Marcuse, Herbert

Abstract Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was a German‐born philosopher, social theorist, member of the Frankfurt School ( see Critical Theory), and one of the leaders of the New Left movement in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. His conception of the ethical can best be understood in relation to his conception of politics and political liberation ( see Political Ethics). Marcuse claims in An Essay on Liberation : “Political radicalism … implies moral radicalism: The emergence of a morality which might precondition man for freedom. This radicalism activates the elementary, organic foundation of morality in human beings” (Marcuse 1969: 10). He goes on to argue that morality itself is to be distinguished from various (and varying) historical and social conceptions of what it is to be a good person. The proper moral orientation is not relative ( see Relativism, Moral) to history or culture but is rather “a ‘disposition’ of the organism perhaps rooted in the erotic drive to counter aggressiveness, to create and preserve ‘ever greater unities’ of life” (Marcuse 1969: 10). Morality is then, according to Marcuse, based in our biology, in our fundamental human nature, and is ultimately “an instinctual foundation for solidarity among human beings” (Marcuse 1969: 10). It is, however, according to Marcuse, the case that this biologically founded solidarity ( see Solidarity) has been “repressed” and reconstructed by the structures of modern social, economic, and political life. For this reason, ethics and politics are inseparably linked. Ethical action requires that one must work to end the repressive political and social processes that have come to exist in order to free this biologically grounded solidarity among humans from its repression in modern society. Thus, Marcuse endorses a type of humanistic ethics in which ethical norms are founded on human nature ( see Normativity).