From ought to is: A neo-Marxist perspective on the use and misuse of the culture construct

Neo-Marxist Standpoint Theory is concerned with the application of moral judgment to praxis. A standpoint is a perspective from which particular 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 primacy, 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 existential obligations to the self, and internalized preemptive obligations to observe religious and social customs. Moral beliefs are grounded in cultural contexts. Culture, however, is not a static entity, but rather a dynamic process subject to change in response to internal contradictions and critical social thought. Furthermore, there are multiple standpoints within a culture, as well as distinctive values shared by members of a culture. Although the dominant morality in any society serves to justify the interests of its ruling class, it is the standpoint that represents the interests of the oppressed that is more valid because it is fairer, more comprehensive and more progressive. If the 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 culture of that society.