Vanessa Christina Wills, "Marx's Ethical Vision" (Oxford UP, 2024)
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What is the central question of Marx’s ethical vision that the book addresses?
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Hello and welcome to Doom Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Sarah Tyson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Denver. I'm co-host of the channel along with Carrie Fichor, Robert Talice, and Malcolm Keating. Together we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books, drawing from a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Vanessa Wills, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the George Washington University. Her book, Marx's Ethical Vision, is just out from Oxford University Press. Does Marx have a coherent ethical vision? How does that square with his sometimes scathing dismissal of morality?
What does his critique of capital have to do with ethics? Why is the proletariat the revolutionary class? What is the normative importance of that claim? In Marx's ethical vision, Wills provides a careful reconstruction of Marx's understanding of human nature. and the possibility of creating a world best suited to our flourishing. Working from Marx's earliest text through his last, Will shows not only how Marx builds his understanding from material conditions and their historical specificity, but also how doing so can help guide efforts to change the world in ways that support individual growth, self-expression, and development as a universally shared project. Wills consistently argues against philosophical projects that try to salvage Marx's valuable insights stripped of his method.
Will shows that the method by which Marx sought to understand the world and human nature as a force within it is integral to understanding his vision for what ought to be. Vanessa Will's welcome to new books in philosophy. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to have you there. Um, let's jump right in. And will you tell us a bit about yourself, um, your background as a philosopher, and how you came to write this book on Marx's ethical vision?
Certainly. Uh so. I'm a philosophy professor. I'm at the George Washington University, but um long before I was a philosophy professor, I was uh a little girl growing up in Philadelphia. So um my parents are immigrants from Guyana in South America. And uh I grew up in a working-class black neighborhood uh called Germantown. And then uh when I was a teenager, we moved to a more sort of integrated neighborhood called Mount Airy. And yes, I grew up in Philadelphia, went on to college at Princeton, and had my mind blown by philosophy classes mainly. And so decided that was the life for me. Me and here I am.
Yeah, and then um how was it going from Philly to Pittsburgh? Is that an okay transition?
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
What is the central question of Marx’s ethical vision that the book addresses?
0:00–19:21
2
How does Vanessa Wills describe her personal journey from Philadelphia to becoming a Marx scholar?
19:21–32:09
3
What does Wills identify as the core of Marx’s understanding of human nature and flourishing?
32:09–55:31
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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