Modern moral philosophy in the British analytic tradition has, with very few exceptions, failed to produce work of any moral significance. There are two main reasons for this. There is first a characteristic failure or refusal to do justice to the complexity and specificity of moral problems and second, a tendency to present the nature and goals of morality in highly general, abstract terms. The paper attempts to establish this by concentrating on the work of R. M. Hare and G. (...) J. Warnock which may be taken as fairly representative of purely formal moral theories and substantive moral theories respectively. The paper argues for a return to the concrete and specific, and ends with a short fiction which, it is hoped, will give some support to the main points. (shrink)

This article offers certain criticisms of some of the main arguments and suggestions put forward by G. A. Cohen in his 1980 Isaac Deutscher Memorial Lecture. As against Cohen I argue: (i) that it is strategically irrelevant for committed socialists or Marxists to argue that capitalism is unjust; (ii) that the political quiescence of the proletariat has less to do with its sense of justice or other ideological factors than with non?ideological factors such as its realization that the struggle for (...) Communism may not be worth it; (iii) that Communism is, anyway, impossible, and (iv) that the tension in Marx and Cohen between the view that capitalism is unjust and that capitalist exploitation is necessary for the productive progress required for the ?ultimate liberation of humanity? cannot be relieved. (shrink)