SOURCE: “Marx, Engels, and the Relativity of Morals,” in Studies in Soviet Thought, Vol. 17, No. 3, October, 1977, pp. 201-224.

In the following essay, Brenkert assesses apparently contradictory statements Marx and Engels make concerning the relativity of morality. Brenkert contends that it is possible to determine the position of Marx and Engels on this issue but that their views are somewhat complicated. Brenkert concludes that Marx and Engels are not “normative relativists” but may be characterized as “descriptive relativists, though of a modified sort,” as well as “meta-ethical relativists.”

1. It is often claimed that Marx and Engels are moral relativists.¹ Engels does say that on the materialist approach “the demand for final solutions and eternal truths ceases once for all”.² Marx speaks of the marriage between brother and sister as being moral in the primitive gens.³ Still, both Marx and Engels seem to speak quite differently on other occasions. For...