Book talk: Absolute Ethical Life — Michael Lazarus in conversation with Bruno Leipold

Aristotle, Hegel and Marx: Michael Lazarus in conversation with Bruno Leipold @ Housmans Bookshop

Karl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how freedom and rational agency are impacted by a social world formed by value under capitalism, with consequences for philosophy today.

Michael Lazarus situates Marx within a shared tradition of ethical inquiry, placing him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. Lazarus traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx’s work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre. Ultimately, the book claims that Marx’s value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement. In this normative interpretation of Marx, Lazarus integrates recent moral philosophy with a historically specific analysis of capitalism as a social form of life. He challenges contemporary political and economic theory to insist that any conception of modern life needs to account for capitalism.

Michael Lazarus will be joined in conversation with Bruno Leipold. We expect the conversation to last from around 45 minutes to an hour, followed by an open discussion with the audience.

Our speakers: Michael Lazarus is Lecturer in Political Theory in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx, published by Stanford University Press, is his first book. Bruno Leipold teaches at the London School of Economics and is the author of Citizen Marx (Princeton University Press, 2024).