Dissertation:
Freedom and Free Time in the Thought of Karl Marx
Despite the fact that Marx is often characterized as a philosopher who uniquely grasped free time’s value, few scholarly accounts examine his notion of free time in detail. In my dissertation, I do just that. First, I argue that there is an important and largely overlooked connection between freedom and free time in Marx’s thought. In his treatment of these topics, Marx is concerned with the question of how freedom is possible for vulnerable, living creatures, who must rely on each other and the natural world around them in order to survive. For human beings, he concludes, fully free activity consists in the development of valuable human capacities for their own sake, rather than merely for immediate practical ends. By their very nature, some human capacities can only be developed in our free time, after our pressing physical and social needs have been met. Against others in the literature, I claim that these notions of freedom and free time are central to Marx’s critique of capitalist exploitation. Marx views exploitation as depriving those who suffer it of sufficient free time to develop their capacities, in a manner that becomes technologically unnecessary as capitalism advances. We can call this Marx’s account of one of capitalism’s temporal harms: in his picture, one of the intrinsic features of capitalism, namely that it is exploitative, unnecessarily prevents the vast majority from possessing sufficient free time to lead good human lives. I conclude by assessing the plausibility of his account of the temporal harm of capitalism from the vantage of contemporary social critique. While intuitively plausible, I argue it must be elaborated in several respects in order to have normative force.
Papers:
Forthcoming:
"Was Marx a Republican?" Forthcoming in NOMOS LXX: Capitalism and Socialism. Recipient of the 2025 NOMOS (the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy) Guest Student Scholar award
Abstract: A recent, influential reading of Marx argues that we should consider him to be a member of the republican tradition. Proponents of this reading claim that Marx subscribed to the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination. The first aim of this paper is to argue against this widespread view, particularly by showing that it obscures core features of Marx’s thought about freedom. Rather than focusing on the domination of some human beings by others, as republican accounts do, Marx’s discussions of freedom often concern the question of how freedom is possible for living beings, who must struggle with their natural environment in order to survive. Marx argues that freedom requires that human beings gain collective control over our environment, so that we that we can develop valuable human capacities after meeting our basic needs. In light of this fact, the second aim of this paper is to argue that Marx’s conception of freedom raises a significant challenge for the republican tradition. Some republicans claim that socialists ought to accept the republican ideal of freedom because it provides the most comprehensive account of capitalism’s threat to economic liberties. However, Marx’s conception of freedom appears well-positioned to capture social ills for which the republican tradition may fail to account.
Under review:
“Marx’s Ethical Critique of Exploitation"
Abstract: In the contemporary literature, it is often assumed that Marx’s critique of exploitation is what the philosopher Rahel Jaeggi terms justice-oriented. That is, it is assumed Marx believes that the capitalist mode of production is inherently exploitative and that exploitation is objectionable because it is unjust. However, I argue that Marx also has an ethical critique of exploitation that is not treated by those who merely focus on this phenomenon’s injustice. According to Marx, a good human life is one in which individuals develop valuable human capacities, and such development requires as a necessary but not sufficient condition the possession of free time. Further, Marx claims that exploitation deprives individuals of such free time and so prevents them from living fully good lives. This feature of his account of exploitation is of significant historical interest: it enables us to defend the unity of Marx’s concepts of exploitation and alienation as well as argue that his mature critique of capitalism is more thoroughly grounded in his commitments about human nature than interpreters often suppose. It is also of normative interest: Marx’s ethical critique promises to contribute valuable normative resources to the contemporary assessment of capitalism, particularly by identifying an ethically bad feature of this economic system that often goes undiscussed, namely that it intrinsically perpetuates certain forms of temporal harm.
In preparation for submission:
"Marx's Radical Account of Free Time"
Abstract: Insofar as Marx’s account of the value of free time is discussed in the literature, it tends to be interpreted in two ways. Subjectivist interpreters claim that Marx believes free time is valuable because it is a necessary condition for our performance of actions we value as ends in themselves. Neo-Aristotelian interpreters, by contrast, claim that Marx believes such time is a necessary condition for our achievement of the chief human good, artistic and scientific pursuits. In this paper, I argue for an alternative to both, which I call the radical interpretation. Against subjectivists, I argue that Marx’s account is “radical,” in his idiosyncratic usage of this term, because it is rooted in his substantive commitments about human nature. According to Marx’s conception, free time is good for us because it is a necessary condition for the development of certain valuable human capacities as ends rather than as mere means. Against neo-Aristotelians, however, I argue that Marx views such capacities as open-ended and incapable of being specified in advance. In his picture, because human beings intervene in our life activity in self-conscious and purposive ways, human capacities will tend to become richer and more varied over time, in a manner even the most well-positioned observer would be unable to predict.
Early stages:
"What Enables Capitalist Domination? Marx, Domination, and the Capitalist Class"
"The Unity of Marx's Thought about Freedom"
"Is Domestic Labor Exploited? Revisiting Socialist Feminist Debates"
"Forced Reproductive Labor"