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offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

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The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

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Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

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Marx And Morality

category international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis author Monday January 11, 2016 20:33author by Paddy Hackett Report this post to the editors

Morality based on materialist conditions

Society determines the character of culture.

Society determines the character of culture, consciousness and morality. Capitalism, then, determines the nature of morality. Consequently it provides the conditions that enable us to condemn the exploitation of labour power as morally wrong. If exploitation is morally wrong then there is a necessity to eliminate it and replace it with social conditions that are exploitation free. In this sense we can say that there is a materialist basis that justifies condemning exploitation and alienation as morally wrong.

author by Mike Novackpublication date Sat Jan 16, 2016 01:44author address author phone Report this post to the editors

To give a simple example (from what you said)

A is immoral (that given as true) is INSUFFICIENT all by itself to derive B is obligated to do something about A (assuming that B personally isn't doing A, etc.)

"A is immoral" is a statement.about fact, an "is" statement. "B should do something about that" is a "ought" sort of statement.

You need an "axiom" here, relating at "is" to the "ought". For example, you COULD have something like "If X is wrong, then even if personally innocent of X, ought to do something about it." Now I'm not going to argue for or against particular axioms of that sort, just going to point out that the moral philosophers of this world aren't in agreement. Lots of "schools" out there.

But you aren't going to get anywhere with pure materialism. All "is" statements". Even Marxist moral philosophy is going to need some "oughts". If this isn't making any sense to you, I suggest going back to Ethics 101. The necessary 'axiom" relating "is" to "ought" is NOT going to be a materialist statement.

.

author by Paddy Hackettpublication date Sun Jan 17, 2016 21:05author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Mike: But you aren't going to get anywhere with pure materialism. All "is" statements". Even Marxist moral philosophy is going to need some "oughts".

Paddy: It is not going to need “an ought” because the conditions for the elimination of a fact that is morally wrong already exist and are developed within capitalism as a social system. This means that objective conditions exist for the replacement of capitalism with communism. In a sense this is a socio-ontological matter.

Morality is just a form of condemnation –that capitalism is wrong. Once it's moral nature is established then the moral fact can be eliminated. The problem is a subjective one: the failure of the working class to develop this moral consciousness –class consciousness. The internal materialist or objective conditions already exist.

author by Mike Novackpublication date Tue Jan 19, 2016 19:47author address author phone Report this post to the editors

But really there may be no help for you but biting the bullet and taking a course of the Ethics 101 sort.

You think you can get from "X is bad" to a REASON why you should do anything about X just from the "X is bad"

WHY? WHY should something being bad be a REASON for you to do anything? Suppose instead we had a statement "X is blue". Does that give you a reason to do anything? Both are stating a factual condition. Neither sasy anything about your actions.

Now suppose you have a statement "If X is Z, you should eliminate X" Do you notice something about that statement, that it has BOTH and "is" and an ought"? That means if you have these statements:

1) If something is bad, you should work to eliminate it.
2) Capitalism is bad.

Conclusion: You should work to eliminate capitalism.

But while statement "2" above is a statement in the realm of factual statements, statement "1" was not. It states a relationship within the moral realm of discourse. It is NOT a "material" statement.

Could I make a suggestion. The left tradition did not come into existence with Marx, it pre-existed. And among the precursors were some who some in ethics. So why don't you look up "utilitarianism. Like I said elsewhere, I suspect you could base morality for Marxists with most schools. But historically, there was a relationship between the utilitarianism and the pre Marx left.

 
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