Page - 79 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

thematerialist view of history 79 lysis.67 Iwill thereforefocusmyattentionontheelementsthatbecamecauses ofdisagreementinthepolemicbetweenKautskyandBauer. Kautskydidnotacknowledgethatatranscendentalworldmightexistbeside the empirical world. Nor did he, like the neo-Kantians andAustromarxists, think of the epistemology of values as a philosophical question. Rather, he thought that itwasonlypossible to solve thequestionofvalue judgementby researchingtherealhistoricalandsocialprocess.Kautskynegatedthedualism ofbeing andought, arguing that by investigating the causal relationship, the question ofmorality could be resolved in the sphere of experience. In other words,itwasnecessarytofindoutwhyhumansmakeonemoralchoiceinstead of another under given conditions. Hence, he considered the descriptive- geneticexplanatorymodeas theonlycorrectapproachto thevaluequestion. As iswell-known,Kautskyonly granted the status of a science todescriptive ethics,whileplacingnormativeethicsentirelyoutsidethescientificrealm.Like theAustromarxists,hewasscepticalaboutthescientificityofnormativereflec- tion,evenif their startingpointsweredifferent:Kautskyassumedtheunityof knowledgeonvaluesandfacts,whereas theAustromarxistsheldtheopposite view. ForKautsky, the socio-historicalprocesswasanextensionof theprocesses occurringinnature.Hethereforebelievedthatearlyformsofmoralitycouldbe foundintheanimalworld.Darwindemonstratedthatthestruggleforsurvival amongsocialanimalsandhumansproduceddrivesandinstinctsthatregulated relationshipsbetweenhumans incommunitiesandservedthesurvivalof the species.Basinghis theoryonDarwin’s findings,Kautsky transferredthesocial drivefromtheanimalworlddirectlyontotheworldofhumans,thustracingthe rootsofmoralitybacktothenaturalessenceofhumanity.However,his lineof argumentwascertainlynotfreeofnaturalisticsimplifications.Indeed,Kautsky assumedthat thestruggle for survival guaranteedthecontinuationofhuman history,whichdependedon three fundamental innate drives that originated intheanimalworld: theself-preservation, reproductive,andsocialdrives.The emergence of the social drive, which was decisive for the development of morality,originated intheearliest formsoforganisationbasedonanimaland humanstruggleforsurvival.Materialconditionsforcedhumanstoadoptmoral normstoregulate social life (Kautskydrawsaveilof silenceover the fact that normative agreementsmight havepreceded thesemoral norms).Onemight concludefromKautsky’scontemplationsthatmoral lawisrootedinthesocial 67 CompareKołakowski2005,pp.382–6;Waldenberg1976,pp.144–6;Rudziński1975,pp.48– 65.