The Hegelian Ethical and Aesthetic Context of Lukács’ Concept of Historical and Social Realism

Hegelian Marxists like Lukács were fond of specifically siding with Hegel in his critique of Kantian ethics, even though closer analysis of their work shows many nuances on this issue. Within this dispute naturalism is identified with what Hegel called Sittlichkeit, i.e., morality based more on existing societal and community practices than on abstract Kantian-type ideals, i.e., what Hegel called Moralität. One of the most significant probings of these issues occurs in the writings of Lukács between 1923, when he published History and Class Consciousness, and 1936–1938, when he wrote The Young Hegel and The Historical Novel while in Moscow in exile from fascism. History and Class Consciousness constitutes one of the most thoroughgoing attempts ever made to interpret Marxist morality in the light of Hegelian ethics. Yet, I shall argue that in fact History and Class Consciousness represents a blending of naturalistic and utopian grounding for Marxist ethics. Its key is a willingness to both utilize embedded ethical practices, Sittlichkeiten, and to go beyond them in the revolutionary spirit in which Lukács wrote the book. The Young Hegel, in contrast, is a much different work, and represents a scholarly attempt both to interpret Marxist class theory ethics in the most thoroughgoing Hegelian naturalist, Sittlichkeit, mode possible, and to argue that such naturalism particularly suits the Marxist moral standpoint in the age of the popular front against fascism, when preserving what older traditions of republicanism and democracy that did exist seemed more important than appealing to revolutionary élan.