Ludwig Woltmann and the Unqualified Moral Commitment to Equality and Freedom for All

Woltmann reminded Marxist intellectuals that while it was clear to Marx that individuals and groups differed on the basis of any number of physical and psychological properties, empirical reality did not in any way influence his unqualified moral commitment to equality and freedom for all—whatever the difference. That clearly implied that the moral commitment to full equality for all human beings did not require empirical legitimation. Woltmann argued that moral judgments were to be systematically distinguished, in kind, from empirical truths. One’s moral judgments are not determined by facts.

--A. James Gregor, Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 57.