了汤普森等人对斯大林主义的批判思路，强调斯大林主义仅仅是一种“继发性的”马克思主义，并不能代表马克思主义本身，因此，斯大林主义不讨论或讨论不了的问题绝不意味着马克思主义不能给出自己的解答。关于人的本质和道德观的传统问题，即“我是”、“我能是”、“我想是”、“我应该是”之间的关系等，需要当代马克思主义者按照符合马克思的人的本质学说的理解去解答。

Next, in the third part, “The Unity of Morality and Desire,” MacIntyre provides his own principled answers to these questions. By reviewing the history of morality, MacIntyre points out that achieving the unity of morality and desire, of “ought” and “is,” of the collective and the individual, is a moral problem that modern Western society must solve, and Marxism is the only possible key to solving this problem. Based on the concept of “real individuals” in *The German Ideology*, MacIntyre argues that the formation of human nature is historical: “Human potentialities advance in each epoch, an advance specific to that social form and constrained by the class structure of society. Under capitalist conditions, the development of these possibilities enters a crisis,” but “the growth of production makes it possible for man to re-appropriate his own essence, for real man to realize the richness of humanity.” How, then, can the development of production and class struggle realize human nature and solve the problem of the unity of morality and desire, of “ought” and “is,” of the collective and the individual? In MacIntyre’s view, the working class achieves a transformation of consciousness through class struggle: “They discover first that what they most want is what most others want; and that, over and above this, sharing in the life of others is not merely a means to what they want, but the particular way in which they share that life is indeed what they most want. … By rediscovering the deep desire to share the common points of humanity, people satisfy the disordered, individualistic desires that competitive society breeds within us, thereby betraying neither humanity nor the self. In this discovery, moral principles regain their importance. For their satisfaction can now be seen as conducive to correcting our short-term selfish behavior, thus helping to liberate desire. Moral rules and our basic needs are no longer diametrically opposed.”

接着，在第三部分“道德与欲望的统一”中，麦金太尔对这些问题给出了自己的原则性解答。通过回顾道德史，麦金太尔指出，实现道德与欲望、应当与是、群体与个人的统一是现代西方社会必须解决的道德难题，而马克思主义正是解决这一难题的唯一可能的钥匙。麦金太尔基于《德意志意识形态》中的“现实的个人”观念指出，人的本质的形成是历史的，“人的潜能在每个时代都有进步，这种进步是那种社会形式所特有的，受社会的阶级结构约束。在资本主义条件下，这种可能性的发展出现了危机”，但“生产的增长使人有可能重新占有自己的本质、现实的人实现人的丰富性”。那么，生产的发展、阶级斗争为什么能够实现人的本质，解决道德与欲望、应当与是、群体与个人的统一问题呢？在麦金太尔看来，工人阶级通过阶级斗争实现了认识的转变，“他们首先发现，他们最想要的东西就是大多数他人想要的东西；除此之外，分享人的生活并不仅仅是实现他们想要的东西的手段，但他们分享生活的特定方式的确是他们最想要的。……人们通过重新发现分享人性共通点的深层欲望，满足竞争性社会在我们之中滋生出的无序、个人主义的欲望，从而既不背离人性，也不背离自我。在这一发现中，道德原则重新体现出了重要性。因为他们的满足现在可以被看成有利于纠正我们的短期自私行为，从而有助于解放欲望。道德规则和我们的基本需要不再截然对立”。

Finally, in the fourth part, “Communist Morality Is Not Futurism,” MacIntyre returns to reality, calling on the New Left to abandon empty words and take active action, because communism is by no means futurism; morality without history is a tree without roots, and real individuals can only realize their essence and achieve unity with others through real struggle. In other words, MacIntyre believes: “Any moral claim, if it is to be universalized in the real world, must be rooted in a historically conceived theory of human nature, and at the same time it must be realized in the real historical struggle of the oppressed for freedom.”

最终，在第四部分“共产主义道德不是未来主义”中，麦金太尔回到现实，号召新左翼放弃空言，积极行动，因为共产主义绝不是未来主义，道德离开历史就是无本之木，现实的个人只有通过现实的斗争才能实现自己的本质，实现与他人的统一。换言之，麦金太尔认为：“任何道德主张，如果想在现实世界中被普遍化的话，必须根植于一种历史构想的人性理论当中，同时它必须要在被压迫者为了自由而进行的真实的历史斗争中实现出来。”

V. Brief Commentary

五、简要的评论

After “Notes on the Moral Wilderness,” Thompson, MacIntyre, Taylor, and others continued to publish articles engaging in polemics, pushing the debate over “socialist humanism” ever deeper until it largely concluded around 1960. Although this debate substantively lasted only three or four years, it produced profound intellectual-historical effects. First, the orthodox status of Soviet Marxism within British left-wing intellectual and academic circles was completely overturned; on the ruins of its collapse, the indigenous British Marxist intellectual tradition began to take root, sprout, and grow vigorously. Second, with the continuous integration of indigenous British Marxism, the moral vacuum in traditional Marxism was filled, and British left-wing scholars’ thinking on moral and ethical issues began to develop considerably. Third, the relative insularity of British left-wing intellectual and academic circles was broken; various Marxist currents from continental Europe began to land in Britain, thereby improving the theoretical genes of the British left to some extent. Fourth, with the emergence of a situation of competition among diverse theoretical discourses, the British left began to focus on the interpretation of the works of Marx and Engels. On the one hand, this promoted the flourishing of Western “Marxology” in Britain; on the other hand, it raised the Marxist level of the British left, reduced unnecessary disagreements, and gradually increased the accumulation of academic and intellectual consensus. However, academic research is also a product of its time. These intellectual-historical effects, like seeds, must await the arrival of an era suited to them if they are truly to take root, sprout, and grow. History has proven that this suitable era could only truly begin after the end of the New Left movement.

《道德荒原笔记》之后，汤普森、麦金太尔、泰勒等人继续发表文章展开论战，将“社会主义的人道主义”之争不断推向深入，直到1960年才基本告一段落。这场争论尽管只实质性地持续了三、四年，但却产生了深入的思想史效应。第一，苏联马克思主义在英国左翼思想界、学术界的正统地位被彻底颠覆，在其崩溃的废墟上，英国本土的马克思主义思想传统开始生根发芽、茁壮成长起来。第二，随着英国本土马克思主义的不断融入，传统马克思主义中的道德空场得到填补，英国左翼学者对道德伦理问题的思考开始获得长足发展。第三，英国左翼思想界、学术界的相对封闭状况被打破，欧洲大陆的各种马克思主义思潮开始登陆英国，从而使英国左翼的理论基因得到某种改善。第四，随着多元理论话语竞争局面的出现，英国左翼开始关注对马克思恩格斯著作的解读，这一方面促进了西方“马克思学”在英国的繁荣，另一方面也提升了英国左翼的马克思主义水准，减少了无谓的意见纷争，使得学术共识、思想共识的积累逐渐增多。不过，学术研究也是时代的产物，这些思想史效应就像种子一样，要想真正生根、发芽、成长，还必须等待适合自己的时代的来临。历史已经证明，这个适合的时代只有在新左翼运动终结之后才能真正开启。

(Author: Zhang Liang, Institute of Marxist Social Theory and Department of Philosophy, Nanjing University)

（作者：张亮，南京大学马克思主义社会理论研究所暨哲学系）

Online Editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心