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1.8.12

It has bothered me for some time why a great philosopher -Jurgen Habermas seems to like Marx.
The only explanation that I can see is he likes the idea that means of production {and apparently means and ways of making a living} determine people's morality and world view, instead of the world view determining their means of support like they claim. If this is the whole big deal about Marx--that people are irrational primates, then I don't see what the great news is. Original sin is a doctrine that I have heard of before. People are born into sin and then they excuse it with philosophy. Fine.
(Kelly Ross: "Karl Marx did not have a theory of morality; he had a theory of history. Thus, Marxism was not about right or wrong but about what will happen in history.
and what his theory predicted did not happen. The problem with Marxism was that it has never been willing to accept the discipline of falsification. The Marxist "high tide of prophecy," in Karl Popper's phrase, was perfectly willing to kill people by the millions rather than accept that "wreckers," spies, or some diabolical conspiracy were not responsible for the failure of Marxist economics.")

Maybe what is going on is the idea that desires determine perception--and especially the class one belongs to of better yet the social group. But this is saying the same thing. people desire to be upstanding member of a social group more than life.as the kamikaze pilots of WWII teach us.

OK you can say all I need to do is to read Habermas. But there is the trouble (besides the German language). At blowing Rawls (and the postmodern lunatics) out of the water he is great. But in building his own system he does not seem all that great.
Personally I would like to ask him why he does not spend more effort on John Locke and John Locke's state of Nature?