Zhang Dang: The Construction and Transcendence of "Moral Politics": Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx

In recent years, as the academic community has researched Marx’s political philosophy and his critique of modernity, it has focused heavily on the relationship between morality and politics. Some scholars have pointed out that "within the reflection and critical understanding of modernity, there exists an essential connection between political issues and moral issues." Furthermore, "the tension and conflict between morality and politics is a fundamental problem that modern society must confront." From the perspective of the history of thought, Hobbes and Locke demonstrated the rationality of individuals chasing "private interests" in civil society, advocating for the principle of particularity or the individual principle. Rousseau was the first to recognize that the development of modernity, dominated by the principle of particularity, caused a separation between morality and politics, leading to numerous contradictions. He subsequently pointed out that the de-moralization of politics would aggravate the state of human enslavement, and thus advocated for the reconstruction of "moral politics." However, Rousseau’s scheme for reconstructing "moral politics" contained internal conflicts, which left a rich theoretical space for Marx to critique and transcend the dilemma of "moral politics." Between Rousseau and Marx, Hegel played an important role as a bridge. Building upon his critique of Rousseau, Hegel distinguished between "Ethical Life" (Sittlichkeit) and "Morality" (Moralität) ^[1], thereby perfecting the construction of the system of the philosophy of right and restoring the moral essential requirements of politics. This had a direct impact on the transformation of Marx’s political stance and his conception of democracy. Ultimately, by distinguishing between forms of property rights within the historical process, Marx thoroughly critiqued bourgeois property rights, thereby transcending the path of reconstructing bourgeois "moral politics."

I. The Necessity of Constructing "Moral Politics": The Position and Aim of Rousseau’s Political Philosophy

In the history of modern political philosophical thought, Rousseau’s significance is reflected in his profound reflection on modernity. Leo Strauss pointed out: "The second wave of modernity begins with Rousseau. He changed the moral climate of the West as profoundly as Machiavelli had done." During the first wave of modernity, Machiavelli first advocated for the separation of morality and politics and reduced politics to a technical issue. This led to "nature" becoming a man-made concept; the relationship between politics, natural rights, and morality was severed, and people's understanding of nature and natural law underwent a transformation. Building on this basis, Hobbes and Locke deepened a one-sided understanding of human nature, taking human self-preservation and the satisfaction of needs as vital premises. On the basis of the legitimacy of the individual pursuit of private interests, they constructed a modern political system that excluded classical virtue. Rousseau, in his reflection on modern political principles, re-examined the relationship between moral principles and political systems, proposed the necessity of constructing "moral politics," and demonstrated its rationality.

(1) Hobbes’s Hypothesis of Human Nature and View of the State

In Hobbes’s system of political philosophy, the assumption of a state of nature is an important premise for his construction of a "monarchical absolutist" view of the state. In Leviathan, Hobbes envisions humans as independent individuals existing in a state of nature, describing a dangerous situation where people constantly face threats from nature and others, thereby deducing that the primary and sole purpose of man is "self-preservation." For the sake of "self-preservation," Hobbes points out that everyone "conferre all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will." This cession of power forces everyone to enter into a contract, allowing the legitimacy of the state to be established. Furthermore, to ensure the effectiveness of the contract and the absoluteness of the collective power, Hobbes stipulates that the content of the contract is a one-way execution: that is, people transfer power to the sovereign (a third party); the sovereign may not execute the contents of the contract, while the people must. At the same time, the sovereign possesses supreme power and can change legal statutes and the contents of the contract. Influenced by Machiavelli, Hobbes favored monarchy when comparing democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical regimes. In his view, different representatives of interests in a democratic polity would damage the public interest for the sake of private gain, whereas in a monarchical polity, the purpose for which the people enter into a contract is consistent with the rights and interests the monarch can provide. Therefore, only absolute monarchical autocracy can maintain the interests of the people and the prosperity of the state. In reality, however, monarchical autocracy not only fails to fully guarantee the fundamental interests of the people but also results in tyranny caused by the concentration of power, thereby oppressing the people. This also prompted later generations to deeply reflect on political philosophical issues such as the state of nature and the social state, the individual and the community, and rights and justice.

(2) Locke’s Hypothesis of Equality and View of the State

Locke was the first to realize the drawbacks of Hobbes’s advocacy for monarchical autocracy, so he re-hypothesized the state of nature and elucidated the legitimacy of a constitutional monarchy. In Locke’s view, the state of nature is not an unstable state where the strong prey on the weak, but a "state of equality" in which everyone possesses property and personal freedom. Locke’s "state of nature" is neither a "state of license" nor the Hobbesian "state of war" where everyone is at war with everyone else. Locke points out: "Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community... for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it." In Locke’s "state of nature," changes in human nature and the lack of a public judge often lead to the occurrence of criminal acts; for this reason, it is necessary to establish a political entity to maintain the rights of the people. This political entity (the "government") differs from the absolute authority advocated by Hobbes; it is always subject to the interests of the people and is thus a limited authority. In Locke’s view, people possess property even in the state of nature; property is a necessity for maintaining life, so property is consistent both with natural law and with human nature. Therefore, he particularly emphasizes the government’s protection of property rights. In "Of Property," Locke points out: "Labour put a distinction between them and common: that added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done; and so they became his private right." Locke believes that the people's right to self-ownership and private ownership exists prior to politics; the government may not tax the people without their permission. Therefore, Locke opposes monarchical autocracy with unlimited power and instead advocates for the establishment of a government where supreme power is held by an elected parliament. It can be seen that the status of the state or political society in Locke’s political philosophical system is lower than the property rights of the people. However, Locke did not provide an answer as to how to guarantee everyone’s rights and interests or how to deal with the situation of property inequality; he remained confined to defending bourgeois ownership.

(3) Rousseau’s Contractual Thought and Its Critical Nature

Rousseau’s contractual thought expresses his anxiety and criticism regarding modern political theory. Although Hobbes and Locke envisioned the conditions and possibilities for the formation of a contract in the state of nature, Rousseau pointed out that neither of them answered the problem of inequality existing in society. Rousseau believed that Hobbes’s and Locke’s understanding of man was too passive and one-sided, while the man he envisioned possessed a nature of continuous development and self-perfectibility (perfectibilité), which urged man to move from the state of nature into "civilized society." However, after entering "civilized society," the relationships between people became increasingly close; at the same time, vanity (amour-propre) ^[2] was generated, and people began to compete for profit, leading to the increasingly prominent problem of inequality. Rousseau pointed out: Moral or political inequality "depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorized by the consent of men," and "consists of the different privileges, which some men enjoy to the prejudice of others; such as that of being more rich, more honoured, more powerful, or even in a position to exact obedience." Regarding Locke’s theoretical premise, Rousseau believed that the formulation of the social contract was not based on a natural state of equality, but was a product of the state of nature developing into a state of civilized society.

First, unlike Hobbes, Rousseau believed that individuals in the state of nature possess a sense of compassion and pity (pitié), while also having noble moral character. From the philosophical position of the "free subject," Rousseau proposed that pity is a natural morality possessed by man. He was more in agreement with Mandeville’s description of humans as sentient beings, while opposing Hobbes’s theory of the inherent evil of human nature. However, Rousseau did not accept Mandeville’s explanation that individual morality tends toward self-interest. Rousseau pointed out: "Mandeville felt very strongly that even with all their morality, men would never have been anything but monsters if nature had not given them pity in support of reason: but he did not perceive that from this quality alone flow all those social virtues (which he would dispute in mankind)." In response to Mandeville’s tendency to explain individual morality as self-interest, Rousseau realized the important role of pity in human morality. Rousseau strongly opposed the priority of individual interests and advocated for the reconstruction of the social contract using natural morality.

Second, in the comparison of states of inequality, Rousseau opposed Hobbes’s and Locke’s attribution of the cause of the contract to the state of nature, emphasizing that the problem of inequality should be understood from the "social" dimension. This was also Rousseau’s important answer to the problems left by Locke. Rousseau pointed out that in the state of nature, there is no state of enslavement or being enslaved; the chains of slavery are formed within the social state where people are mutually dependent and have mutual needs. Since Hobbes’s theory of the state of nature and Locke’s theory of property could not explain the "inequality relations" or "servile relations" in reality, Rousseau re-examined the differences between the state of nature and the social state, thereby situating the problem of inequality within society and institutions. Rousseau discovered that for the sake of reaching a social contract, Hobbes and Locke deliberately simplified political issues, excluded moral factors from politics, and only selected those parts of natural human nature suited for their arguments.

Third, Rousseau used the real situation of human enslavement to critique the legitimate basis of modern politics. Rousseau believed that the meaning of the state’s existence lies in guaranteeing people’s rights, but the states envisioned by Hobbes and Locke could not truly protect the rights of the common people; the people and the state remained in a state of confrontation. Against Hobbes, Rousseau strongly criticized his view that "people are willing to be ruled by a despotic system," and he also criticized the political-authority-style contract theory represented by Pufendorf. He believed that despotic power originated from inequality and strengthened the state of inequality; therefore, the establishment of the state could not take despotic power as its institutional form. Regarding Locke’s constitutional monarchist position, Rousseau pointed out: "Even if he [the monarch] becomes their master, in a sense he is also their slave: if he is rich, he needs their service; if he is poor, he needs their help; even if he is neither rich nor poor, he cannot do without them." In Rousseau’s view, private property led to the emergence of the gap between rich and poor, greed, jealousy, and the practice of benefiting oneself at the expense of others. Therefore, Rousseau insisted on taking the "savage man's" state of nature as the ideal form of human civilization.

Due to his radical critical attitude toward private property rights and the modern political state, Rousseau is often seen as a precursor to Marx’s political philosophy. As Sabine pointed out: "Rousseau’s attack upon private property in the Discourse on Inequality might also have been expected to place him in the [communist] camp. But he had no serious idea of abolishing property, nor any very clear idea of the part it played in the social structure." Because the force of the "critique of weapons" had not yet been formed in Rousseau’s era, he could only set about constructing a new government and state from the subjective rights of the people. In terms of philosophical premises, Rousseau re-examined human essence from the comprehensive perspective of material and spiritual development, opening the path of enlightenment for modern democratic politics. In terms of theoretical construction, through a historical investigation of inequality, Rousseau demonstrated that the despotic system was an important cause of the people's enslavement. Therefore, his understanding of modern politics was no longer confined to the institutional premise that "private property is sacred and inviolable," but transcended the discourse system of the conflict between "self-interest" and "morality," providing intellectual nourishment for promoting the construction of a democratic state.

II. The Construction of Rousseau’s "Moral Politics" Scheme and Hegel’s Evaluation

After his profound reflection on modernity, Rousseau envisioned reconstructing a modern political system centered on "moral politics" through the "general will." Starting from the perspective of the universality of maintaining common interests, Rousseau constructed the concept of "moral politics" with the assumption of the rational person, providing a solid democratic principle for modern politics. Influenced by the French Revolution and Rousseau’s "moral politics" scheme, Hegel both affirmed the principle of the will proposed by Rousseau and criticized its philosophical premises, thereby proposing an "ethical politics" that transcended "moral politics."

(1) Rousseau’s Principle of "General Will" and Its Universality

Rousseau proposed the establishment of the "general will" (volonté générale) as the democratic principle of the community and the foundation of "moral politics." In Rousseau's view, the purpose of a state’s entire administration is "to ensure the protection of the property of individuals." To this end, Rousseau envisioned that when human productive activities encounter obstacles, humanity should promote development by changing the organizational form of the community. Under this vision, Rousseau pointed out: "The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." Based on this, Rousseau proposed the theory of the "general will" centered on the public interest—namely, that associated individuals transfer all their rights to the collective. The unreserved transfer of rights to the collective implies equality among individuals; since the association is near-perfect, individuals obtain greater protection through the common force.

In Rousseau’s view, the "general will," as the foundation of moral politics, possesses universality. Rousseau noted: "The general will is always right and tends to the public advantage; but it does not follow that the deliberations of the people are always equally correct." This is a core principle of Rousseau’s political philosophy. To clarify the nature of the "general will," Rousseau distinguished its essence from the "will of all" (will of all), emphasizing that the "general will" is the universalization of individual wills within the community, whereas the "will of all" is merely a sum of individual wills that has failed to achieve universalization. Because the "general will" requires the alignment of individual desires with the desires of everyone, it can be transformed into law. It is precisely this universalized will, or the universality of the will, that ensures it is inherently moral or good; an apparently individual will can only become the "general will" if it is universal, otherwise it descends into the "will of all." In short, Rousseau believed the "general will" to be a universalized will formed by individuals acting as citizens. It differs from individual wills and does not represent private interests, thereby severing the contradictory relationship between private interest and the public good found in Early Modern Enlightenment thought. Rousseau moved beyond natural human instinct to establish moral and political ideals, replacing the postulate of the empirical "natural man" with human reason, providing modern politics with a developmental democratic principle.

(2) Rousseau's "Moral Politics" Solution to Inequality and its Significance

First, Rousseau proposed that the government should maintain the "general will" by reconstructing moral politics and "good customs and manners" (moeurs), thereby preventing problems such as inequality and poverty that Locke had failed to address. Facing the reality of the gap between rich and poor and social inequality, Rousseau pointed out: "It is one of the most important functions of government to prevent extreme inequality of fortunes; not by taking away wealth from its possessors, but by depriving all men of means to accumulate it; not by building asylums for the poor, but by securing the citizens from becoming poor." Building on the theory of the "general will," Rousseau attempted to transform the political institutions of the natural-reason tradition through the moral shaping of politics.

Second, Rousseau proposed that citizens of good quality should be nurtured through education. Unlike the traditional British approach of relief [social welfare], the plan envisioned by Rousseau was a preventive route of positive significance, which was inseparable from his starting point of the "general will" and his stance on the value of virtue. Rousseau observed the "degradation of man" in modern commercial society; for this reason, he advocated using sound moral politics to cultivate people’s understanding of and identification with the "general will." On a concrete level, Rousseau envisioned training people to become moral citizens through education, thereby preventing the degeneration and corruption of "moral politics." Rousseau noted: "The way to prevent this is not to strip the rich of their property, but to prevent them from amassing it through various means; not to build workhouses for the poor, but to ensure that citizens do not fall into poverty."

Finally, Rousseau proposed that the government should protect individual property rights while abolishing the poll tax system. Rousseau pointed out: "The right of property is the most sacred of all the rights of citizenship, and even more important in some respects than liberty itself." In Rousseau's view, individual property rights are the foundation of society and its social contract, embodying common values and maintaining the stability of social order. Furthermore, Rousseau proposed that the government should use an appropriate tax system to alleviate the poverty of the poor while preventing the increase of "idlers." It can be seen that Rousseau did not seek to achieve equality through "leveling" ^[3]; however, he still treated the political rights of modern people as an important prerequisite for political virtue and the construction of the community, which ran counter to the direction of his critique of private property. Despite this, Rousseau re-injected virtue and ideals into modern politics, guiding Kant and Hegel in their discussions on the problems of modernity and universality.

(3) Hegel's Critique and its Significance

Influenced by Rousseau’s political philosophy and the French Revolution, Kant and Hegel also focused on the relationship between morality and politics. Some scholars have pointed out that with the French Revolution as a dividing line, Kant’s views on politics and morality exhibited two trends: an ascending path and a descending path. Initially building on Rousseau, Kant proposed the principle of "individual legislation" (autonomy) and established "autonomy" as the moral principle, pushing the universal principle of modern politics to a new height. However, the French Revolution caused Kant to shift from holding lofty ideals of moral politics to focusing on the reality of modern politics. In Perpetual Peace, Kant pointed out: "One cannot expect a good state constitution to arise from morality, but rather, conversely, one must expect a good moral education of a people to arise from a good state constitution." Clearly, in his later years, Kant focused more on the influence of political institutions. He altered his original concept of freedom, which was centered on the notion of autonomy, and instead made the concept of right ^[4] the core essence of the idea of freedom. In other words, Kant adjusted the weight of morality and politics, placing moral requirements within the individual while treating natural freedom as the foundation of political power. However, Kant's acknowledgment of the priority of nature caused his theory to "descend" to a standpoint of the principle of particularity. This again sparked debates regarding social inequality and enslavement, prompting Hegel to reflect on the relationship between morality and politics left behind by Rousseau.

First, Hegel criticized Rousseau's view of freedom, which took the "will" as its core. Hegel questioned the rationality of Rousseau’s basing of Right on the individual will: "[Rousseau considers—Ed.] not the absolutely rational will, which is in and for itself, but the will of the single individual in his distinctive caprice, and not the spirit as true spirit but as the spirit of the particular individual, to be the substantial foundation and primary element." Hegel pointed out that this view only focused on external and formal freedom and could not attain an understanding of the freedom of Right or the Idea ^[5]; it was therefore a view of freedom lacking speculative depth. In fact, due to the "Reign of Terror" by the French Jacobins, Hegel faced the resonance between Rousseau's political philosophy and the terror of absolute freedom with great caution. In the section "Absolute Freedom and Terror" in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel pointed out: "Universal freedom, therefore, can produce neither a positive work nor a deed; there is left for it only negative action; it is merely the fury of destruction." Just as a formal conscience can turn into evil, a state organized by universal freedom will eventually fall into political terror due to subjectivization. For this reason, Hegel opposed Rousseau's principle of freedom by reconstructing Reason—that is, he opposed basing the validity of Right on any external foundation that stands in opposition to the rational will.

Second, by distinguishing between "morality" (Moralität) and "ethical life" (Sittlichkeit), Hegel proposed the ethical idea of freedom. Hegel believed that world history is the progress of the "consciousness of freedom"; therefore, one must constantly search for rationality within the socio-political reality of the era. Rousseau, conversely, believed that modern society failed to create space for the development of the subject and led to human degradation and the failure of freedom, thus advocating for the restoration of the subject's status. Kant transcendentalized Rousseau's political freedom, pointing out the transcendentality of freedom and its internal requirement for self-legislation. To this, Hegel raised a challenge: "What then is the content of this moral law? Here again we find nothing but emptiness. For the moral law is nothing other than identity, self-consistency, and universality." Hegel saw that Kant's self-legislation pursued only universality, but the highest universality excludes all particular content, leaving only pure form; thus, self-legislation leaves only the empty requirement of the "ought" (Sollen). Similarly, in Hegel's view, Rousseau’s political philosophy was merely an abstract theory that remained within the "ought" and contradicted social reality, and such abstract theory would lead to an excessive elevation of the subject.

In response to Rousseau's view of freedom based on moral laws, Hegel believed it was necessary to link universality with particularity to reposition the essence of freedom. For this reason, Hegel proposed the stage of "ethical life" to overcome the one-sidedness of the "morality" stage. Hegel pointed out: "The right of individuals to be subjectively determined as free is fulfilled only when they belong to an ethical actuality, because the certainty of their freedom find its truth in such an essence, and it is in the ethical that they actually possess their own essence and their inner universality." In Hegel’s view, "ethical life" is no longer merely the subjectivity of the moral level and the goodness of its self-legislation, but a substantial "institutional framework" unified with objective laws. This combines the universal form of legislation with the concrete content of real life, thereby providing a substantial basis for freedom beyond subjectivity. In other words, Hegel believed that freedom should be concrete, and the basis of ethical freedom should be speculative logic rather than empty moral laws. In his system of the philosophy of Right, Hegel viewed the state as the representative of the universal will and substantiated this universal will into institutional regulations and the administrative organs that act according to them. He pointed out that freedom is the unity of the individual will and the universal will, which ensures that the individual will is constrained by the universal will and is no longer "capricious." Thus, Hegel supplemented and perfected Rousseau's "partial understanding" of the idea of freedom, advancing freedom from the dimensions of possibility and blindness to the dimension of substantiality.

Finally, Hegel evaluated both the contributions and the limitations of Rousseau's concept of "will." On the one hand, Hegel praised Rousseau's contribution. He noted: "It was the achievement of Rousseau to have established the principle of the state... a principle which has thought not only for its form (like the instinct of sociability, or divine authority) but for its content, and which is indeed thinking itself; he established the will as the principle of the state." Basing the validity of Right on the will was the core of the Enlightenment, a basis upheld by both Hegel and Rousseau. Hegel pointed out: "The will is free only as thinking will. Now the principle of freedom [in Rousseau] has arisen, and it gives this infinite power to the human being who apprehends himself as infinite." Hegel believed the principle of freedom originated with Rousseau and provided an important foundation for the Idea of the state. Simultaneously, Hegel opposed basing the validity of Right on anything outside the rational will, reflecting his grasp of the state’s rational content and thought-form. On the other hand, Hegel criticized Rousseau's contractual view of the state and proposed the Idea of the state. In Hegel's view, Rousseau "takes the will only in a determinate form as the individual will (as Fichte subsequently also did) and he regards the universal will not as the absolutely rational element in the will, but only as a common element... the association of individuals in the state thus becomes a contract, which is based on their arbitrary will, their opinion, and their capriciously given express consent." Here, Hegel accused Rousseau of not only elevating the contract to the level of the state but also of using the principle of the abstract individual will to lead the French Revolution into the abyss.

Thus, Hegel completed the construction of "ethical politics" on the foundation of the aspirations of "moral politics." He pointed out: "The state, as the reality of the substantial will... is the ethical whole, the actualization of freedom... The ground of the state is the power of reason actualizing itself as will." Hegel pushed Rousseau’s pursuit of "moral politics" to the level of "ethical politics." The "rational state" he proposed is the institutionalized manifestation of the common good and an ethical reality that transcends morality—highlighting the universality of the Idea of the state, a universality that is unified with the particularity of civil society. However, how the state as an ethical entity becomes a reality remained a question that Hegel left unresolved. In other words, when the state acquires universality, whether the political rights of the individual are universally realized is a difficult problem generally encountered by actual particular states. If individual political rights are not universally realized, it creates a false universality; the state becomes nothing more than a formalist ornament. In fact, Hegel’s Idea of the state formally stipulates the particular through the universal, leading to a situation where universal civil rights are not only left unguaranteed but are instead suppressed by the class privileges of the particular state. Hegel's analysis of contract and morality reflects his profound understanding of social structure, yet his obsession with using dialectics to construct an Ideal state or ethical entity resulted in a failure to clarify the essence of the actual state. Although Hegel’s "ethical politics" dealt a blow to "moral politics"—which was oriented toward a critique of modernity—the root cause of the predicament of the political state and "moral politics" remained insufficiently elucidated. To this, Marx provided a scientific answer.

III. Marx's Resolution and Transcendence of the Problem of "Moral Politics"

Although Hegel proposed a concept of the ethical state that was superior to the demands of "moral politics," he merely refined Rousseau’s "moral politics" scheme on the basis of the principles of will and reason, remaining unable to surmount the predicament of "moral politics." The reason for this is that both failed to profoundly recognize the economic base of modern politics. Facing a modern society that had developed to a certain stage of maturity, Marx recognized the limitations of "moral politics." Through an intertextual reading of Rousseau and Hegel, Marx discovered that the contradiction between private interest and the public good was not a question of the identity of the individual will and the general will, but rather the more fundamental and core issue of property rights or ownership. As Marx moved into the depths of history, he both absorbed the critical reflections of modern political philosophy regarding modernity and applied the perspectives and methods of historical materialism to conduct an in-depth exploration of political issues. He thereby escaped the predicament of "moral politics," achieved a transcendence of Rousseau’s and Hegel’s political philosophies, and pointed out the correct direction for human liberation.

(1) The "Rousseau Notes" and Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

In July–August 1843, while in Kreuznach, Marx made excerpts in French from Rousseau’s The Social Contract, forming what are known as the "Rousseau Notes" (also referred to as the "Rousseau Extracts"). This content mainly concerned Rousseau’s views on property rights and political systems, especially democratic ones. Marx noted: "Rousseau considers it a primary view of democracy that the attention of individuals is diverted from general viewpoints to individual objects; everyone is influenced by private interests in public affairs and is then corrupted in the capacity of legislator within public affairs." It is evident that through Rousseau, Marx had already directed his attention to the internal correlation between the "distressing" problem of material interests and politics/law. Marx’s excerpting and formation of the "Rousseau Notes" was no accident. François Furet ^[6] believes that Marx was constantly studying works on the French Revolution and reflecting on the relationship between "civil society and the state." In the "Rousseau Notes," Marx focused his excerpts on Rousseau’s concept of the "general will" (volonté générale), the main thrust of which was to understand the general will as the basis for the social contract. This provided a beneficial reference for Marx to reflect upon and critique Hegel’s philosophy of right.

On the one hand, Marx drew on Rousseau's idea of popular sovereignty to critique Hegel’s idea of monarchical power. Although Hegel, in evaluating Rousseau, pointed out the merits and problems of his principle of "will," Hegel seemed to deliberately ignore Rousseau’s distinction between the "general will" (volonté générale) and the "will of all" (volonté de tous). This led to controversy among later generations regarding Hegel's judgment of Rousseau, and Marx was one of those who took issue with it. In critiquing "monarchical power," Marx pointed out: "Hegel proceeds from the state and makes man the subjectivized state. Democracy proceeds from man and makes the state the objectivized man... In democracy, the formal principle is at the same time the material principle. For this reason, only democracy is the true unity of the universal and the particular." Marx believed Hegel mistakenly understood the "general will" as a "crude notion of the people," thereby "uncritically taking a certain empirical existence as the ideal reality of truth." Marx indicated that Hegel wrongly inverted the relationship between the people and the monarch, mystifying the origin of state sovereignty. At this time, Marx was also logically moving toward philosophical communism.

On the other hand, based on Rousseau’s view of democracy, Marx used the idea of "true democracy" to critique Hegel’s "state formalism." Marx pointed out: "Hegel has only developed a state formalism. For Hegel, the true material principle is the Idea, the abstract thought-form of the state regarded as a subject—the Absolute Idea which contains within itself no negative element, no material element." From the perspective of content and form, Marx argued that democracy should not be merely a formal element, but rather an element formed from actual content. Furthermore, Marx advocated for the abolition of the political state through "true democracy" to resolve the conflict between the individual and the species ^[7], which continued Rousseau's stance against the idea that "the people are willing to be ruled by despotism." In critiquing Hegel’s Idea of the state, Marx emphasized the decisive role of civil society over the state, which was a further development of Rousseau’s contractual thought. Additionally, regarding the distinction between the "real individual" and the "citizen," Marx was also influenced by Rousseau. In On the Jewish Question, Marx pointed out that Rousseau’s discourse on the abstract concept of the political man had positive significance, and subsequently proposed that the goal of "human liberation" lies in returning the "abstract citoyen [citizen]" to the "real individual."

(2) Marx’s Philosophical Methodology for Solving the Problem of "Moral Politics"

Marx transcended the philosophical premises of "moral politics" with the methodology of historical materialism. Whether for Rousseau or Hegel, the philosophical discussion of morality and politics was built on the hypothetical premise of man existing as "will." Rousseau expected to achieve the combination of morality and politics through the "general will," while Hegel pinned his hopes on the "rational state" (ethicity) to transcend "moral politics." Both discussed the relationship between the individual and the community on the basis of acknowledging the legitimacy of private property, falling either into individualism or abstract concepts. Marx pointed out: "What individuals are depends on the material conditions of their production." Proceeding from material production and the practice of social intercourse ^[8], Marx believed that only by conducting a concrete analysis of the objects and conditions of human production can a scientific understanding of man and human society be formed. Marx opposed viewing man as an isolated individual, pointing out that "the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations." In Marx's view, man is not an abstract rational or sentient being, nor merely an existence as will, but an existence within social relations.

Furthermore, Marx applied the methodology of historical materialism to critique Rousseau’s concept of "natural man." In the Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy (1857), Marx pointed out: "Rousseau’s social contract, which brings naturally independent, autonomous subjects into relation and connection by means of a contract, is not based on such naturalism. This is the appearance ^[9], and only the aesthetic appearance of the Robinsonades, large and small." Rousseau’s advocacy for "moral politics" is inseparable from the construction of the social contract; he pinned his hopes on the individual will's self-perfection, but Marx argued that the social contract was not the result of subjective will, but rather the result of objective material conditions. Regarding Rousseau’s posits of "natural man" and "political man," Marx pointed out they were the products of the dissolution of feudal social forms combined with new productive forces. Therefore, Marx insisted on understanding individuals and their history from concrete material production; only in this way could one avoid falling into Rousseauian utopianism and moral idealism.

In Marx’s theory of community, the existing living conditions of individuals, the productive forces of various eras, and their forms of social intercourse are the roots of social forms (formations). Addressing Rousseau’s social contract theory and community theory, Marx pointed out: "In the several stages of history, a joint activity, or the combination of individuals, was by no means as arbitrary as it is depicted, for instance, in the Social Contract, but was a necessary combination... on the basis of such conditions... These conditions are, of course, only the productive forces and forms of social intercourse of each period." In Marx's view, the common interest conditions the relations of interest or class relations to which individuals are subordinate; individuals form a community as members of a class. The formation of this communal relationship does not originate from the individual's right to freedom as spoken of by Rousseau; rather, it is itself constrained by the movement of actual matter. In The German Ideology (hereafter The Ideology), Marx proceeded from the relations of production and forms of social intercourse to not only scientifically reveal the essence of the individual, society, and the state, but also to penetrate the historical laws of human social development. He broke through the conceptual shackles of "moral politics" and the "ethical state," gradually escaping the actual predicament of the divergence of morality and politics, and thereby moved toward the more correct path of human liberation.

(3) Transcending the Predicament of "Moral Politics": Marx’s Critique of Political Economy

First, Marx opposed reducing the problem of political inequality to a moral issue, insisting instead on understanding it as an economic issue; he subsequently pointed out the key to the problem within his critique of political economy. Although Rousseau attacked private property rights in his Discourse on Inequality, when constructing "moral politics" he argued that property rights were "the most sacred of all the rights of citizens" and that property was the "true foundation of political society." Although Hegel, in his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, used the Idea of the ethical to critique Rousseau’s theory of "moral politics," he also admitted that "Property is the first embodiment of freedom and so is in itself a substantive end." Under the premise of maintaining property rights, both Rousseau and Hegel failed to aim the spearhead of their critique at the economic level, ultimately moving either toward "moral politics" or "ethical politics." For Marx, influenced by the "principle of the rights of the poor" established by the French Revolution, he turned his attention to the rights of the poor (laborers or proletarians) and the relationship between private property and alienated labor. In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Marx pointed out: "From the relationship of alienated labor to private property it further follows that the emancipation of society from private property, etc., from servitude, is expressed in the political form of the emancipation of the workers; not that their emancipation alone is at stake, but because the emancipation of the workers contains universal human emancipation—and it contains this, because the whole of human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker to production, and all relations of servitude are but modifications and consequences of this relation." In modern society, Marx saw that the wealth of the property owners was built upon the poverty of the proletariat, while the industriousness of the wage laborers became the source of their poverty. Therefore, Marx replaced the rights of the abstract individual will with the rights of the laborer, emphasizing the need to liberate humanity from private property and servitude. From this perspective, Marx did not remain confined within Rousseau’s "moral politics" scheme for solving the problem of alienation; he explicitly pointed out that only through the workers' liberation movement can the contradiction between wealth and poverty and the problem of inequality caused by private property be eliminated.

Secondly, through an in-depth investigation into ownership relations, Marx revealed the limitations of both the "moral politics" and "ethical politics" programs. In The German Ideology ^[10], Marx pointed out: "Because private property has torn itself free from the community, the State has acquired a separate existence alongside and outside civil society; but it is nothing more than the form of organization which the bourgeois are compelled to adopt, both for internal and external purposes, for the mutual guarantee of their property and interests." The political goals of Rousseau and Hegel both lay in resolving the conflict between the individual and the community by transforming the system of the State. Unlike Rousseau and Hegel, Marx identified the essence of the modern state as residing in its economic base of private ownership. In Marx's view, under the condition of a natural division of labor, the state is a tool for maintaining the interests of a particular class; thus, whether a democratic state or a monarchical state, both are "illusory communities." "Moral politics" and "ethical politics" are merely demands for improvement proposed upon the accepted premise of the State. The solution proposed by Marx was to promote the progress of the productive forces; only in this way can private property rights and their state form be eliminated, with the state being replaced by the "true community." This is the communist movement as expounded by Marx in The German Ideology. The communist movement differs from all previous revolutionary movements in that "it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals." The core requirement and characteristic of communism lie in the abolition of bourgeois private property.

Thirdly, by distinguishing between two types of private property, Marx scientifically resolved the inherent dilemma of the "moral politics" program. In Capital and its manuscripts, Marx profoundly revealed the history of the separation of labor from ownership, elucidating the theoretical predicament of setting property rights as a premise. Especially in the analysis of "so-called primitive accumulation" and "modern theory of colonization," Marx distinguished between two types of private property: one "based on the producer's own labor" and the other "based on the exploitation of the labor of others." He rationally explained that the dilemma of "moral politics" lay in the confusion of Rousseau and others regarding private property rights. As previously mentioned, in the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau criticized capitalist private property and the problem of moral degeneration caused by its modern development. Yet, in Discourse on Political Economy, Rousseau could not deny the rationality of the self-sufficient mode in feudal private property based primarily on a small-peasant economy, exhibiting a clear physiocratic tendency. Regarding this, Marx explicitly pointed out: "Political economy confuses on principle two very different kinds of private property, of which one rests on the producers' own labor, the other on the employment of the labor of others. It forgets that the latter not only is the direct antithesis of the former, but absolutely grows on its tomb only." In Marx's view, Rousseau and others confused the understanding of private property and private property rights, moving toward a path that indirectly maintained capitalist private property. From the perspective of the history of ideas, Locke's theory of labor-based ownership dealt with the first type of private property, while Rousseau faced two types of private property that coexisted in a period of transition; thus, it is not difficult to understand why he would fall into a predicament when constructing "moral politics."

Finally, Marx proposed taking the proletariat as the revolutionary subject to reconstruct new economic forms and social systems. Rousseau's theory of the "general will" touched upon the requirement for reconstructing society, but it was not thorough enough due to the lack of a universal revolutionary subject. Hegel, meanwhile, endowed the State with the universal power to reconstruct society. Marx clarified that only the proletariat possesses thorough revolutionary character and true universality. In Marx's view, the proletariat "possesses a universal character because of its universal suffering" and its liberation contains "universal human emancipation." Therefore, Marx pointed out that the proletarians "have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property." Building upon Rousseau's "moral politics" and Hegel's "ethical politics," Marx found a universal, reality-based power, thereby elevating this issue to an unprecedented height. At the same time, Marx revealed that bourgeois property rights, as a premise of freedom, essentially result only in inequality, which is the reason for the inevitable dilemmas arising from the development of modern society. Furthermore, Marx opposed the capitalist private property that causes exploitation and advocated for the reconstruction of "individual property." In Marx's view, because capitalist private property replaced private property "based on the producer's own labor," the expropriative nature of private property "based on the exploitation of the labor of others" eventually results in its own negation; "with the appropriation of the total productive forces by the united individuals, private property comes to an end." As Marx said, "This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisitions of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production which are themselves produced by labor." "Individual property" is the form of expression of the negation of capitalist private property; the essence of this negation is the establishment of a new form of public ownership under the conditions of advanced modes of material production. Marx also pointed out in The Civil War in France that "The Commune... [was] the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor... It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land, and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor." As Marx stated, the emancipation of the laborer is inseparable from economic emancipation. In reality, relying solely on "moral politics," it is difficult for laborers to obtain true emancipation, and they often fall into the shackles of "moral politics." Therefore, Marx's critique and transcendence of "moral politics" possess significant revelatory meaning for promoting social progress and realizing human freedom and emancipation.

The construction of and reflection on "moral politics" reflect the dilemma of modern political philosophy when facing the changes of the times. Although Rousseau’s "moral politics" and Hegel’s "ethical politics" touched upon the problems of human existence, neither could penetrate the essential level of the development of human society, ultimately leading toward romanticism and statism. From the perspective of theoretical genealogy, Marx used the idea of "true democracy" to criticize Hegel's "state formalism" on the basis of Rousseau's concept of democracy, while simultaneously understanding individuals and their history through concrete material production, thus avoiding falling into Rousseau-style utopianism and moral idealism. Starting from the analysis of relations of production and forms of intercourse, Marx proposed a new principle of sociality that transcends the principle of particularity, profoundly deciphering the root causes of the "moral politics" dilemma. Furthermore, through the scientific distinction of the problem of private property rights, he proposed a practical path for transcending "moral politics"—that is, taking the proletariat as the revolutionary subject to reconstruct new economic forms and social systems, thereby achieving emancipation of universal significance. In this regard, Marx eliminated the estrangement between modern morality and politics, opened a new path for the development of modernity, provided a scientific practical guide for gradually eliminating the gap between the rich and the poor and realizing true democracy and equality, and pointed out the direction for overcoming the existential predicament of modern man.

(Author's affiliation: Renmin University of China) Source: Philosophical Research (Zhexue Yanjiu), No. 2, 2025 Online Editor: Bao Luo