| Summary: | <p>The question of whether moral beliefs are ideological has important implications for philosophy and society. Since the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in 1971, much political theory has attempted to develop moral principles to guide state action. Similarly, a prominent concern of ethicists has been to deduce the requirements moral principles impose on individuals. More broadly, moral beliefs pervade the life of every person. They determine how we view the world and situate ourselves within it.</p>
<p>This thesis answers this question through a reconstruction and assessment of Karl Marx’s critique of morality. In Chapters 2 and 3, I construct Marxian conceptions of morality and moral ideology. In Chapter 4, I construct and defend a Marxian thesis about the development of moral beliefs I call the dominant moral norm thesis. The thesis states that an economically dominant class will likely have disproportionate influence in determining the content of any dominant moral norm and that the dominant moral norm often has the function of sustaining the existing status quo. In Chapter 5, I argue that some moral beliefs are ideological owing to the plausibility of the dominant moral norm thesis. I conclude that not all moral beliefs are ideological, but that beliefs justified solely through intuition are at particular risk of being ideological. I offer several concluding thoughts in Chapter 6, including on a possible objection to my approach and on the implications of my thesis.</p>
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