The Normative Connotation of Marx’s Thought of Human Emancipation and Its Historical Unfolding

With the deepening of research on Marx’s political philosophy, domestic scholars have also deepened their discussion of the intrinsic connection between Marx’s political philosophy and historical materialism. Some scholars focus on studying Marx’s political philosophy from the perspective of historical materialism, especially from the perspective of the critique of political economy in Marx’s *Capital* and its manuscripts, and have reached some very valuable conclusions. However, the relationship between the political philosophy within the horizon of Marx’s critique of political economy and the political-philosophical propositions Marx advanced in his early period—for example, whether the two are two different political philosophies and why they differ, or, if they are the same political philosophy, how their consistency should be understood—still awaits further clarification. In the author’s view, approaching the discussion of its normativity and historicity from the core political-philosophical proposition of Marx’s human emancipation will help deepen the understanding of the particular character of Marx’s political philosophy (i.e., the relationship between its normativity and historical materialism).

随着马克思政治哲学研究的深入，国内学者对于马克思政治哲学与历史唯物主义之内在关联性的讨论也得以深化。有学者专注于从历史唯物主义、尤其是基于马克思《资本论》及其手稿中的政治经济学批判理论的视角去研究马克思的政治哲学，得出了一些很有价值的结论。然而，马克思政治经济学批判视域中的政治哲学与马克思早期提出的政治哲学主张之间的关系，比如二者是否为两种不同的政治哲学以及为何不同，或者如果是同一种政治哲学的话，其一致性又该如何理解等问题仍有待进一步厘清。在笔者看来，从马克思的人类解放这一核心政治哲学命题切入去讨论其规范性和历史性，将有助于深化对于马克思政治哲学之特质(即其规范性与历史唯物主义的关系)的理解。

I. Human Emancipation as the Core Proposition of Marx’s Political Philosophy

一、人类解放作为马克思政治哲学的核心命题

Human emancipation as a proposition of political philosophy is not self-evident. In Marx, human emancipation includes the stage or level of political emancipation, but it cannot be reduced to political emancipation. To put it more precisely, human emancipation cannot be equated with political emancipation in the sense of bourgeois right; rather, it contains a higher-order political philosophy that transcends bourgeois right. When Steven Lukes asserts that Marx’s moral view is a “morality of emancipation,” what he intends to highlight is precisely the transcendent character of this moral view. It can be said that human emancipation is both a political philosophy concerning what political rights human individuals ought to enjoy in the sense of right, and a “political philosophy” that transcends the discourse of traditional political rights and concerns the state of life that human beings ought to have—that is, a transcendent and reflective political philosophy.

人类解放作为一个政治哲学的命题并不是自明的。在马克思那里，人类解放包含了政治解放的阶段或者层次，但不能被降格为政治解放。进言之，人类解放不能被等同于资产阶级法权意义上的政治解放，而是蕴含着超越资产阶级法权的更高阶的政治哲学。当S.卢克斯(Steven Lukes)断言马克思的道德观是一种“解放的道德”时，他想突出的正是这种道德观的超越性。可以说，人类解放既是一种关于人类个体在法权意义上应该享有何种政治权利的政治哲学，又是一种超越传统政治权利话语而关乎人类应有之生活状态的“政治哲学”,即一种超越性、反思性的政治哲学。

In Marx’s texts, we can see Marx understanding human emancipation from the two levels mentioned above. As a middle-school student, Marx set the aspiration of “choosing a profession that works for the benefit of humanity.” In his doctoral dissertation, he praised Prometheus’s spirit of stealing fire for humanity and proposed opposing all gods in heaven and on earth. At this time, Marx had not yet explicitly articulated the spirit of serving humanity as human emancipation. But by the period of the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*, Marx had clearly and completely expounded the thought of human emancipation. In “On the Jewish Question,” he revealed the limits of political emancipation and put forward a Rousseauian idea of human emancipation, namely, that people organize their own forces as social forces and no longer regard social forces as alien political forces. In “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s *Philosophy of Right*: Introduction,” he clarified that the German revolution is a thorough, universal human emancipation (i.e., human emancipation) and gave a more detailed, even metaphysical, interpretation of this emancipation: it is “an emancipation that is based on the theory that man is the highest essence for man,” and “man is the highest essence for man” can be reduced to the categorical imperative—“to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being.” This interpretation reveals the dual connotation of the thought of human emancipation: first, it contains Marx’s critique, in his later texts, of social relations such as the alienation of labor and exploitation that “make man a debased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being”; second, it contains Marx’s presupposition of an ideal state of society that conforms to “the highest essence of man,” namely, the social emancipation of the proletariat. From this perspective, we can reach a preliminary judgment: the critique of the alienation of labor and exploitation in Marx’s later texts, the exploration of revolutionary paths for superseding alienated labor and abolishing exploitation, and the elaboration of the free state of proletarian emancipation are not only the proper connotations of Marx’s thought of human emancipation but also belong, in nature, to the category of political philosophy.

在马克思的文本中，我们可以看到马克思从上述两个层次去理解人类解放。中学时代的马克思曾立下了“选择最能为人类而工作的职业”的志向。在博士论文中，他赞扬普罗米修斯为人类盗取天火的精神，提出反对一切天上和地上的神，此时的马克思还没有把服务于人类的精神明确表述为人类解放。但到了《德法年鉴》时期，马克思就很清晰、很完整地阐述了人类解放的思想。他在《论犹太人问题》中揭示了政治解放的限度，提出卢梭式的人类解放思想，即人们把自身力量作为社会力量组织起来并且不再将社会力量视为异己的政治力量。在《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》中，他明确了德国的革命是彻底的、普遍的人的解放(即人类解放),并对这种解放给出了更为细致且带有形而上学色彩的解读：它是“以宣布人是人的最高本质这个理论为立足点的解放”,而“人是人的最高本质”可以归结为这样的绝对命令——“必须推翻使人成为被侮辱、被奴役、被遗弃和被蔑视的东西的一切关系”。这一解读呈现出人类解放思想的双重内涵：其一是蕴含着马克思在后来的文本中对劳动异化和剥削等“使人成为被侮辱、被奴役、被遗弃和被蔑视的东西”的社会关系的批判；其二是蕴含着马克思关于符合“人的最高本质”的理想社会状态的预设，即无产阶级的社会解放。从这个角度看，我们可以得出一个初步的判断，即马克思在其后来文本中对于劳动异化和剥削的批判、对扬弃异化劳动及消灭剥削的革命路径的探讨以及对无产阶级解放之自由状态的阐述，不仅是马克思人类解放思想的应有内涵，而且在性质上也属于政治哲学的范畴。

Thus, human emancipation is indeed a political-philosophical proposition that Marx consistently concerned himself with throughout his life, and this proposition can be regarded as the core proposition of Marx’s political philosophy. First, Marx’s discussions of political-philosophical themes such as freedom, equality, democracy, and justice in his texts are basically carried out by criticizing the liberal (bourgeois) versions of these themes and then elaborating his own understanding based on the standpoint of the proletariat—that is, elaborating an understanding that serves the ultimate goal of the proletariat’s social emancipation (i.e., human emancipation). For example, Marx criticizes the liberal view of freedom based on the presupposition of atomistic individuals as a fiction lacking bourgeois imagination, while his affirmation of the free individuality of individuals in the community is a theoretical presentation of the free state of the proletariat after achieving social emancipation. Marx’s understanding of equality is similar: he recognizes that equality limited to political rights or even to the sphere of distribution cannot achieve the complete emancipation of the proletariat, and therefore he puts forward “the abolition of classes” as the most radical and thorough proletarian view of equality. The essence of this proposition lies in abolishing the conditions and foundations for the existence of the proletariat and even all classes, thereby removing the obstacles to the complete emancipation of the proletariat (i.e., human emancipation). While criticizing Hegel’s constitutional monarchy and reaffirming Rousseau’s principle of popular sovereignty, he puts forward the concept of “true democracy” and, taking the Paris Commune as an example, presents the proletarian ideal of “social democracy,” which in essence is “the political form of the social emancipation of the masses of the people.” On the question of justice, Marx opposes liberals who regard the conception of justice corresponding to the capitalist mode of production as eternal justice. But he does not oppose the concept of justice in general; rather, he is committed to revealing the historicity and class character of the concept of justice. In the *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, he actually acknowledges the historical rationality of bourgeois right—including the principle of distributive justice (e.g., the principle of distribution according to labor)—in the lower stage of communist society.

可见，人类解放的确是马克思一生中始终关注的政治哲学命题，而且这一命题堪称马克思政治哲学的核心命题。首先，马克思文本中关于自由、平等、民主和正义等政治哲学主题的讨论，基本上是通过批判这些主题的自由主义(资产阶级)版本来阐发其基于无产阶级立场的理解，即阐释其服务于无产阶级之社会解放(即人类解放)这一终极目标的。比如马克思将基于原子式个人这一预设的自由观批判为资产阶级缺乏想象力的虚构，而他对于共同体中个体的自由个性的肯定，则是对无产阶级在实现社会解放之后自由状态的理论呈现。马克思对于平等的理解也是如此，他认识到局限于政治权利的平等乃至分配领域的平等都无法实现无产阶级的彻底解放，因而提出“消灭阶级”这一最为激进和彻底的无产阶级平等观，这一主张的本质在于消灭无产阶级乃至所有阶级产生的条件和基础，从而扫除无产阶级彻底解放(即人类解放)的障碍。他在批判黑格尔的君主立宪制和重申卢梭的人民主权原则的同时，提出了“真正的民主制”的概念，并以巴黎公社为例呈现了无产阶级的“社会民主”理想，后者在本质上就是“人民群众获得社会解放的政治形式”。在正义问题上，马克思反对自由主义者将与资本主义生产方式相适应的正义观念奉为永恒正义。但他并不是一般地反对正义观念，而是致力于揭示正义观念的历史性和阶级性。在《哥达纲领批判》中，他实际上承认了包括分配正义(比如按劳分配原则)在内的资产阶级法权在共产主义初级阶段的历史合理性。

Second, apart from those easily identifiable political-philosophical propositions, some scholars directly grasp Marx’s historical materialism and labor theory of value as political-philosophical propositions. For instance, Strauss and Cropsey, in *History of Political Philosophy*, consider Marx’s political philosophy to include his political economy and his historical-metaphysical theory. But in their view, Marx’s theory of historical materialism also contains value judgments about specific forms of human life. “Marx’s grand thesis is that man will become fully free only when each individual is merged into the whole of mankind and engages in production only because production is the release and cultivation of man’s powers, and not because production is a means of earning a living either directly or through exchange by exploiting others.” In essence, this understanding also regards the theory of historical materialism and the labor theory of value as an argument for the political-philosophical idea that human individuals can attain freedom only by cooperating or uniting to develop their capacities, and thus as an argument for the proposition of human emancipation—that is, the pursuit of genuine freedom for humanity in the sense of emancipation. As some domestic scholars have pointed out, Marx’s critique of capitalist society through *Capital* and its manuscripts still aims at the ultimate value of human emancipation: “The critique of traditional metaphysics and the revelation of the logic of capital are not the purpose of Marx’s philosophical thinking. For Marx, how to transcend capitalism, move toward the history of freedom, and thereby realize human emancipation—this is the fundamental orientation of his theory.”

其次，除了那些容易辨认的政治哲学命题，有的学者还把马克思的历史唯物主义和劳动价值论直接把握为政治哲学命题。比如施特劳斯和克罗波西在《政治哲学史》中认为，马克思的政治哲学包括其政治经济学和历史形而上学理论。但在他的视野中，马克思的历史唯物主义理论也蕴含着人的特定生活形态的价值判断。“马克思的宏大论点是：直到每个人都溶入人类的整体中，并且从事生产只因为生产是人的能力的释放和培养，而不是因为生产是直接或通过剥削他人的交换来谋取生存的一种手段的时候，人才会获得完全的自由。”这种理解在本质上也是把历史唯物主义理论和劳动价值论视为对人类个体只有通过合作或者联合来发展自己能力才能获得自由这一政治哲学理念的论证，因而也是对人类解放命题，即追求人类在解放意义上的真正自由的论证。就像有国内学者所指出的，马克思通过《资本论》及其手稿批判资本主义社会，其目标仍然指向人类解放这一终极价值：“对传统形而上学的批判，对资本逻辑的揭示，并不是马克思哲学之思的目的，对于马克思而言，如何超越资本主义、走向自由历史，从而实现人的解放，这才是他的理论的根本指向”。

II. Why Marx’s Thought of Human Emancipation Is Normative

二、马克思的人类解放思想何以是规范性的

Compared with revealing human emancipation as the core proposition of Marx’s political philosophy, determining whether human emancipation is a normative political-philosophical proposition and accurately interpreting its normative connotation faces greater controversy. In this section, the author will argue that Marx’s thought of human emancipation is a normative proposition.

相较于揭示人类解放作为马克思政治哲学的核心命题，判定人类解放是否是一个规范性的政治哲学命题以及准确阐释其规范性内涵面临的争议更大。在这一部分，笔者将论证马克思的人类解放思想是一个规范性的命题。

To argue that Marx’s thought on human emancipation is a normative proposition, it is first necessary to define the meaning of “normativity.” The original meaning of a norm is a rule, that is, a rule that human individuals should follow in social activities. Different fields have different norms, such as moral norms, social norms, legal norms, political norms, and so on. Marx’s theory of historical materialism shows that ideology, including political, legal, and moral concepts, is determined by the economic base. Therefore, the rationality of political, legal, and moral norms is usually understood as originating from facts at the level of the economic base. Consequently, a view has emerged in academia that Marx’s historical materialism negates normative theory. Hans Kelsen provides an example. He says that social scientists influenced by historical materialism “forcibly reduce human relations, which in ethics and jurisprudence are regarded as obligations, responsibilities, and rights prescribed by moral or legal norms, to factual relations of political power or economic power; they regard value judgments such as right and wrong, just and unjust as propositions of facts observable by individual psychology or social psychology, rather than interpreting them as judgments that conform or do not conform to a presupposedly valid norm.” [1]1 Hans Kelsen, *The Communist Theory of Law* (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1955), p. 2. The translation follows the author’s Chinese rendering of Kelsen’s argument.

论证马克思的人类解放思想是一个规范性的命题，首先需要界定“规范性”的含义。规范的本意是规则，即人类个体在社会活动中所应遵循的规则。不同的领域有不同的规范，比如道德规范、社会规范、法律规范、政治规范，等等。马克思的历史唯物主义理论表明，包括政治、法律和道德观念在内的意识形态决定于经济基础，因此政治、法律和道德规范的合理性通常被理解为源于经济基础层面的事实，学界由此也产生了关于马克思的历史唯物主义否定规范性理论的观点。H.凯尔森(Hans Kelsen)提供了一个范例，他说受唯物史观影响的社会科学家“硬把那些在伦理学上及法理学上认为是道德规范或法律规范所规定的义务、责任、权利的人的关系，归结为政治权力或经济权力的事实关系；把正当及不正当、公平及不公平等价值判断认为是可用个人心理学或社会心理学观察得到的事实的命题，而不是把它们解释为符合或不符合于一个事先假定有效的规范的判断”。

However, Kelsen’s criticism is exaggerated. Because he grasps normativity as a transcendental proposition that is “presupposed” and grasps historical materialism as empirical facts divorced from norms, he constructs a narrative of opposition between the transcendental and the empirical, between value and fact. This narrative misreads both historical materialism and normativity. First, historical materialism does not necessarily divorce itself from or reject normativity. Once it is acknowledged that the ideological superstructure has the function of reacting upon the economic base (even if the strength of this function cannot be generalized), normativity from the ideological level can be accommodated within the theory of historical materialism. Second, normativity does not necessarily divorce itself from empirical facts either; abstract normative propositions can originate from the distillation of empirical facts. The normativity of Marx’s political philosophy arises precisely from Marx’s extraction of value norms behind empirical facts. Because the degree of abstraction of norms varies, there are also different levels of normativity. At least theoretically, on the one hand, there exist the most abstract norms, which may be transcendental metaphysical norms or value presuppositions divorced from experience; on the other hand, there exist a large number of other levels of normativity, which are products of combining empirical facts of different levels with some (transcendental) value presupposition. The judgment that there exist only abstract and purely transcendental normative theories, and from this the conclusion that Marx does not hold a normative theory, is untenable.

然而，凯尔森的批评是言过其实的。由于他把规范性把握为“事先假定”的先验性命题、把历史唯物主义把握为脱离规范的经验性事实，从而建构出了先验和经验、价值和事实的对立叙事。这种叙事既误读了历史唯物主义，也误解了规范性。首先，历史唯物主义并不必然脱离或者拒斥规范性，一旦承认观念上层建筑具有反作用于经济基础的功能(即便这一功能的强弱不可一概而论),来自观念层面的规范性就可以被历史唯物主义理论所接纳；其次，规范性也不必然脱离经验性事实，抽象的规范性命题可以源于对经验性事实的提炼。马克思政治哲学的规范性就是产生于马克思对经验性事实背后价值规范的提取。由于规范的抽象程度有所不同，因而也有着不同层次的规范性，至少从理论上看，一方面存在着最抽象的规范性，它们可能是先验的形而上学规范或者脱离经验的价值预设；另一方面则存在着大量的其他层次的规范性，它们则是由不同层次的经验性事实与某种(先验的)价值预设结合的产物。那种认为只存在着抽象的和纯粹先验的规范性理论，并由此断定马克思并不持有规范性理论的判断是站不住脚的。

Marx’s political philosophy also has different levels of normativity. Marx also holds relatively abstract normative claims about human emancipation. At this level, human emancipation means enabling people to live an ideal life that conforms to human nature, that is, what Marx calls “any emancipation is the return of the human world and of human relationships to man himself.” [2]2 Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 168. This judgment implies that Marx accepts an ideal presupposition about the essence of man. In “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction,” when Marx proposes that human emancipation means overthrowing the social relations that plunge people into a state of being insulted, enslaved, abandoned, and despised, the implication is nothing other than that people should not be insulted, enslaved, abandoned, and despised by others, but should be respected by others, obtain freedom (that is, the opposite of being enslaved), receive care, and be recognized. This can certainly be regarded as a normative definition of the authentic state of man (that is, the state of emancipation that conforms to human nature). In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx reveals that human activity has the essential determination of being “free and conscious,” which is also a description of this authentic state. In the later “Theses on Feuerbach,” Marx opposes equating the essence of man with “an abstraction inherent in each single individual” and emphasizes that the essence of man in its actuality is “the ensemble of the social relations.” [3]3 Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 4. The focus is to show that human nature cannot be grasped through the intuition or reflection of a single individual (an atomistic individual), but this does not prevent Marx from making normative statements about the state of existence that conforms to human nature (the essence of man), that is, grasping the essential/authentic existence of man from the value dimensions of mutual equality, mutual respect, and mutual recognition among people. Therefore, we do not have sufficient reason to conclude that Marx rejects the normative connotation of the essence of man. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, Marx does not oppose all presuppositions or visions of the ideal future society; what he opposes is treating the ideal future society as a process that will realize itself spontaneously or as a blueprint that can be directly used to tailor reality. For example, he advocates that communism should not be understood as “an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself,” but as the revolutionary action of the proletariat to abolish the existing state of affairs. [4]4 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 49. However, in their revolutionary action, can the proletariat not take the communist ideal as a (long-term) goal to contemplate and guide action? Of course they can. In Marx’s texts, we indeed see that he consistently describes communist society as an ideal society that realizes individual freedom (including freedom of self-determination and freedom of self-realization). Therefore, acknowledging that Marx has an abstract-level normative connotation concerning human emancipation is not without basis.

马克思的政治哲学同样有着不同层次的规范性。马克思也持有较为抽象的关于人类解放的规范性主张，在这个层次上，人类解放意味着使人过上符合人的本性的理想生活，即马克思所说的“任何解放都是使人的世界即各种关系回归于人自身”。这一判断意味着马克思接受关于人的本质的理想性预设。在《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》中，当马克思提出人的解放就是要推翻使人陷入被侮辱、被奴役、被遗弃和被蔑视的社会关系时，其言中之意不外是人不应该受到他人的侮辱、奴役、遗弃和蔑视，而应当受到他人的尊重、获得自由(即作为被奴役之对立面)、得到关爱和被承认。这当然可以被视为关于人的本真状态(也就是符合人的本性的解放状态)的规范性定义。在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思揭示了人的活动具有“自由自觉”的本质规定性，这也是对这一本真状态的描述。在稍后的《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中，马克思反对把人的本质等同于“单个人所固有的抽象物”,强调人的本质在其现实性上是“一切社会关系的总和”,其重点是表明不能通过对单个人(单子式的人)的直观或者反思去把握人性，但这并不妨碍马克思对符合人性(人的本质)的生存状态作出规范性的表述，即从人与人之间相互平等、相互尊重、相互承认这些价值维度去把握人的本质性/本真性存在。所以，我们没有充分的理由断定马克思拒斥关于人的本质的规范性内涵。此外，如前所述，马克思也不是一概反对关于未来社会理想的预设或者憧憬，他反对的是把未来社会理想当作会自发实现的进程或者可以直接用于裁剪现实的蓝图。比如，他主张不能将共产主义理解为“现实应当与之相适应的理想”,而应当理解为无产阶级消灭现实状况的革命行动，但是，无产阶级在其革命行动中难道不可以将共产主义理想当作观照和引导行动的(远期)目标吗?当然可以。在马克思的文本中，我们也的确看到他始终把共产主义社会描述为一个实现个人自由(包括自我决定的自由和自我实现的自由)的理想社会。因此，承认马克思有一个抽象层次上的关于人类解放的规范性内涵并不是没有依据的。

At the same time, Marx’s abstract normative level concerning human emancipation is not purely transcendental or divorced from experience. Daniel Brudney, in discussing what he calls the “justification problem” of Marx’s critique of capitalist society, touches upon this issue. He argues that Marx opposes capitalist society not based on its brutal reality, but because capitalism violates Marx’s view of the essence of man; however, Marx’s view of the essence of man cannot be deduced from the reality of capitalist society. Yet, in the author’s view, Marx can still deduce the basic determinations of human nature from the empirical facts of the inhumanity of capitalist society. Just as Marx argued during his *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* period that “any emancipation is the return of the human world and of human relationships to man himself,” this means liberating people from the oppression and enslavement caused by the political and economic alienation of European civil society, returning them to a state of life befitting human beings. Consequently, the state opposite to the political and economic alienation in civil society is the state of emancipation that conforms to the essence of man. In this regard, although Marx’s early theoretical deduction of the essence of man could not reach a scientific understanding of human nature or the state of human emancipation, it is not necessarily transcendental. In the course of Marx’s intellectual development, we see that he later deepened the argument for this ideal human nature (and simultaneously human emancipation) through historical materialism and the critique of political economy. Of course, this effort also made the normative connotation of his proposition on human emancipation increasingly exhibit characteristics of concreteness and historicity.

与此同时，马克思关于人类解放的那个抽象的规范性层次也不是纯粹先验的或者脱离经验的。D.布鲁德尼(Daniel Brudney)在讨论所谓马克思批判资本主义社会存在的“证成难题”时就触及到这个问题。他认为，马克思反对资本主义社会并不是基于资本主义社会的残酷现实，而是基于资本主义违背了其关于人的本质的观点，但马克思关于人的本质的观点却不能从资本主义社会的现实中推导出来。然而，在笔者看来，马克思仍然可以从资本主义社会非人性的经验事实推导出关于人性的基本规定性，正如他在《德法年鉴》时期主张的“任何解放都是使人的世界即各种关系回归于人自身”,这也就是要把人从欧洲市民社会的政治异化和经济异化所导致的压迫和奴役中解放出来，使其回归到一种属人的生活状态，因而与市民社会中的政治异化和经济异化相对立的状态就是符合人的本质的解放状态。就此而言，尽管马克思在其早期对于人的本质的理论推导并不能达至对于人性的或者人的解放状态的科学认识，但却未必是先验的。在马克思的思想历程中，我们看到他后来通过历史唯物主义和政治经济学批判来深化对这种理想人性(同时也是人类解放)的论证。当然，这种努力也使其人类解放命题的规范性内涵越来越呈现出具体化和历史性的特征。

III. Differentiated Expressions of the Normative Connotation of the Thought on Human Emancipation

三、人类解放思想规范性内涵的差异化表达

From Marx’s texts, the thought on human emancipation has four levels of normative connotation in different periods of Marx’s intellectual development.

从马克思的文本来看，人类解放思想在马克思思想发展的不同时期有着四个层次的规范性内涵。

The first level of normative connotation is mainly presented in the period of the *Rheinische Zeitung*. Marx understood human emancipation as: every person should receive equal respect and enjoy equal freedom and rights. Objectively speaking, Marx’s thought on human emancipation at this time was still in its embryonic stage, lacking a clear conceptual expression, but it already had a definite theoretical awareness. In his doctoral dissertation, he exalted human self-consciousness, regarding it as possessing the highest divinity, and used atoms in natural philosophy to symbolize the equality and freedom of individual self-consciousness. In his 1843 letter to Ruge, he criticized “monarchy, autocracy, and tyranny” as different expressions of the same concept, all of which “despise people, disdain people, and make people not human.” [5]5 Marx, “Letter to Ruge (May 1843),” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 202. [Translator’s note: The Chinese text quotes a passage from this letter; the English translation of the letter uses slightly different wording.] In “Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction,” he declared that “freedom is indeed the essence of man.” [6]6 Marx, “Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 117. In “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” Marx proposed that “the code is the Bible of people’s freedom,” demanding that rational law provide equal protection for individual freedom. [7]7 Marx, “Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 162. Regarding this normative claim confined to the political sphere, Marx later turned to exposing and criticizing its conservative and limited nature as a bourgeois ideology, but he also acknowledged that before the higher phase of communism, this normative connotation still possessed a certain social regulatory function.

第一个层次的规范性内涵主要呈现于《莱茵报》时期，马克思把人类解放理解为：每个人都应该得到平等的尊重，享有平等的自由和权利。客观地说，这个时期马克思的人类解放思想仍处于萌芽状态，尚未形成明确的概念表达，但已经有明确的理论意识。他在博士论文中高扬人的自我意识，认为其具有最高的神性，并以自然哲学中的原子来喻示个体自我意识的平等和自由；在1843年给卢格的信中批评“君主政体、专制制度和暴政”是同一概念的不同说法，都是“轻视人、蔑视人、使人不成其为人”,而在《评普鲁士最近的书报检查令》中则宣称“自由确实是人的本质”。在《第六届莱茵省议会的辩论(第一篇论文)》中马克思提出“法典就是人民自由的圣经”,要求理性法律对个人自由实施平等的保障。对于这一局限于政治领域的规范性主张，马克思后来转向揭示和批判其作为资产阶级意识形态的保守性和局限性，但他也承认在共产主义高级阶段之前，这一规范性内涵仍具有一定的社会调节功能。

The second level of normative connotation was clearly expressed during the period of the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* and was long upheld. Its essence is: every person should obtain the conditions and freedom to fully develop their abilities. At this stage, through “On the Jewish Question,” Marx distinguished between the two levels of political emancipation and social emancipation that human emancipation undergoes. On the one hand, he acknowledged that political emancipation is the most important form of emancipation to date: “Political emancipation is certainly a great progress; although it is not the final form of universal human emancipation.” On the other hand, he revealed its limitation, namely that political emancipation only achieves formal equality of civil rights, because “the state still allows private property, education, and occupation to function in their own way” and to manifest their particular essence. [8]8 Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 153. On the basis of criticizing the political rights and freedoms guaranteed by the French Constitution as the rights and freedoms of the selfish members of civil society (i.e., the bourgeoisie), Marx pointed out that true freedom in the sense of human emancipation must be built upon the material foundation and social conditions formed by uniting the forces of each individual. That is, it requires each person to organize their “original forces” into social forces, while “no longer separating social forces from themselves in the form of political forces.” [9]9 Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 168. This is an inheritance of Rousseau’s thought, namely that each person can use the united social forces to guarantee their own freedom and thereby achieve human emancipation. In *The German Ideology*, Marx further deepened the elaboration of this idea using his theory of historical materialism. Marx acknowledged that people obtain freedom within the scope determined and permitted by existing productive forces, while also pointing out that in class societies with still underdeveloped productive forces (i.e., false communities), the ruling class monopolizes the conditions for free development. Only in an ideal society with highly developed productive forces (i.e., a true community that has eliminated class antagonism) can the state of human emancipation be realized—a state in which “the conditions of the free development and movement of individuals are under their control.” [10]10 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 80.

第二个层次的规范性内涵是在《德法年鉴》时期得到清晰表达并长期坚持的，其要义是：每个人都应该得到充分发展其才能的条件和自由。在这个阶段，马克思通过《论犹太人问题》区分了人的解放所经历的政治解放和社会解放两个层次。他一方面承认政治的解放是迄今为止最为重要的解放形式，“政治解放当然是一大进步；尽管它不是普遍的人的解放的最后形式”,另一方面则揭示其局限性，即政治解放只是实现了形式上的公民权利平等，因为“国家还是让私有财产、文化程度、职业以它们固有的方式”来发挥作用并表现出它们的特殊本质。在批判法国宪法所保障的政治权利和自由乃自私自利的市民社会成员(即资产者)之权利和自由的基础上，马克思指出人类解放意义上的真正自由必须建立在将每个人的力量联合起来所形成的物质基础和社会条件之上，即要求每个人将自己的“原有力量”组织成为社会力量，同时“不再把社会力量以政治力量的形式同自身分离”。这是对卢梭思想的继承，即每个人能够利用联合起来的社会力量来保障自己的自由从而实现人的解放。在《德意志意识形态》中，马克思又运用其历史唯物主义理论深化了对这一思想的阐释。马克思承认人们是在现有的生产力所决定和所容许的范围之内取得自由的，同时也指出在生产力依然不够发达的阶级社会(即虚假的共同体)中，统治阶级独享自由发展的条件。只有在生产力高度发达的理想社会(即消除了阶级对立的真正共同体)中才能实现人的解放状态，这是一种“把个人的自由发展和运动的条件置于他们的控制之下”的状态。

The third level of normative connotation had a preliminary expression during the period of the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* and was further developed in his later texts (including those expounding the principles of historical materialism and those conducting a critique of political economy). Its essence is: for the proletariat, the specific connotation of human emancipation is the emancipation of labor or the thorough social emancipation of the proletariat. As mentioned above, Marx reached the preliminary conclusion in the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* period that the proletariat is the subject of social revolution, but a more detailed discussion of the emancipation of labor or social emancipation achieved through social revolution was presented through his later critique of political economy. In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx presented the fact of the proletariat’s oppression, enslavement, and contempt in capitalist society through alienated labor, suggesting that the proletariat’s ideal of emancipation is the return to the free and conscious nature of humanity. In the “Comments on James Mill,” he further grasped this idealized human productive labor as a “manifestation of individual life” that can confirm and realize “my human essence” and “my social essence.” [11]11 Marx, “Comments on James Mill,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 228. It is both an individual’s free activity, i.e., “my labor is the free manifestation of life,” and a life activity conforming to human nature that fulfills oneself and others, i.e., “each of us doubly affirms himself and the other person in our own production process.” [12]12 Marx, “Comments on James Mill,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 3 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 228. In *The German Ideology*, when discussing labor in communist society, it will break free from the constraints imposed by narrow old-style division of labor, and anyone “can develop in any department, and society regulates the entire production.” [13]13 Marx and Engels, *The German Ideology*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 5 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 47. In *Capital* and its manuscripts, through empirical materials, it more meticulously demonstrates how workers’ labor creates surplus value for the capitalist, revealing that the inherent contradictions of capitalist social production will inevitably push the exploitation of labor by capital to its opposite, and on the basis of workers’ collective ownership of the means of production, establish a harmonious cooperative labor mechanism, ultimately realizing the emancipation of labor. In his analysis of the Paris Commune in the 1870s, Marx also expressed the Paris Commune as “the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.” [14]14 Marx, “The Civil War in France,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 22 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986), p. 334.

第三个层次的规范性内涵在《德法年鉴》时期有初步的表达，在其后来多个文本(包括阐述历史唯物主义原理和展开政治经济学批判的文本)中得到进一步的发展，其要义是：对于无产阶级而言，人类解放的具体内涵就是劳动解放或者无产阶级彻底的社会解放。如前所述，马克思在《德法年鉴》时期得出了无产阶级作为社会革命主体的初步结论，但对于通过社会革命实现的劳动解放或者社会解放的更细致讨论则是通过后来的政治经济学批判呈现的。在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思通过异化劳动呈现了无产阶级在资本主义社会的受压迫、受奴役和受蔑视的事实，提示出无产阶级的解放理想就是向人的自由自觉之本性的复归。在《穆勒评注》中他又把人的这种理想化生产劳动把握为能够证实和实现“我的人的本质”和“我的社会本质”的“个人的生命表现”,它既是个人的自由活动，即“我的劳动是自由的生命表现”,又是一种成全自己和他人的符合人的本性的生命活动，即“我们每个人在自己的生产过程中就双重地肯定了自己和另一个人”。在《德意志意识形态》中谈到共产主义社会里人的劳动将摆脱狭隘的旧式分工所造成的束缚，任何人“都可以在任何部门内发展，社会调节着整个生产”。在《资本论》及其手稿中则通过实证材料更为细致地证明工人的劳动如何为资本家创造剩余价值，揭示出资本主义社会生产的内在矛盾必然会推动资本对劳动的剥削而走向其反面，并在工人集体占有生产资料的基础上建立起和谐的合作劳动机制，最终实现劳动的解放。在19世纪70年代对巴黎公社的分析中，马克思还把巴黎公社表述为“终于发现的可以使劳动在经济上获得解放的政治形式”。

The fourth level of normative connotation is Marx’s assertion that the ideal society realizing human emancipation must be a community of free individuals. Marx’s conception of a society without classes (i.e., communist society) in multiple texts of his mature period all implies this normative claim. Its classic expression is: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” [15]15 Marx and Engels, *Manifesto of the Communist Party*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 6 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 506. In *Capital* and its manuscripts, Marx acknowledged that the realm of freedom is built on the basis of the realm of necessity: “Beyond this realm of necessity, the true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins.” [16]16 Marx, *Capital*, vol. 3, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 37 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1998), p. 807. In this social stage (i.e., the third major social form), [17]17 Translator’s note: Marx’s “three major social forms” are outlined in the *Grundrisse*: (1) relations of personal dependence, (2) personal independence based on objective dependence, and (3) free individuality based on the universal development of individuals and their communal, social productivity. the “free individuality” of individuals will also be realized on the basis of individuals sharing social wealth and achieving comprehensive development. In the *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, Marx further described this realm of freedom, arguing that only in the higher phase of communism, after the comprehensive development of individuals and the full flow of collective wealth brought about by the growth of productive forces, and after labor “has become the first necessity of life,” can the material means needed for each individual to freely develop their talents and abilities be equally satisfied from society (i.e., “to each according to his needs”), thereby realizing the true freedom and emancipation of each individual. [18]18 Marx, *Critique of the Gotha Programme*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 24 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1989), p. 87.

第四个层次的规范性内涵是马克思关于实现了人类解放的理想社会必然是自由人联合体的论断。马克思在其成熟时期的多个文本中对阶级消亡之社会(即共产主义社会)的设想都蕴含着这一规范性主张。其经典表述为：“代替那存在着阶级和阶级对立的资产阶级旧社会的，将是这样一个联合体，在那里，每个人的自由发展是一切人的自由发展的条件。”在《资本论》及其手稿中，马克思承认自由王国是建立在必然王国的基础上的，“在这个必然王国的彼岸，作为目的本身的人类能力的发挥，真正的自由王国，就开始了”。在这个社会阶段(即第三大社会形式),个人的“自由个性”也将在个人共享社会财富和获得全面发展的基础上得以实现。在《哥达纲领批判》中，马克思又对这个自由王国作了进一步地描述，即认为只有在共产主义高级阶段，随着个人的全面发展和由生产力增长所带来的集体财富的充分涌流之后，在劳动“成为了生活的第一需要之后”,每个人自由发展其才能和能力所需要的物质资料才能够从社会中得到平等的满足(即“按需分配”),从而实现每个人的真正自由和解放。

The four levels of connotation in the above proposition on human emancipation are progressively advanced and deepened. The first connotation is an abstract, formally universal normative political-philosophical claim that, under the historical conditions of the time, primarily reflected the position and interests of the bourgeoisie; this reveals the influence of liberal political philosophy’s norms on the young Marx, who had not yet established his proletarian standpoint and perspective, and therefore still understood human emancipation at the level of political emancipation (i.e., he still took a stage-bound goal of human emancipation as human emancipation itself). The second connotation is a normative political-philosophical claim that Marx put forward, based on his preliminary investigation of European civil society, opposing social inequality and economic tyranny; this connotation shows that Marx had already established his proletarian standpoint, accurately distinguishing between political emancipation and human emancipation (i.e., the thorough social emancipation of the proletariat), but still lacked sufficient elaboration and argumentation regarding the specific character of proletarian emancipation, its possibility, and its path. The third connotation, through analyzing the material productive labor of the proletariat in bourgeois society—whether from the perspective of the critique of alienated labor or from the perspective of the critique of the division of labor and private property—more deeply reveals the fact that the proletariat is exploited and enslaved by the capitalists, concretizing human emancipation into the normative claim of the emancipation of labor (for the proletariat), while also providing fuller argumentation in the relevant texts for the possibility and path of the emancipation of labor. The fourth connotation is a more specific normative description of the social ideal of human emancipation that Marx gave, based on the theory of historical materialism and the study of political economy. This description is not an abstract imagination of the social ideal, but a forward-looking presentation after having gained a relatively full understanding of its possibility and feasibility.

以上关于人类解放命题的四个层次内涵是逐步递进和深化的。第一个内涵是抽象的、形式上普适但在当时的历史条件下主要反映资产者的立场和利益的规范性政治哲学主张，这反映了自由主义政治哲学的规范对早年马克思的影响，此时的马克思尚未确立其无产阶级立场和观点，因而依然从政治解放的层次去理解人类解放(即仍然把人类解放的一个阶段性目标当作人类解放本身)。第二个内涵是马克思基于对欧洲市民社会的初步考察提出的反对社会不平等和经济暴政的规范性政治哲学主张，这一内涵反映出马克思已经确立其无产阶级立场，即准确地区分出政治解放和人类解放(即无产阶级彻底的社会解放),但对于无产阶级解放的特质、解放的可能性和路径仍然缺乏足够的阐释和论证。第三个内涵是通过分析资产阶级社会中无产阶级的物质生产劳动，或者是通过异化劳动批判的视角，或者是通过分工和私有制批判的视角，更为深入地揭示出无产阶级受资本家剥削和奴役的事实，把人类解放具体化为(对于无产阶级而言的)劳动解放这一规范性主张，同时也在相关文本中对劳动解放的可能性和路径给出了更为充分的论证。第四个内涵是马克思基于历史唯物主义理论和政治经济学研究对人类解放之社会理想给出的更为具体的规范性描述。这一描述并非是对社会理想的抽象想象，而是在对其可能性和可行性有了较为充分认识之后的一种前瞻式呈现。

IV. The Historical Unfolding of the Thought on Human Emancipation in Marx’s Mature Period

四、人类解放思想在马克思成熟时期的历史性展开

Judging from the normative connotations presented by the thought on human emancipation in different periods, Marx’s early abstract thought on human emancipation was not simply discarded in his mature period, but achieved a higher-level return in a more concrete and richer form: the abstract idea that human beings, as members of the species, should be emancipated, once Marx revealed that this process must, through the proletariat’s social revolution, eradicate the social conditions that give rise to it and thereby create the fact of truly human “species” existence, was transformed into a scientific practice of human emancipation built on new social conditions (the collective possession of the means of production). Therefore, by examining the historical unfolding of Marx’s thought on human emancipation in his mature period, we can more deeply understand the historical character of its normative connotations.

由人类解放思想在不同时期所呈现的规范性内涵来看，马克思早期抽象的人类解放思想，在其成熟时期并没有被简单地抛弃，而是以更具体和丰富的形式实现了更高层次的复归：人作为类的成员应该获得解放的抽象理念，随着马克思揭示出这一进程必须经由无产阶级的社会革命铲除其产生的社会条件从而造成真正人的“类”存在事实，就转变为建立在新的社会条件(生产资料的集体占有)的科学的人类解放实践。因此，通过考察马克思人类解放思想在其成熟时期的历史性展开，有助于我们更深入地理解其规范性内涵的历史性品格。

The focus of this examination lies in reinterpreting how Marx’s thought on human emancipation is presented in his critique of political economy and in his analysis of the practical revolutionary movement of the European proletariat (which can be understood as the practical application of Marx’s historical materialism). On the broader topic of the relationship between Marx’s political philosophy and historical materialism, some scholars have pointed out that the specific character of Marx’s political philosophy can only be fully presented through his theory of historical materialism, especially his critique of political economy, and have accordingly proposed interpreting Marx’s political philosophy based on his theory of the division of labor and ownership, i.e., a “political philosophy grounded in historical materialism.” [19]19 The author refers to a scholarly interpretation that grounds Marx’s political philosophy in his historical materialism, specifically through the concepts of division of labor and ownership, rather than in moral concepts like justice. In this scholar’s view, the core political-philosophical concept in *Capital* is not “justice” but “division of labor,” and it is on the basis of the latter that Marx clearly reveals the specific conditions of the proletariat’s existence and emancipation as a political-philosophical claim. “It is precisely this examination that clarifies the industrial system of capitalism, clarifies the conditions of the proletariat’s existence, and thus lays a solid and reliable foundation for exploring the conditions of the proletariat’s emancipation.” [20]20 This is a quotation from the scholar referenced in note [19], emphasizing the role of analyzing the capitalist industrial system and the conditions of proletarian existence. However, although the above view is correct in highlighting that Marx’s political philosophy is grounded in historical materialism, the further assertion that Marx’s political philosophy is built on a non-moral/non-value concept (such as “division of labor”) may not withstand scrutiny, and it easily severs the internal connection between Marx’s mature political philosophy and his early political-philosophical claims.

这一考察的重点在于重新解读马克思的人类解放思想是如何在其政治经济学批判理论以及他对欧洲无产阶级革命实践(可以理解为马克思历史唯物主义理论的实际运用)的剖析中呈现出来的。在关于马克思的政治哲学与唯物史观的关系这个更宏大的论题上，有学者指出马克思政治哲学的特质只有通过其历史唯物主义理论，尤其是其政治经济学批判理论才能得以充分地呈现，并由此提出从马克思的分工和所有制理论去阐释其“基于唯物史观的政治哲学”。在该学者看来，《资本论》的核心政治哲学概念不是“正义”而是“分工”,而且是基于后者，马克思才清晰地揭示了无产阶级特殊的生存和解放的条件这一政治哲学主张。“正是这种考察厘清了资本主义的工业体系，厘清了无产阶级生存的条件，从而为探索无产阶级解放的条件奠定了坚实可靠的基础。”然而，尽管上述观点突出马克思的政治哲学是基于唯物史观这一点是正确的，但进而断定马克思的政治哲学是建立在某个非道德/非价值的概念(如“分工”)之上则未必经得起推敲，而且容易截然斩断马克思成熟时期的政治哲学与其早期政治哲学主张的内在联系。

If we focus on Marx’s specific (and, of course, core) political-philosophical proposition of human emancipation and examine the relationship between its normative connotations and its historicity, we can understand that the political philosophy Marx presents through his critique of political economy or historical materialism does not involve a decisive rupture or opposition with his early political philosophy; the difference lies only in the former reproducing the latter’s abstract political-philosophical form at a higher level. It must be emphasized again that we cannot equate Marx’s early political philosophy (especially from the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* period) with a transcendental, purely constructivist political philosophy. On the contrary, the thought on human emancipation that Marx put forward in his early period was a conclusion drawn from a preliminary investigation of the reality of European civil society, and it was not without a genius-like anticipation of the incompleteness of purely political revolution and the possibility of the proletariat, as a class not belonging to civil society, undertaking the revolutionary mission.

如果我们聚焦于马克思的人类解放这个具体的(当然也是核心的)政治哲学命题，去考察其规范性内涵与其历史性的关系时，我们就能够理解马克思通过其政治经济学批判或者历史唯物主义呈现的政治哲学与其早年的政治哲学并不存在决然的断裂或者对立，二者的差别只是在于前者在更高的层次上复现了后者的抽象的政治哲学形态。需要再次强调的是，我们不能把马克思早期(尤其是《德法年鉴》时期)的政治哲学等同于先验的、纯粹建构性的政治哲学，反之，马克思早期提出的人类解放思想是基于对欧洲市民社会现实的初步考察后得出的结论，其中不乏对于纯粹政治革命之不彻底性以及无产阶级作为非市民社会阶级承担革命使命之可能性的天才预判。

The core viewpoints with political-philosophical connotations that Marx put forward in *Capital*—including exposing how the surplus value created by workers is appropriated without compensation by the capitalists, explaining how the division of labor and cooperation, while establishing comprehensive connections among people, also bring about the total control of “things” over people, revealing the self-negating character of capitalist production, i.e., “the monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it,” [21]21 This is a quotation from Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 32: “Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.” and asserting “the re-establishment of individual property on the basis of the co-operation of the free workers and their possession in common of the means of production produced by labor itself” [22]22 This is a paraphrase of Marx’s formulation in *Capital*, Volume I, Chapter 32, regarding the “re-establishment of individual property” under common ownership.—are obviously more profound and scientific than the conclusions Marx drew in his early works based on the analysis of civil society. However, their inheritance or continuation of Marx’s early political-philosophical claims cannot be ignored.

马克思在《资本论》中提出的具有政治哲学内涵的核心观点，包括揭露工人创造的剩余价值如何被资本家所无偿占有，阐释分工和协作如何在建立起人与人之间的全面联系的同时造成了“物”对人的全面控制，揭示资本主义生产的自我否定性，即“资本的垄断成了与这种垄断一起并在这种垄断之下繁盛起来的生产方式的桎梏”,以及断言“在协作和对土地及靠劳动本身生产的生产资料的共同占有的基础上，重新建立个人所有制”,显然比马克思在其早期作品中基于市民社会的分析所得出的结论更为深入和科学，但也不能忽视其对于马克思早期的政治哲学主张的继承或者延续。

For example, in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx already launched a clear and profound critique of alienated labor, explicitly pointing out that the products produced by the worker belong to “a person outside of labor” (i.e., the capitalist). In *Capital*, through the theory of surplus value, he further identifies how the products produced by the worker are appropriated without compensation by the capitalist and reveals the mechanism of capitalist exploitation. Similarly, the discussion in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* that the worker’s subsistence activity is essentially a form of forced labor, and the critical analysis in *The German Ideology* of the reified (“alienated”) social forces that “dominate the will and actions of human beings,” are elevated in the *Grundrisse* (1857–1858) into a critique of the main characteristic of societies based on private property, typified by capitalist society: “the independence of the individual based on dependence on things.” In *The Holy Family*, Marx had already pointed out that the goal and historical mission of the proletariat “are already clearly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation and in the entire organization of modern bourgeois society. A large part of the proletariat in England and France has already become aware of its historical task and is constantly striving to make this awareness fully clear.” In the *Communist Manifesto*, this is clarified as an argument that capitalist production inevitably drives capitalist society toward its own self-destruction, i.e., that the bourgeoisie, while promoting industrial progress, necessarily produces its own gravediggers. Furthermore, Marx’s revelation in *On the Jewish Question* of the limits of political emancipation (i.e., freedom and equality at the political level) is sublimated in *Capital* into a critique of the ideological nature of the bourgeois conception of freedom and equality: “The exchange of exchange values is the productive, real basis of all equality and freedom. As pure ideas, equality and freedom are merely an idealized expression of the exchange of exchange values.” Based on these fundamental facts, we cannot separate the political philosophy grounded in historical materialism from the political philosophy presented in Marx’s early texts, nor can we dismiss the latter as immature thought and ignore it. In my view, these most basic political-philosophical viewpoints derived from Marx’s critique of political economy—such as criticizing economic power (primarily the power of capital) for enslaving and oppressing the worker (the laborer), revealing the inevitability and rationality of the proletariat’s resistance to economic tyranny and its social revolution (i.e., the inevitability of the proletariat as the revolutionary subject and the rationality of abolishing exploitation and “appropriating its own surplus labor”), and envisioning an ideal life based on public ownership of the means of production that realizes the free and comprehensive development of each individual—can only be understood as the deepening of Marx’s thought on human emancipation within the context of the critique of political economy.

比如，马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，已经对异化劳动展开清晰而深入的批判，明确指出工人生产的产品属于“劳动之外的人”(即资本家),在《资本论》中则通过剩余价值理论进一步指认工人生产的产品如何被资本家无偿占有并揭示出资本主义剥削产生的机制。同样地，《1844年经济学哲学手稿》关于工人的谋生活动本质上是一种强制活动的论述和《德意志意识形态》关于“支配着人们的意志和行为”的物化(“异化”)社会力量的批判性分析，在《1857—1858年经济学手稿》中则被提升为对以资本主义社会为典型的私有制社会之主要特征——“以物的依赖性为基础的人的独立性”的批判。在《神圣家族》中，马克思已经指出无产阶级的目标和历史使命“已经在它自己的生活状况和现代资产阶级社会的整个组织中明显地、无可更改地预示出来了。英法两国的无产阶级中有很大一部分人已经意识到自己的历史任务，并且不断地努力使这种意识完全明确起来”,在《共产党宣言》中则被明确为资本主义生产必然推动资本主义社会走向自我毁灭的论证，即资产阶级在推动工业进步的同时必然会生产出其自身的掘墓人。此外，马克思在《论犹太人问题》中对政治解放(即政治层面上的自由和平等)之限度的揭示，也升华为《资本论》中对资产阶级的自由和平等观之意识形态性质的批判：“交换价值的交换是一切平等和自由的生产的、现实的基础。作为纯粹观念，平等和自由仅仅是交换价值的交换的一种理想化的表现”。基于以上这些基本事实，我们不能把基于唯物史观的政治哲学与马克思早期文本中呈现的政治哲学割裂开来，也不能把后者一概判定为不成熟的思想而将其忽略。在笔者看来，从马克思的政治经济学批判中得出的这些最基本的政治哲学观点，比如批判经济权力(主要是资本的权力)对工人(劳动者)的奴役和压迫，揭示无产阶级反抗经济暴政、进行社会革命的必然性和合理性(即无产阶级作为革命主体的必然性和消灭剥削、“占有自己的剩余劳动”的合理性),以及展望一种建立在生产资料公有制之上、实现每个人的自由和全面发展的理想生活，只能被理解为马克思的人类解放思想在政治经济学批判语境中的深化。

Marx’s concrete argumentation on the path to realizing human emancipation is mainly unfolded through his examination of the experience of class struggle in Europe and his analysis of the strategies adopted by the proletariat within it. In the period of the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*, Marx had already concluded that the proletariat is a class that transcends the old civil society. In *The Poverty of Philosophy*, he further reveals that the political movement of the proletariat is simultaneously a social movement, arguing that “the working class, in the course of its development, will create an association that eliminates classes and their antagonisms to replace the old civil society.” In the *Communist Manifesto*, he proposes a more specific strategy: “The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class.” In *The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850*, he even discusses the revolutionary strategy of the proletariat uniting with the peasant class and emphasizes that revolutionary socialism “is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat.” Regarding the commune that implements the dictatorship of the proletariat, Marx expects it to “make the means of production, i.e., land and capital, now chiefly used as instruments for the enslavement and exploitation of labor, into the instruments of free and associated labor, thereby making individual property a reality.” Of course, these revolutionary measures can only function when historical conditions are ripe, a point Marx emphasizes in multiple texts. “The working class has no ideals to realize, but to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant.” Although Marx also explored possible paths for the emancipation of the proletariat, he did not provide a complete argument for them, because whether the proletariat can succeed in social revolution cannot be determined solely by theoretical inference; it must also be explored by the proletariat in its historical practice. In this sense, Marx’s exploration of the path to human emancipation in his mature period, based on historical materialism, also reflects the historical character of this thought.

马克思对人类解放之实现路径的具体论证主要是通过对欧洲阶级斗争经验的考察和对无产阶级在其中所采取策略的分析来展开的。马克思在《德法年鉴》时期已经得出了无产阶级是超越旧市民社会的阶级，在《哲学的贫困》中又揭示无产阶级的政治运动同时就是社会运动，认为“劳动阶级在发展进程中将创造一个消除阶级和阶级对抗的联合体来代表旧的市民社会”,在《共产党宣言》中则提出更为具体的策略，“无产阶级将利用自己的政治统治，一步一步地夺取资产阶级的全部资本，把一切生产工具集中在国家即组织成为统治阶级的无产阶级手里”。在《1848年至1850年的法兰西阶级斗争》中甚至谈到了无产阶级联合农民阶级的革命策略，并且强调革命的社会主义“就是宣布不断革命，就是无产阶级的阶级专政”。对于实行无产阶级专政的公社，马克思期待其“把现在主要用做奴役和剥削劳动的手段的生产资料，即土地和资本完全变成自由的和联合的劳动的工具，从而使个人所有制成为现实”。当然，这些革命措施只有在历史条件成熟的时候才能发挥作用，马克思本人在多个文本中强调了这一点。“工人阶级不是要实现什么理想，而只是要解放那些由旧的正在崩溃的资产阶级社会本身孕育着的新社会因素。”尽管马克思也探讨了无产阶级解放可能的实现路径，但他并没有为其提供完备的论证，因为无产阶级能否取得社会革命的成功不能仅靠理论上的推断，还需要由无产阶级在其历史实践中去探索。在这个意义上，马克思在其成熟时期基于唯物史观对人类解放之路径的探索同样反映出这一思想的历史性品格。

V. Concluding Remarks

五、余论

The thought of human emancipation, in accordance with historical materialism, has different normative connotations in different historical eras. As long as humanity remains in what Marx called the era of “the independence of the individual based on dependence on things,” and wage labor still exists, the emancipation of labor or the social emancipation of the proletariat remains the epochal proposition of human emancipation. Moreover, this normative connotation of labor emancipation or social emancipation will, over the long course of the second form of society, be concretized into phased sub-propositions of political philosophy. For example, in some periods, it may be the question of how the proletariat seizes state power; in others, the question of changes in ownership; in others, the question of building proletarian democracy; in others, the question of social equality and distributive justice; and in still others, the question of safeguarding the rights of the proletariat or the people. Most of the above issues were explored to varying degrees in Marx’s lifetime and were advanced both theoretically and practically in the era after Marx. However, only by grasping these sub-propositions of political philosophy from the height of labor emancipation or social emancipation can one approach Marx’s ideal of human emancipation. In this regard, for Marxists, human emancipation is not only an unfinished cause but also a historical mission that must be gradually accomplished through phased tasks. (Author’s affiliation: Xiamen University)

契合于历史唯物主义的人类解放思想，在不同的历史时代有着不同的规范性内涵，在人类仍处于马克思所言的“以物的依赖性为基础”、并且雇佣劳动仍然存在的时代，劳动的解放或者无产阶级的社会解放仍然是人类解放的时代性命题。而劳动解放或者社会解放这一规范性内涵在第二种社会形态的漫长历程中又会具体化为阶段性的政治哲学子命题，比如，在有的时期可能是无产阶级如何夺取政权的问题，有的时期可能是所有制变革的问题，有的时期可能是无产阶级民主建设问题，有的时期可能是社会平等和分配正义问题，有的时期则可能是无产阶级或者人民的权利保障问题。上述大多数问题在马克思的一生中得到了不同程度的探索，在马克思之后的时代则在理论和实践两个方面得到了推进，但只有真正从劳动的解放或者社会解放的高度去把握这些政治哲学的子命题，才能向马克思人类解放的理想靠近。就此而言，人类解放对于马克思主义者而言不仅仅是一项未竟的事业，更是一项必须通过阶段性任务去逐步完成的历史使命。（作者单位：厦门大学）

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