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At numerous points in their expositions of various aspects of a Marxist ethical theory, Soviet authors refer to a 'science of history" which supposedly provides the ultimate foundation for many of their claims concerning the nature of value and moral norms. This science of history is thought to provide an objective account of the relations between the laws of historical development, the historically determined succession of interests characterizing each social formation and class, and the values represented by the satisfaction of such interests. More particularly, the majority of Soviet accounts of the objectivity of value resort in the end to the claim that this science of history demonstrates which social interests, values, and moral norms are progressive, and which not. Ethical theory, the method of which is commonly characterized as "the unity of the logical and the historical", in several respects rests on this underlying science of history.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-9876-6_7

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