FROM OUGHT TO IS - A NEO-MARXIST PERSPECTIVE ON THE USE AND MISUSE OFTHE CULTURE CONSTRUCT

Neo-Marxist Standpoint Theory is concerned with the application of mor al judgment to praxis. A standpoint is a perspective from which partic ular features of reality are brought into sharp perspective and other features obscured. When application rather than judgment is construed as central to morality the formal criteria of prescriptivity and prima cy, but not of universalizability and impartiality, are constitutive. The moral province thus construed is not limited to issues of welfare and justice towards others, although these are primary, but includes e xistential obligations to the self, and internalized preemptive obliga tions to observe religious and social customs. Moral beliefs are groun ded in cultural contexts. Culture, however, is not a static entity, bu t rather a dynamic process subject to change in response to internal c ontradictions and critical social thought. Furthermore, there are mult iple standpoints within a culture, as well as distinctive values share d by members of a culture. Although the dominant morality in any socie ty serves to justify the interests of its ruling class, it is the stan dpoint that represents the interests of the oppressed that is more val id because it is fairer, more comprehensive and more progressive. If t he reduction of oppression is accepted as a superordinate social good then this judgment applies also to societies which justify oppressive practices by claiming that they are intrinsic to the identity of the c ulture of that society.