On the afternoon of May 7, 2025, a distinguished academic lecture hosted by the School of Marxism at Shenzhen University was successfully held in Meeting Room 1600 of the Huiwen Building. Professor Wei Chuangang, Dean and doctoral supervisor of the School of Marxism at Jinan University, delivered a thought-provoking lecture titled “The Paradigm Revolution of Marx’s Thought on Justice and Its Implications.” The lecture was chaired by Professor Zhang Shouku, Vice Dean of the School of Marxism at Shenzhen University, and was attended by numerous faculty members and students.
At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Wei Chuangang pointed out that in recent years, Marx’s thought on justice has become a research focus in China’s theoretical circles. He emphasized that studying this topic today carries both necessity and significance.
He traced the developmental trajectory of how the study of Marx’s thought on justice has “heated up.” According to him, research on this subject originated in the West in the 1970s, when the emergence of Analytical Marxism and the Tucker–Wood Proposition pushed the issue of Marx’s relationship with justice from the margins to the center of academic debate. Western scholars have mainly discussed Marx’s thought on justice around three key propositions, each holding distinct perspectives:
How did Marx view justice?
The Tucker–Wood Proposition holds that Marx was negative toward justice and rights. Wood accused Marx of “neither intending to demonstrate capitalism’s injustice nor explicitly claiming that capitalism is unjust or unequal.” In contrast, Husami argued that Marx endorsed justice and had his own principles of justice. Lukes believed that Marx rejected juridical justice and supported liberatory justice, a view Professor Wei considered closer to Marx’s original intent.
Why did Marx criticize capitalism?
Representative arguments include: capitalism destroys “nonmoral goods” such as freedom and self-realization (Wood); capitalism leads to enslavement and unfreedom (Brenkert); and capitalism results in coercive exploitation (Cohen).
Is equality a goal of socialist justice?
Wood argued that Marx was indifferent to equality as an end and critical of equality as a right—a judgment Professor Wei agreed with, noting that Marx regarded “rights-based equality” as a trap of capitalist society. Miller and Roemer, however, held opposing views on this issue.
Tracing further back, Professor Wei noted that theoretical divergences over Marx’s view of justice can be seen as a continuation of the debate between “scientific Marxism” and “ethical Marxism.”
From Western Debates to Chinese Scholarship
The Western debates on Marx’s concept of justice later spread to China, prompting responses from scholars such as Wang Xinsheng, Duan Zhongqiao, and Li Dianlai. Chinese scholars have made significant academic contributions in several areas:
Providing reasonable explanations for Marx’s negative and critical remarks on justice.
Addressing the compatibility between historical materialism and justice.
Establishing the legitimacy of justice within Marx’s theoretical framework.
Reaching a basic consensus on the position of justice in Marx’s thought.
Six Dimensions of Marx’s Unique Understanding of Justice
Professor Wei elaborated on his own understanding of Marx’s thought on justice, stressing that moral and justice issues were never absent from Marx’s thought. Rather, Marx’s broader and deeper theoretical standpoint led him to form a distinctive view of justice. He explained six key dimensions through which Marx’s concept of justice can be understood:
Critical (or Deconstructive) Dimension:
Marx conducted an in-depth critique of distributive justice, rights-based justice, and civic justice within the context of production. He clarified why private property, rights-based equality, and civil society cannot serve as unquestionable foundations of justice or bring genuine justice to humanity.
Historical Dimension:
Marx regarded all concepts as dynamic and developmental, not eternal. Professor Wei emphasized that Marx’s critique of justice was not aimed at justice itself, but at understanding capitalist principles of justice as historically contingent.
Practical Dimension:
Marx saw the lack of active, practical factors as the main flaw of all traditional theories of justice.
Substantive Dimension:
Marx pursued a higher-level form of justice. For example, in the field of distribution, he went beyond distribution according to labor and aspired to the ultimate goal of distribution according to need.
Rooted (Foundational) Dimension:
Marx’s conception of justice must ultimately be examined within social production, where its real foundation lies.
Transcendent Dimension:
Echoing Lukács, Professor Wei noted that Marx’s theory of justice should be understood as a hierarchical dialectic, providing a typology of justice that develops through progressive levels of reflection.
In summarizing his analysis, Professor Wei emphasized that researchers must avoid overinterpreting Marx’s texts. He outlined several key limitations to bear in mind when examining Marx’s view of justice:
Marx did not systematically elaborate a theory of justice.
For Marx, justice was not the foremost virtue of a social system.
The critique of justice was not a primary form of Marx’s critique of capitalism.
Marx regarded justice as a form of ideology, and thus used it cautiously.
Marx did not view justice as the main means to awaken the proletariat; in fact, he feared that overreliance on the notion might mislead them.
Professor Wei concluded that many theoretical challenges remain in studying Marx’s thought on justice and called for continued scholarly exploration and innovation.
Toward the end of the lecture, Professor Wei discussed the new positioning of justice in contemporary China, noting that fairness and justice are now recognized as core socialist values in the new era. Although the term “justice” itself is less frequently used in Chinese discourse, the spirit of justice permeates Chinese thought, exemplified by the concept of “common prosperity”, which represents a distinctively Chinese interpretation of justice.
He further observed that current Chinese scholarship on Marx’s concept of justice still largely responds to Western frameworks. He suggested that future research should begin from China’s real social problems, thereby enhancing the practical relevance and contemporary significance of the study of Marx’s justice theory.
In his concluding remarks, Vice Dean Zhang Shouku expressed heartfelt gratitude to Professor Wei Chuangang for his illuminating lecture. He noted that Professor Wei’s insights into Marx’s theory of justice broadened the academic horizons of both faculty and students and stimulated deep reflection and intellectual engagement.
The lecture concluded successfully amid warm applause from the audience.
