"Species-Being" and "Human Nature" in MarxAuthor(s): Thomas E. WartenbergSource: Human Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1982), pp. 77-95Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20008832 .Accessed: 04/06/2011 00:25

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HUMAN STUDIES, 5, 77-95 (1982)

"Species-Being" and "Human Nature" in Marx

Thomas E. Wartenberg

Duke University Department of Philosophy

It is generally recognized that Marx's account of human alienation (estrangement)

presented in the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts is dependent

upon his notion of a human species-being. Since that concept is almost totally ab?

sent from Marx's later writings, it is not generally acknowledged that this concept continues to play a central function in Marx's writing and, in particular, in his cri?

tique of capitalist society. In this paper, I shall try to show the full range of implications that Marx draws

from his claim that "Man is a species-being . . .and free conscious activity con?

stitutes the species-character of man" (Marx, 1974, pp.327-328). In the first sec?

tion, I will show how Marx's use of the concept of a human species-being is a

radical reconceptualization of the philosophic tradition's use of the idea of a hu?

man essence. I will then, in the second section, show how this concept functions to ground both Marx

' s critique of capitalist society as well as his view of socialism

as a positive alternative to that society. Finally, in the third section, I will show

that this view of the human being leads to a critique of various ' 'ahistorial'

' theo?

ries of human nature present in the philosophic and economic tradition. As a re?

sult, we shall see that Marx's conception ofthe human species-being is a genuine theoretical innovation that functions as the centerpiece of Marx's view of human

beings and their society.

I

Let us begin by asking ourselves what role the concept of a human essence has

played in traditional philosophy. At least since Aristotle, philosophers have de?

fined human beings as rational animals. By this, of course, they mean to say that

the specific feature that differentiates humans from other animals is their rational?

ity. In this sense, we can call the human essence our species-character or being. Such a definition seems to be a matter of pure theory. That is, it seems that all

that is at issue here is the proper notion ofthe nature of human beings. But such is not the case. For traditional philosophers have held that the proper or most com?

plete fulfillment for individual things lay in their specific natures, their species

being. Thus, if to be human is to be a rational animal, then it is in the following of

77

78 WARTENBERG

one's rational capabilities rather than one's animal nature that one manages to ful?

fill the specific character of one's being, and that one can actualize those

capabilities that make one the distinctive type of creature that one is.

Aristotle's account of the life appropriate to human beings is exemplary both in

its clarity and influence. Aristotle begins his account with a general view of life as

entailing certain sorts of appropriate activities.

Each animal is thought to have a proper pleasure, as it has a proper function, viz. that

which corresponds to its activity (Aristotle, 1962, p. 1176a 4-5).

He goes on to identify the proper life for a human being with the pursuit of that

activity that is most characteristic of the human being, namely thought.

That which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for each thing: for

man, therefore the life according to reason more than anything else is man (Aristotle,

1962, p. 1178a 5-8).

And lest we have any uncertainty as to what "life according to reason" is, Aristotle tells us,

If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in

accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best in us . . .That this

activity is contemplative we have already said (Aristotle, 1962, p. 1177a 12-18).

What Aristotle presents us with is, in a nutshell, the philosophic tradition's view of the appropriate sort of life to lead. Since reason is most nearly the human es?

sence, a life in accordance with reason is the most worthy life, the life most full of

pleasure and fulfillment. But a life in accord with reason requires that we occupy ourselves not just with things that have instrumental values, but things that are

good in themselves. And hence the "contemplative life" * turns out to be the life most fitting for human beings.

Aristotle's account of the distinctively human life presents us with a paradigm of the role that a theory of human nature or essence played in traditional philo?

sophic theories. In such theories, the concept of a human "species-being" pro? vided the basis for a view of the ideal human life. First, a characteristic was pos? ited as that which distinguishes a human being from other animals. Then, the

distinctively human life was taken to consist of the development of that species

specific character. In the hands of the tradition, this turned into the idea that

thought was, in itself, characteristic of humans, and the life of the mind the best

sort of life to live.

'Although happiness in the primary sense is contemplation, it is important to recognize that the

term "happiness" is pros hen equivocal for Aristotle. Thus, activities in accordance with moral vir?

tues or practical reason also constitute happiness, though in a secondary sense. See Nichomachean

Ethics, X, 8.

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 79

Marx makes two distinctive moves in his use ofthe concept of a specific human

charcter or being. First, Marx generalizes "thought" to "free conscious activity" as the species-characteristic of human beings. Second, he uses this theory as a

standard for a radical critique of bourgeois society. In the present section, I will

explain the first aspect of Marx's use of this concept. Before doing so, let me make a terminological clarification. The concept which

is translated by "species-being" is Gattungswesen. There is an ambiguity in this

concept. On the one hand, to say of something that it is a species-creature (inter?

preting * 'being'

' as meaning type of thing) is to say of it that it can only exist in a

social or communal situation with others of its type. Marx certainly believes that

the human being is a species-creature in this sense, for he criticizes the atomistic

view of bourgeois political theory as not recognizing this. When he uses the con?

cept in this way, Marx is making contact with the Aristotelian tradition and its

definition of the human being as a zoon politikon. But Gattungswesen can also mean species-essence (using "being" in a meta?

physical sense of specific difference). It is important that we recognize that this is

the predominant use of the concept of human species-being in the context of

Marx's remarks about alienation. For the human being is the specific creature it is

in virtue of possessing a specific character, a character which Marx calls its

species-being. Only in virtue of this species character can the human being be seen

as the distinctive type of creature which it is. To establish that this use ofthe con?

cept of Gattungswesen is indeed central to Marx's theory is one of the aims of the

following discussion.

When viewed against philosophic defenses of the contemplative life, Marx's

claims about a human species-being stand in radical counterpoint. For Marx is

claiming that the distinctively human activity is not thought per se, but rather "free conscious activity," that is, labor in accordance with one's own conscious

deliberation.

It is therefore in his fashioning of the objective that man really proves himself to be a,

species-being. Such production is his active species-life. Through it nature appears as

his work and his reality. The object of labor is therefore the objectification of the

species-life of man: for man reproduces himself not only intellectually, in his con?

sciousness, but actively and actually, and he can therefore contemplate himself in a

world he himself has created (Marx, 1974, p. 329).

The central point that Marx makes is that it is through productive activity that hu? man beings actualize themselves as human beings. This means that it is not

thought per se or a contemplative life that constitutes the good for human beings. Rather, it is our ability to structure the material world in accordance with our own

purposes that is distinctive about human beings. Of course, thought is one ofthe necessary ingredients for such self-realization.

Marx always talks of activity in accordance with a conscious plan as the specifi? cally human good. But the key aspect of this assertion is Marx's replacement of

80 WARTENBERG

"thought" by "labor" as the central concept for understanding the human good. Rather than seeing labor as only a brutal necessity forced upon human beings by their animal natures that they would be glad to be rid of, Marx sees labor as a

"positive, creative activity" (Marx, 1973, p. 614). Indeed, in criticizing Adam

Smith in the Grundrisse, Marx makes this point explicitly in language almost

identical to that he uses in the Manuscripts.

But Smith has no inkling whatever that this overcoming of obstacles is in itself a

liberating process?and that, further, the external aims become stripped of the sem?

blance of merely external natural urgencies, and become posited as aims which the indi?

vidual himself posits?hence as self-realization, objectification of the subject, hence

real freedom, whose action is, precisely, labor (Marx, 1973, p. 611).

Marx's use of "labor" as being the distinctive capacity of the human species is

striking. It involves not a simple rejection of the tradition's stress on thought, but

rather a generalization of that notion. For Marx is claiming that the tradition has

focused on one particular form that "free conscious activity" can take, namely that of contemplation. What is required is a generalization of that notion into an

appropriate categorial structure that will still provide us with a view of the distinc?

tively human character.

In Marx's view, here as elsewhere, it is Hegel who managed to do this, even if

he conceived of the truth in a mystified way.

The importance of Hegel's Phenomenology and its final result?the dialectic of nega?

tivity as the moving and producing principle?lies in the fact that Hegel conceives the

self-creation of man as a process, objectification as loss of object, as alienation and as

supersession of this alienation; that he therefore grasps the nature of labor and con?

ceives objective man?true, because real man?as the result of this own labor (Marx,

1974, pp. 385-386).

Thus, it is Hegel who, according to Marx, first sees the human being as essentially a laboring creature. Hegel is misled, however, because he recognizes "only the

positive and not the negative side of labor. ' '

It remains for Marx to make the final

adjustments that will allow this truth to emerge in all its centrality. In thus identifying labor as constitutive of the human essence, Marx radically

reconceptualizes the philosophic tradition's stress on contemplation as the most

distinctively human activity. By no longer singling out one form of activity as that

most fit for human beings, Marx achieves a "democratization" of theory. No

longer can we see a person as better than another simply because of the type of

activity he/she chooses to pursue. Rather, we can see conscious activity itself as

human and, in an egalitarian assumption, something to be valued for its own sake.

Marx's "democratization" of the theory of human nature has, however, a

competitor?namely that theory found in economic theory. The notion of eco?

nomic rationality is usually taken to mean the maximization of the satisfaction of

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 81

one's desires.2 A person will be happy if he/she is able, on the whole, to satisfy a

reasonable number of his/her desires. Without attempting a criticism of such a

view of the distinctively human life, we can note that its notion of satisfaction is

essentially modelled on a notion of consumption. When we have a consumption

good that we desire?a cigarette, for example?then we reach a state of well

being, according to this view, by means of the consumption of that good?

smoking the cigarette. The model of economic rationality attempts to treat all hu?

man activities as consumptive, pleasure producing activities. It then argues that

the well-lived human life requires only a satisfaction of a majority of our needs.

Marx sees this economic view ofthe human being as reductive. While it is true

that human life requires the satisfaction of our basic animal needs on something like a consumption model, Marx argues that we acquire fulfillment as human be?

ings through productive activities, rather than consumptive ones. The economic

view of the human being, while also an equalitarian model, reduces the human

being to a pleasure-seeking machine. For Marx, there is more to the human being than this. People are not just consumers: they are producers.

The important thing to emphasize here is only that, whether production and consump? tion are viewed as the activity of one or many individuals, they appear in any case as

moments of one process, in which production is the real point of departure and hence

also the predominant moment. Consumption as urgency, as need, is itself an intrinsic

moment of productive activity . . .The individual produces an object and, by

consuming it, returns to himself, but returns as a productive and self-reproducing indi?

vidual (Marx, 1973, p. 94).3

Thus, productive activities are primary for human beings because it is through them that they achieve fulfillment, and since consumption is itself dependent upon

production, there is a conceptual as well as substantive flaw in any theory of hu? man fulfillment that treats consumption as the primary mode of human activity.

Note that both the Marxian and the economic model share the feature that there is no specific activity or good that is the quintessential human one. Both hold that

there are a wide variety of such, and that individuals will differ in what they choose for themselves as constituting their fulfillment. In this sense, both adopt pluralist models ofthe distinctively human life, in contradistinction to the tradi? tional acceptance of a single model. The difference between them lies in the type of activities they see as constituting the distinctively human.

2This view is usually associated with Bentham and Mill. It is also present in Hegel's characteriza?

tion of civil society in the Philosophy of Right. Note that Mill's distinction between types of pleasures reflects an uneasiness on his part with the simple satisfaction of desire as constitutive of human

well-being.

3In Marx's denial of the adequacy of the consumptive goods model for specifying a notion of hu?

man fulfillment lies the kernel of much recent thought on the alienating character of modern life. See, for example, Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man.

82 WARTENBERG

Marx's theory of the human species-being can therefore be seen as serving a

double purpose, On the one hand, in contrast to more traditional notions of human

well-being, Marx holds that there is no single activity that constitutes the essence

of humanness. In this respect, his theory is a thorough departure from the intellec

tualist tradition of philosophy. But it is equally crucial to recognize that it also

poses a contrast to consumptive models of human fulfillment, claiming that our

species-character lies in our ability to create our lives for ourselves in a conscious manner.

One of the reasons that Marxists have sought to deny that Marx held any theory of the human essence is that it precludes anyone from rejecting historical material?

ism on the basis of an inadequate theory of the human being. As a result, we find a

stress on the "scientific' ' character of Marxism as opposed to the4 'metaphysical'

'

ramblings of its opponents. Such an interpretation of Marx is an error. If anything is true, it is the reverse:

that Marx in his later writings, did not pay enough attention to the idea of a human

character. His theory of a human species-being is a crucial feature of his view of

the human being in society. To reject it as non-scientific is to miss an important

aspect of Marx's thought. Another reason that one might be tempted to reject Marx's theory of species

being is that it might seem to make social change more problematic. Marx's great

insight was to show how much of what we take to be' 'natural' ' and

' 'fixed'

' is the

result of the social activities of human beings and therefore is subject to conscious

manipulation. To accept any limitation, such as that of a human species-being,

might be seen as inimical to the entire spirit of Marx's thought. I think that this is an error. I have already said that the theory of species-being

functions to ground a critique of capitalist society. Before exploring that point, however, we need to ask a final question about Marx's use of the concept of

species-being.

I have argued that Marx's stress on "free conscious activity" as the human

species-being involves his use of ' 'labor'

' as the central concept for understanding

what is distinctive about human beings; and I have also argued that such a view is

one that Marx never retreats from. However, it is significant that, despite the fact

that Marx continues to speak of labor as constituting, at least potentially, a process of human fulfillment, in his later work, Marx does not speak of such activity as

constitutive of the human species-being.4 The question that we need to face, then, is what the significance of this fact is.

Marx no longer explicitly invokes the concept of a human species-being be? cause he thinks that it is unnecessary. He sees the theory of historical materialism as needing only materialist premises. He claims that "the first premise of all hu

4There is one passage in the Grundrisse where Marx does state that the human being "appears

originally as a species-being" (Marx, 1973, p. 496), but that he/she loses this character in later social

developments.

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 83

man existence and, therefore, of all history . . .is that men must be in a position to

live in order to be able to 'make history. ' "

(Marx, 1970, p. 48). Thus, the "pro? duction of material life itself" becomes the materialist starting point for his theory of social evolution. Although there is still a need to talk of the potential of labor to

become a liberating activity in order to give this theory its practical consequences for human social organization, Marx no longer sees the need to begin with a con?

cept such as species-being as a metaphysical assumption. This does not mean,

however, that the perspective yielded by that notion is abandoned in any sense.

One reason that might have led Marx to abandon the use of the notion of a hu? man species-being was his desire to distinguish his own theory from that of

Feuerbach. Although Marx took the notion ofa species-being from Feuerbach, he

developed it in a radically different direction. Feuerback held that the concept of

the human species was something inherent in each human being.

Man is himself at once I and thou; he can put himself in the place of another, for this

reason, that to him his species, his essential nature, and not merely his individuality, is

an object of thought. (Feuerbach, 1957, p. 2, italics added).

Marx objects to Feuerbach's intellectualized notion ofthe human essence. As we

have seen, by giving an activity-based theory of the human essence, Marx is able to indict the philosophic tradition - Feuerbach included - for being unhistorical and asocial. It was therefore essential to Marx that his own views not be confused with

Feuerbach's.

Indeed, if we look at Marx's sixth thesis on Feuerbach carefully, we can see

that Marx is objecting to just such a theoretical use of the concept of a human es? sence (Wesen). What Feuerbach has posited, according to Marx, is a notion ofa human essence where such an essence is conceived of in abstraction from any ac?

tual practical expression. It is only a "dumb generality which naturally unites the

many individuals" (Marx, 1970, p. 122). Feuerbach's severing ofthe connection between the notion of a human essence and human practical activity is an anath? ema to Marx. By no longer using such a term, Marx is able to distinguish his own

theory of the human species-being (Gattungswesen) as requiring a social mani? festation from the ahistorical, individualistic view that he sees inherent in Feuer? bach's materialism.5

To see that Marx still saw a need to supplement the viewpoint of historical ma? terialism with a view of labor as a potentially freeing process, consider the follow?

ing passage in Volume III of Capital:

In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labor which is determined by

necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies

beyond the sphere of actual material production. . . .Freedom in this field can only

5It is important to recognize both Marx's borrowings from Fuerbach as well as his differences from him. A full discussion of this must wait for another occasion.

84 WARTENBERG

consist in socialized man, the associated producers rationally regulating their inter?

change with Nature, bringing it under their common control; instead of being ruled by it

as by the blind forces of nature. . .But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity.

Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true

realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. (Marx, 1967, p. 820)

This invocation of a realm of labor that is based upon that in which human beings realize the conditions of their physical existence is precisely what Marx earlier

talked of as constitutive of the human species-being. He still sees this capacity as a

goal of social organization. While he is wary of using that term, for the reasons

mentioned above, he still accepts the viewpoint that it opens for him. There is no

need, therefore, to resort to any such notion as a radical "break" to explain the

absence of that term from Marx's writing, nor its peristence in his thinking.

II

I have shown that Marx's claim that the human species-being is free conscious

activity involves a radical reconceptualization of the standard view of human be?

ings advocated by the philosophic tradition. What I would now like to do is to

show how this claim functions as a pivotal assertion from which various aspects of

Marx's more general views can be deduced, in particular, as the ground for a cri?

tique of capitalist society. The first thing that we need to note is that Marx sees such creative activity as

the form of activity that distinguishes the human species from all other forms of

animal life. "It is true," he writes, "that animals also produce. They build nests

and dwellings, like the bee, the beaver, the ant, etc." (Marx, 1974, p. 329) But

such productive activity is categorically distinct from human productive activity because animals are constrained to proceed in accordance with naturally given needs. Human beings, on the other hand, are able to produce in accordance with

their own plans, even in the absence of any physical need. Indeed, Marx claims

that the human being "truly produces only in freedom from such need." (Marx,

1974, p. 329.) Thus, Marx sees human freedom as dependent upon our ability to

produce objects according to our conscious plans. Once again, this view of human labor as involving conscious plans is a view

that Marx never abandons. In the chapter on "The Labor Process and the Valori?

zation Process" in Volume 1 of Capital, Marx characterizes labor as assuming a

form that is specifically a human activity.

We presuppose labor in a form in which it is an exclusively human character?

istic. . . .At the end of every labor process, a result emerges which had already been

conceived by the worker at the beginning, hence already existed ideally. The worker

not only effects a change of form in the materials of nature; he also realizes

(verwirklicht) his own purpose in those materials. And this is a purpose he is conscious

of, it determines the mode of his activity with the rigidity of a law, and he must subordi

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 85

nate his will to it. (Marx, 1976, pp. 283-284) The labor process. . . .is the universal

condition ofthe metabolic interaction (Sto?wechsel) between man and nature, the ever?

lasting nature-imposed condition of human existence, and it is therefore independent of

every form of that existence, or rather it is common to all forms of society in which

human beings live. (Marx, 1976, p. 290)

Although Marx is here engaged in a different analysis than that of the Manu?

scripts, he still views labor as "free conscious activity" and sees it as a necessary condition of human existence. Further, he sees such an activity as distinctive of

the human species or, to use the more socially oriented language of Capital, the

human social formation.

A spider conducts operations which resemble those of the weaver, and a bee would put

many a human architect to shame by the construction of its honeycomb cells. But what

distinguishes the worst architect from the best of the bees is that the architect builds the

cell in his mind before he constructs it in wax. (Marx, 1976, p. 284)

Again, the upshot of this passage is identical to the claim of the Manuscripts that

the specific character of human productive labor, in distinction from all other spe? cies of animal life, is its being undertaken in accordance with a conscious plan.

Although Marx here stresses that labor is a natural constraint upon all forms of

human society, he still maintains his stress upon the liberating potential as such a

capability, as the quotation from Volume III of Capital makes clear.

A second feature of this view of 'he human species-being is that it requires an

objective world as the matter or "stuff ' upon which human beings are able to ac?

tualize their purposes. As I have already mentioned, it is his constant focus on this

material element, as necessary for human existence, that allows Marx to deny pri? macy to pure thought as the distinctively human activity. I will now show that it is from just such a materialist point of view that Marx is able to achieve his first deci?

sive split with Hegel's philosophic categories. Like Aristotle, Hegel had sought to discover the distinctively human life. How?

ever, Hegel had inherited from Kant the idea that freedom was the goal that human

beings alone among natural creatures could attain. In Kant's view, the human be?

ing could attain freedom, because of its peculiar status as both a natural and a ra?

tional creature, by acting morally, that is, in accordance with its rational nature.6

We see now that when we think of ourselves as free, we transfer ourselves into the intel?

ligible world as members and recognize the autonomy of will together with its

consequence?morality. . . .Hence, . . .qua intelligence I am subject to the law of

the intelligible world?that is to the reason which contains this law in the idea of free?

dom, and so too the autonomy of will?and therefore I must look on the laws of the

6Strictly speaking, freedom is only an idea of reason and we can only believe in our freedom, not

prove its reality. See, for example, Kant's solution of the third Antinomy in the Critique of Pure

Reason.

86 WARTENBERG

intelligible world as imperatives for me and as the actions which conform to this princi?

ple as duties. (Kant, 1948, p. 121)

Thus, the key to the possibility of human beings attaining freedom and autonomy,

according to Kant, was their acting in accordance with the dictates of reason, i.e.

morally.

Hegel also sought to describe the path to the attainment of freedom, but re?

jected the Kantian answer. "In every philosophy of reflection, like Kant's. . ."

he says, "freedom is nothing else but empty self-activity." (Hegel, 1952, p. 15) Kant's view was limited because it only comprehended freedom in a negative sense. Positive freedom, according to Hegel, requires a further development.

It is only as thinking intelligence that the will is genuinely a will and free. . . .This

self-consciousness which apprehends itself through thinking as essentially human, and

thereby frees itself from the contingent and the false, is the principle of right, morality, and all ethical life. (Hegel, 1952, p. 15)

To attain positive freedom, Hegel holds that the will must posit itself as thinking. In order to do so, the will needs to transcend the alienation inherent in Kant's con?

ception of a duty oriented morality, and ascend to a more adequate grasp of itself

as rational consciousness.

The totality of its [consciousness's] determinations establishes the object as an implic?

itly spiritual being, and it does truly become a spiritual being for consciousness when

each of its individual determinations is grasped as a determination of the self. (Hegel,

1977, pp. 479-480)

Only by overcoming the alienation inherent in any distinction between itself and

its object can the will be free, for Hegel, and thus the standpoint of idealism is a

necessary condition of freedom. Only by realizing that any objectification is the

work of consciousness itself can consciousness attain freedom in a positive sense.

It is precisely this feature of Hegel's thought that Marx criticizes, for he sees

Hegel as taking a fact about life in a capitalist society to be constitutive of the con?

ditions of human life in general. It is this false inference from the empirical condi?

tions governing a particular society to a metaphysical claim about life itself that

causes Hegel's philosophy-despite its appearance of taking a critical stance-to ul?

timately be both an ' 'uncritical positivism'

' and an

' 'equally uncritical idealism.

' '

This fallacious inference from empirical conditions to metaphysical reality blinds

Hegel to the fact that objectification is not in itself alienating. Indeed, as we have

seen, it is precisely such objectification in free conscious activity that constitutes

the human species-being for Marx. In Hegel's philosophy, however, according to

Marx, things are conceived in precisely the reverse way.

It is not the fact that the human essence objectifies itself in an inhuman way, in opposi? tion to itself, [i.e. Marx's view of alienation] but that it objectifies itself in distinction

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 87

from and in opposition to abstract thought, which constitutes the essence of estrange? ment as it exists and as it is to be superseded. (Marx, 1974, p. 384)7

Thus, the idea that the human species-being consists in activity directed upon a

given, material object provides Marx with a standpoint from which to criticize

Hegel's idealism. Indeed, it is just this standpoint that can be said to characterize

Marx's philosophy as materialist. His materialism consists in his acceptance of

the material world as a reality that human beings are able to transform out of ne?

cessity and desire, in order to live and realize themselves.8

The importance of the concept of species-being is not exhausted, however, with its role in Marx's critique of Hegel. It also grounds a criticism ofthe capitalist form of economic organization different in kind from others also present in Marx's

writing. This critique asserts neither that capitalism will inevitably fall apart, nor

that it is unfair insofar as it is based upon exploitation ofthe worker, although it is

arguable that such critiques are also present in Marx's writings.9 The best meta?

phor for this aspect of Marx's criticism of capitalism is that it stunts development of the human species, reducing the human being to a mere animal.

We have already seen that Marx sees freely chosen productive activity as the

human species-character. Contrary to Hegel, he holds that we are able to achieve

freedom through the engagement in freely chosen projects of objectification, and not by means of any denial of objectivity itself. But it is precisely these sorts of

projects that capitalism, with its system of alienated (estranged) labor, prohibits from the worker. Since the worker is forced by the capitalist10 to labor for an en?

tire day in order to earn enough money to meet his/her basic animal needs, the human capacity for freedom becomes a slave to our basic animal natures.

Estranged labor reverse the relationship [between our human and animal life activity] so that man, just because he is a conscious being, makes his life activity, his being

[Wesen], a mere means for his existence. (Marx, 1974, p. 328)

Without going into the exact nature and development of the capitalist social rela? tions that allow the capitalist to perpetrate such a feat, the nature of Marx's claim is clear. Under capitalism, the human species-being is not allowed to realize hu

7Colletti discusses Marx's philosophic critique of Hegel at great length in his Marxism and Hegel, London, 1973.

This is a very different sense of the term "materialism" than that current in the analytic tradition.

In fact, Marx's theoretical viewpoint is not a reductive materialism of the sort often attributed to him. It

has more in common with the idealism of Hegel than is generally recognized.

9See, for example, Capital I, Chapter 32 for the former criticism and Chapter 9 for the basis of the

second. Let me note that the presence of a "moral" critique of capitalism via a theory of exploitation is a debated issue. See Allen Wood,

' 'The Marxian Critique of Justice," in Cohen et al., 1980, pp. 3-41.

,0That the capital-labor exchange is a coerced rather than a free exchange is one of the central claims of Marx's theory. Here I simply assume it.

88 WARTENBERG

man freedom, but functions merely to keep the worker alive. Whereas the satisfac?

tion of our animal needs for food, clothing, and shelter ought to function as the

means toward a realization of our specifically human natures, under the capitalist form of social organization, this relationship is reversed?inverted. A worker uses

all of his/her human capabilities for labor simply in order to stay alive, and to re?

produce him/herself.

Let us recall that the concept of an essential nature of the human being func?

tioned within the philosophic tradition to ground a specific form of activity as that

most appropriate to the human being. While Marx does not accept a particular form of activity as the distinctively human, he does claim, as we have seen, that

freely chosen conscious activity is our specific nature. And, following Hegel's lead, he sees such activity as possible only within a certain form of social

organization.

The work of material production can achieve this character [as "attractive work, the

individual's self-realization"] only (1) when its social character is posited, (2) when it

is of a scientific and at the same time general character, not merely human exertion as a

specifically harnassed natural force, but exertion as subject which appears in the pro? duction process not in a merely natural, spontaneous form, but as an activity regulating all the forces of nature. (Marx, 1976, pp. 611-612)

Here we see Marx positing the possibility of a society organized in such a way so

as to realize human beings through labor, rather than one that consumes their 4 'be?

ing" simply in order to let them "exist." This vision of an alternative form of

social organization requires the development of the labor process made possible

by capitalism, but it harnesses such development for the sake of human beings. The concept of the human species-being is crucial, therefore, not only in pro?

viding us with a critique of capitalism as a form of social organization, but also in

order to grasp the outlines of a form of organization that would allow for the full

realization of human freedom, something both Kant and Hegel deemed the central

task for humanity, and which Marx sees as the central goal of a communist soci?

ety. One feature of such a form of economic and social organization would be that

the amount of time an individual had to labor simply would be minimized. As a

result, there would be a maximum of time during which individuals, free of the

demands of subsistence, could undertake their own projects of objective self

realization. As Marx puts it in a passage whose real content has often been over?

looked by commentators:

And finally, the division of labor offers us the first example of how, as long as man

remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular

and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally,

divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him which enslaves him

instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labor comes into

being, each man has his particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon

him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a

critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood;

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 89

while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but

each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general

production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomor?

row, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise

after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter fisherman, shepherd or critic. (Marx, 1970, p. 53)

Although it is undoubtedly true that this vision of society has an idealistic-Utopian

component to it, this should not blind us to the vision it does contain. If we bypass the claim that we will be free to engage in any activity we would like at any time

we like, and think about Marx's insistence that the free engagement in such activi?

ties is central to human development, we will be able to see the nature of Marx's

claim. For what Marx here posits is a society in which people are able to engage in a maximum of self-realization because of the social character of production. Al?

though a great deal of attention has been focused on the distinction between the

social and private control of production and the resulting difference in the charac?

ter of the activity of labor, there is a second aspect of Marx's claim that has been

neglected. By minimizing the time in which people would have to participate in

activities whose sole aim was the reproduction of society and life, such a socially

organized society would allow people the time for just such projects of self

realization. Marx's concentration on economic organization can be seen as

including the project of demonstrating that this is not an idealistic, Utopian vision, but a concrete possibility that can be grounded in economic reality.

We therefore see that the claim that the human species-being consists in free

conscious activity functions as the fixed point for a general perspective that is

embodied in Marx's work. I have tried to show a number of consequences of this

perspective. In particular, I have tried to show how this view of the human being allows Marx to articulate a forceful critique of capitalist society, a critique that also posits an alternative vision of society as a possibility. Thus, the concept of a

human species-being plays a central role in Marx's entire philosophic project.

in

So far, then, I have established the view that the concept of a human species-being plays a central role in Marx's thought and in his view of capitalist society. Even in his late works, where the term no longer plays an explicit role, Marx still treats

labor as the specifically human process of self-realization, the same claim he had earlier used the concept of species-being to make. Rather than simply rejecting this concept, Marx continues to use the perspective it provides in his more detailed

investigations into the development and structure of capitalist society. But what of those texts in which Marx explicitly rejects the notion that there is a

fixed, ahistorical human essence? Don't these texts show that Marx's rejection of the notion of a human species-being is complete? Indeed, does not the theory of historical materialism stand in contradiction to Marx's earlier point of view?

90 WARTENBERG

What I want to suggest is that, in rejecting the notion of a fixed human nature, Marx is following a basic claim of Hegel's social theory, the claim that the form in

which individuality is conceptualized or instantiated in a given social structure de?

pends upon that very structure itself. Marx accepts this view of human individual?

ity as historically and socially conditioned?and then he turns it upon those theo?

rists, both philosophers and political economists, who accept a particular stage of

human development as definitive of4 'human nature. "

In a move similar to the one

he makes against Hegel?but this time following Hegel's lead?Marx argues that

such views of a fixed, ahistorical human nature treat a particular form of

development?one that is empirically accessible?as yielding a metaphysical truth about the world. Such an argument does not affect Marx's own claims about a human species-being. Indeed, we can even argue that it is based upon them.

To begin, let us turn our attention to Hegel once again. It is one of Hegel's central claims in the Philosophy of Right that the form which individuality takes

depends upon the stage of logico-historical development that it has reached. Al?

though we can speak of the will as the object of all discourse concerning right, the

particular form that the will takes depends on the particular sphere in which it is

trying to actualize its freedom. Thus, after having introduced the notion of a free

will, Hegel considers its first concrete manifestation in the sphere of abstract right.

The universality of this consciously free will is abstract universality, the self-conscious

but otherwise contentless and simple relation of itself in its individuality, and from that

point of view the subject is a person. (Hegel, 1952, p. 35)11

On Hegel's view, the concept of a person is a specific form that the concept of an

individual takes, and it is therefore dependent upon a particular point of view,

namely that of abstract right. The crucial point is that this sphere determines the

form in which the individual's existence is posited. On Hegel's view, our particu? larized notion of individuality is relative to the logical or historical sphere we are

talking about.

This view becomes relevant to our problem once Hegel turns his attention to

civil society. For what Hegel claims is that only at that stage of social develop? ment do we encounter individuality in the form of man.

In [abstract] right, what we had before us was the person; in the sphere of morality, the

subject; in the family, the family-member; in civil society as a whole, the burger or

bourgeois. Here at the standpoint of needs. . .what we have before us is the composite idea which we call man. Thus this is the first time, and indeed properly the only time, to

speak of man in this sense. (Hegel, 1952, p. 190)12

"I have restored Hegel's italics. Knox's otherwise excellent translation is rendered quite inade?

quate by his failure to include these italics which show the central concepts in the logical development of Hegel's argument.

,2Perhaps this is an appropriate time to note that I have simply left all the uses of the term * 'man'

'

as they have appeared in the texts I have cited (with the exception of one construction). In my own

writing, I have never used that term. I can see no other way out of the bind presented by the sexist use

of that concept within this tradition.

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 91

Thus, Hegel claims that the notion of the individual as having a set of needs that

he/she is seeking to satisfy is what we mean by the concept of "man." This is a

form of individual existence that is peculiar to civil society. It is this claim that Marx accepts and turns against those whose social theories

hypostatize certain features of human beings in capitalist society into a fixed con?

ception of human nature. For such theories presuppose that the form in which the

human being exists in a particular historical period, i.e. under a capitalist form of

social organization, is simply human nature?an ahistorical essence of the human

being.

Perhaps the central concept that is taken as definitive of human nature?when it

is only, according to Marx, a feature of individuals in a capitalist society?is that

of competitiveness. It is often held that individuals are innately competitive and

that any social theory must, at the risk of appearing unrealistic or Utopian, accept this fact about human beings. Hobbes is a good example of a theorist who held

such a view of human beings. It is well known that Hobbes's political theory is

based upon the notion of a state of nature in which all individuals compete with

one another.

Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of

every man, against every man. (Hobbes, 1930, p. 252)

In such a state of general competitive war, the quality of life is minimal. In

Hobbes's famous phrase, "the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and

short. ' ' What Hobbes then tries to show is that it is rational for individuals, when

faced with the threat of such a situation, to opt for the imposition of a common

power over them in order to better their situation in life.

The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are

necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And rea?

son suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agree? ment. (Hobbes, 1930, p. 257)

In Hobbes's view, such a social contract will be one in which individuals alienate

all their rights to a sovereign who has absolute power over them. Only in this way will individuals, according to Hobbes, be able to ensure themselves a life of

peace. Thus, Hobbes hopes to have shown that rationally self-interested individu?

als ought to opt for such a social situation, and that all such society "is either for

gain or for glory; that is, not so much for love of fellows as for the love of our?

selves." (Hobbes, 1949, p. 24) It might seem that Hobbes's theory of political obligation is highly realistic.

Accepting the fact that human beings are highly competitive, he shows that there

is still reason for them to engage in social intercourse. Such intercourse is not dic?

tated by some benevolent principle of "love of fellows" but the rational self

interest of competitive individuals. As such, we seem to have paradigm of the use

of a theory of human nature to ground a theory of political obligation.

92 WARTENBERG

As C. B. Macpherson has shown, however, Hobbes is unable to do what he claims to be doing. In order to move his "scientific" conception of human beings to his claims about their "natural" social relations, Hobbes needs to introduce certain social assumptions.

Hobbes moved from his original physiological postulates to the conclusion that all men

seek ever more power over others, by introducing assumptions that are valid only for

possessive market societies. (Macpherson, 1962, p. 68)13

Thus Hobbes is able to provide a deduction of political obligation only by introducing certain social assumptions into his view of human beings, for exam?

ple, that they "seek rationally to maximize their welfare." (Macpherson, 1962,

p. 54) But this means that we no longer can see the competitive struggle of all

against all as a fact about human nature. It needs to be acknowledged as a feature of human beings that is dependent upon their being in a possessive market society. If we fail to acknowledge the social nature of such assumptions, we will have hy? postatized a capitalist social relation into a feature of human beings per se.

But this is just what Marx claims previous philosophers had done. They had

accepted as ' 'human nature'

' features of human behavior, such as competitiveness

and the exclusivity of self-interest, that are the product of a specific form of social

organization. These philosophers took the competitive nature of life in a capitalist

society as definitive of human beings. That this view of human beings as essentially competitive?a view that under?

lies an entire tradition of philosophic and economic thought and which finds its first clear articulation in Hobbes?is indeed one focus of Marx's attack on the no?

tion of a fixed human nature, and can be seen explicitly in Marx's attack on

Proudhon. Proudhon's anarchism was an attempt to let the economic structure of

society function in such a way so as to provide an ideal society. In criticizing Proudhon's vision, Marx sees Proudhon as falling prey to precisely the sort of hy

postatization that we have found present in the work of Hobbes.

M. Proudhon, not understanding that the establishment of competition was bound up with the actual development ofthe men ofthe eighteenth century, makes of competition a necessity of the human soul, in partibus infidelium. (Marx, 1963, p. 148)

Here we see Marx specifically attacking the view of human beings as necessarily

competitive by nature that I have claimed is central to the tradition of philosophic and economic thought going back to Hobbes. What Marx claims is that such a

view fails to notice that this feature of human beings is a specific historic develop? ment, one that took place in the eighteenth century with the rise of capitalism.

In discussing Utilitarianism, Marx broadens the scope of his attack.

13Macpherson's attempt to validate Hobbes' conclusion by relativizing it to possessive market so?

cieties fails to pay enough attention to his own claim that Hobbes also needs to assume that there is no

alternative to such a society other that anarchy. See Macpherson, 1962, p. 87.

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 93

The apparent stupidity of merging all the manifold relationships of people in the one

relation of usefulness, this apparently metaphysical abstraction arises from the fact that,

in modern bourgeois society, all relations are subordinated in practice to the one ab?

stract monetary-commercial relation. This theory came to the fore with Hobbes and

Locke. . . .It is to be found even earlier, of course, among writers on political

economy, as a tacit premise. Political economy is the real science of this theory of

utility_(Marx, 1970, pp. 109-110)

Here we see that Marx sees all of political economy and the tradition of political

philosophy springing from Hobbes as embodying a similar theory of human moti?

vation. This is the same theory that I have been talking about by means of the con?

cepts of self-love and competitiveness as being "natural" to human beings. What

Marx claims is that this is a "metaphysical abstraction" due to the nature of bour?

geois society. I have called this a metaphysical hypostatization of bourgeois social-relations into a theory of human nature, but the upshot is identical.

But it is not only those thinkers who tried to justify a possessive market

economy who fall under the criticism that Marx directs at Proudhon and Hobbes.

For even those who rejected such a conception of human nature as essentially self

interested and competitive often did so in a way that gave too much validity to the

basic model Hobbes proposed. Even Rousseau, whose own account of the devel?

opment of needs by civilization was pivotal for both Hegel and Marx, fights Hobbes on grounds that give up too much. What Rousseau asserts is that Hobbes's

theory is inadequate because it fails to acknowledge a feeling that is just as much a

part of human nature as self-love, namely the feeling of pity.

There is besides another principle that has escaped Hobbes, and which, having been

given to man to moderate, on certain occasions, the ferocity of self-love, or the desire of

self preservation previous to the appearance ofthat love, tempers the ardor, with which

he naturally pursues his private welfare, by an innate abhorrence to see beings suffer

that resemble him. I shall not surely be contradicted, in granting to man the only natural

virtue, which the most passionate detractor of human virtues could not deny him, I

mean that of pity, a disposition suitable to creatures weak as we are, and liable to so

many evils. (Rousseau, 1967, p. 201)

For Marx, this entire debate between Hobbes and Rousseau takes place at the

wrong level. These two conceptions of human nature both take certain principles of human motivation that apply within different spheres of human activity and hy? postatize them into a fixed human nature. On Marx's view, we need to see that such feelings or dispositions are dependent upon social circumstances. No one

would deny either that individuals engaged in market transactions act out of self love in such a way so as to maximize their profits, or that individuals in a family are motivated by compassion for their family members. In both cases, however, it is the social and institutional context that allows these feelings to function as prin? ciples of action. It is not in virtue of some fixed human nature, but social institu? tions that human beings act in the ways that they do.

94 WARTENBERG

The importance of this point is that it allows Marx to argue that there is no a

priori restriction, based upon a theory of human nature, that would prohibit the

formation of a society governed by an overall identification of people with one

another as fellow beings. There is no apriori rejection of communism as failing to

accept human nature, because human nature is itself a social product. But neither is there a failure to grasp social relations for what they are. Com?

mon to Hobbes and Rousseau is a failure to see the relations of capitalist society as

the product of human interaction. The theory of human nature functions to limit

the sense of possibility that is present in the entire tradition. All co-operation is

seen on a particular, historically conditioned model of cooperation.

Combination up till now (by no means an arbitrary one such as is expounded for exam?

ple in the Contrat social, but a necessary one) was an agreement upon these conditions,

within which the individuals were free to enjoy the freaks of fortune. . . .This right to

the undisturbed enjoyment, within certain conditions, of fortuity and chance has up till

now been called personal freedom. These conditions of existence are, of course, only the productive forces and forms of intercourse at any particular time. (Marx, 1970, pp.

85-86)

Again, we see Marx arguing that philosophers have failed to see that the basic no?

tions they are using are based upon a particular historical stage of development. It

is precisely this that he sees as the crucial failure of all those philosophers who

tried to construct a theory of society upon inadequate understandings of human

beings as social creatures. The result is that they treat social conditions of human

existence as a metaphysical truth about the human creature.

Marx's recognition that many aspects of a so-called human nature are in reality

nothing but hyposatized features of human social relations under capitalism be? comes a forceful tool in his attack on social theorists who oppose horn. The failure

of treating capitalist social relations as if they were both natural and eternal is com?

mon to a wide range of thinkers. Following Hegel's lead, Marx is able to develop a broad strategy of critique. It is this strategy that motivates the slogan, "there is

no fixed human nature."

But one could still ask whether this critique isn't ultimately destructive of

Marx's own attempt to posit free conscious activity (labor) as the essential charac?

ter of human beings. Actually, the case is essentially the reverse: Marx's criti?

cisms of theories that posit a fixed human nature are based upon a view of the hu?

man being as having a social character?a species-being in the first sense

mentioned above (p. 79). It is such a social character that allows a human being to

adapt him/herself to the various social structures within which he/she existed. The

idea that certain human characteristics, such as competitiveness or self-love, are

themselves the results of human beings existing within a social setting presup?

poses a view of human beings as having a character that can be affected in such a

way. As I have tried to show, this is precisely the sort of claim that Marx does

make by means of his theory of free, conscious activity as the human

species-being.

"SPECIES BEING" AND "HUMAN NATURE" IN MARX 95

IV

In this paper, I have explored a particular theme in Marx's writings, namely the

theme of the nature of the human being. I have tried to show that, under the con?

ceptual guise of the notion of a human species-being, Marx presents a theory about the nature of human beings that is a revolutionary one. In this theory, it is

the ability of human beings to freely shape the material world in accordance with a

consciously adopted plan that proviHes the essential conditions for human fulfill?

ment. I have tried to show that this theory is a marked departure from other theo?

ries of human fulfillment in both the philosophic and economic traditions, and that

it plays a crucial role in the development of Marx's general theory of the human

being in society that is known as historical materialism. Finally, I have tried to

show that Marx's own claims about human nature and social relations do not viti?

ate the validity of his own theory of human beings, but rather place that theory where it ought to be: as an attempt to understand the human being as a creature in

society, faced with naturally imposed conditions of existence, but capable of an

incredible breadth of response to those very conditions. As such, Marx's theory of

the human being is an important one that needs to be considered with greater pre? cision by both his admirers and critics.

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