ABSTRACT
Friedrich Engels in his graveside speech at Karl Marx’s funeral in 1883 depicted Marx in a dual role as a revolutionist and as a man of science. Two moral codes may be equally 'sound' and two moral claims may be equally 'justified' or 'reasonable.' There is no way of establishing what is 'the true moral code' or 'set of moral beliefs.' Shaw considers whether historical materialism commits one to meta-ethical relativism and concludes that it does not. Historical materialism does not create a form of conceptual imprisonment in which such moral visions are impossible. In a way that is fair enough but it needs clarification and when that is carried through the people can come to see how historical materialism does not require morality to totter.
