Ethical theory and its object, morality

pp. 86-110

in: Philip Grier, Marxist ethical theory in the Soviet union, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Abstract

A resurrection of interest in problems of formal ethical theory about 1960 in the Soviet Union led to a concern with more precise definitions of terms, and particularly to an attempt to characterize both moral" (morality), as a social phenomenon, and etika (ethics), as the science of morality, in a manner consistent with the general perspectives of dialectical and historical materialism.¹