This work deals with laws of autonomy, values, persons, community, and the metaphysical or divine context of moral choice. The main question is whether a system of moral laws obediently adhered to would bring coherence into ethical reflection.

With almost incredible rapidity Marxist socialism has spread throughout the world and other forms of socialism have penetrated societies on all continents. Communist governments have not only come to dominate the U.S.S.R. and China but also eastern Europe and Cuba; Africa has not only non-Marxist forms of socialism but is the contending ground for world powers; and Latin America has seen duly elected socialist governments overthrown by rightist forces with the collusion of multinational corporations based in the U.S.A. Socialism has (...) proved itself to be not a monolithic world movement. It is its history of theory and practice. With respect to the future it depends on what organized men and women will make of it. (shrink)

With almost incredible rapidity Marxist socialism has spread throughout the world and other forms of socialism have penetrated societies on all continents. Communist governments have not only come to dominate the U.S.S.R. and China but also eastern Europe and Cuba; Africa has not only non-Marxist forms of socialism but is the contending ground for world powers; and Latin America has seen duly elected socialist governments overthrown by rightist forces with the collusion of multinational corporations based in the U.S.A. Socialism has (...) proved itself to be not a monolithic world movement. It is its history of theory and practice. With respect to the future it depends on what organized men and women will make of it. (shrink)

In every sense this is a major critical and scholarly work, amply supplied with footnotes, bibliographies of and about Mihailo Markovic and Svetozar Stojanovic, other sources in Marxism and social philosophy, and indexes of both names and subjects. Introducing these scholars to a wider Anglo-American audience, Crocker makes a major contribution not only to the literature about “the Praxis Group” or “Praxist Marxists” but also to critical social ethics and social philosophy in general. By making a particular vision of Praxis (...) central to their interpretation of Marx, these Yugoslav Marxists unite with other humanistic philosophers by outlining an original theory of democratic socialism as a distinctive quality of personal and social activity. Praxis is not only a critical and constructive version of Marxist socialism, it is a normative concept which expounds socialist personalism, or personalistic socialism. (shrink)