Anarchism and Moral Philosophy

Papers

The following papers are not to be cited without the authors' express permission.

Papers will be removed from this site following the conference.

Andrew Beck, 'Anarchism, Society and Knowledge: An Anarchist Ethical Approach to Learning'

Kory DeClark, 'Autonomy, Taxation and Ownership: An Anarchist Critique of Kant’s Theory of Property'

Niall Scott, Anarchist Ethics, Responsibility and Health'

Paul McLaughlin, 'In Defence of Philosophical Anarchism'

Seferin James, 'The Reduction and the State'

Sébastien Caré, 'Anarcho-capitalism and Moral Philosophy: Deontological versus Consequentialist Ethics'

Stephen Condit, 'ECOSOPHY AND THE ANARCHIST CHARACTER'

Benjamin Franks, 'Anarchism: Ethics and Meta-Ethics'

Matt Wilson, 'Freedom Pressed: Anarchism, LIberalism and Conflict'

Panel Description and Paper Abstracts

Anarchist thought and ethics has always been intimately interconnected, whether in the overt discussions of ethics found in the works of the classical anarchist such as William Godwin and Peter Kropotkin, or in the moral language which infuses the discussions and debate of contemporary activists in their assessment of agency, methods and goals.

The Anarchist Studies Network is organising a conference and invites submissions for panels on Anarchism and Moral Philosophy, whether in terms of meta-ethics (such what is the status of ethical judgements? From where do they derive?), normative ethics (such as what are the moral principles that distinguish anarchism from other movements? Is Nozickian libertarianism compatible with anarchism?) and applied ethics (when is direct action justifiable? Is the exploitation of animals more important than the exploitation of humans?).

Whilst this call for papers is directed at those thinkers with specialist interests in moral philosophy, in keeping with the openness and questioning of disciplinary and social divisions we also welcome submissions and contributions from who cross disciplinary boundaries and those outside of academia.

Individual Paper Abstracts

Alex Prichard

'The Moral Sociology of War: A Tentative Vindication of Proudhon and Kropotkin'

This paper looks at recent developments in the evolutionary and social psychology of morality, to argue that many of Kropotkin and Proudhon's key assumptions about the nature of morality and of sociology have been borne out by contemporary analysis. My case study will be the literature on military psychology and post traumatic stress, non-firing in the military and military cultures. In each area we will see that Proudhon and Kropotkin were both remarkably perceptive. As Proudhon argued, transformations in military technology would clash with a basic human psychology and the 'reciprocal slaughtergrounds' of modern warfare would prompt new ways of legitimising and ordering social force. As military technology changes, so too will the social forces generated to restrain them. As modes of social force restrain military power, new forms of fighting will develop. Consistently high levels of non-firing and the persistence of 'buddy groups' within the military suggest that an appropriate methodological and normative approach to these issues can be found in Kropotkin’s theory of ‘mutual aid’. I will suggest that a more coherent attitude for anarchists vis-à-vis the military ought to be one of active campaigning for the health and human rights of individuals systematically trained and ordered to kill and be killed. What the modern literature suggests is that this training is vital to overcoming basic human resistance to killing and fighting. The paper will thus argue that a basic, if evolved, human nature informs our moral choices. However, following both Proudhon and Kropotkin, rather than assert whether this nature is either good or bad, this paper will suggest that a basic conception of morality, human reflex and mutuality can provide a more coherent basis for the critique of war, moral philosophy, domination and exploitation extant in contemporary (post)modern anarchist literature.

Andrew Beck

Anarchism, Society and Knowledge: An Anarchist Ethical Approach to Learning

In his work The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge Jean-François Lyotard comments on the nature of knowledge: “Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the world wide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control of access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor” (5). He continues on later in the same work to emphasize that, “the question of the State becomes intimately entwined with that of scientific knowledge,” and that, “the question of the legitimacy of science has been indissociable linked to that of the legitimation of the legislator” (31, 8). Working with the ideas of Lyotard and other theories on the nature of learning and knowledge, and its relationship to society, I will argue that in an anarchist society a moral imperative exists for individuals to actively pursue knowledge of all types, and to facilitate the learning of others. This pursuit and support of learning is important both on the practical level as a mechanism that can function as a binding agent within a society, and on the sociopolitical level as a way for the public to reclaim the role as the legitimizer of knowledge and insure that an elite cannot be formed through controlling access to knowledge and education. In a society where intellectual activity has become an important element in production, allowing equal access to the education necessary for such work, is important yet insufficient. Unlike other means of production, such as a factory, knowledge is largely intangible and will quickly vanish if it is not passed on. Because of this, and its potential to be used as leverage to control or manipulate groups of people which do not possess it, when one learns they both preserve knowledge that is important for the community as a whole, and insure the inability of any individual, minority group to dominate other members of the society. These characteristics are at the root of the moral nature of learning.

Costas Athanasopoulos

Duty and Anarchism: Why the Anarchist has a duty to disregard the state.

The paper will investigate through a discussion of a recent exposition and critique of both political and philosophical anarchism (Knowles 2001 and forthcoming) why the anarchist core thesis may be regarded as problematic in making the claim that the citizen has no duty to obey the state. Through a more sympathetic reading of key texts from Kropotkin, Proudhon, Tolstoy, Sartre and Gandhi however, an alternative view of anarchism will be supported, according to which there are other (ethical) considerations besides citizenship which necessitate a different kind of duty for the anarchist: the duty to disregard the state when it comes to ethical choices and perspectives, which ultimately may lead to the political duty of disobeying the state law and of subverting social norms and customs.

Benjamin Franks

Anarchist Meta-Ethics

The distinction between the competing versions of anarchism, can often be identified through their distinctive normative ethical and meta-ethical approaches. Whilst individualist (or philosophical anarchism) appeals to deontological theories (such as Robert Wolff), social anarchism is often either consequentialist (Sergei Nechayev) or prefigurative, and the latter of these is consistent with practise-based virtue ethics. There are, however, important meta-ethical differences between different ethical positions, which have rarely been considered. There is a central tension between Moral Realist position (that moral statements are objectively verifiable based on universal standards (Smith, 2001:399-409), amoralist position (in which ethical theories are irrelevant to political debates) and a narrow subjectivist position (right and wrong just a matter of individual opinion). The latter has more recently been endorsed by theorists, such as Saul Newman, interested in the intersection of poststructuralism with anarchism (often referred to as postanarchists).

The strengths and weaknesses of these competing meta-ethical is assessed to show that neither moral realism, subjectivism or amoralism is sufficient for anti-hierarchical practices, and a modest (multi-)functionalism (a view that values can be assessed in relation to particular arenas, which intersect, and whose standards adapt) is proposed as an alternative.

Jones Irwin

Is Nietzsche an Anarchist? – Some Reflections on the Affinity Between Nietzschean Thought and Anarchism

Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals polemically deconstructs the history of Western moralisms, and demonstrates much of their underlying hypocrises and implicit power plays. In this measure, at least this part of Nietzsche’s philosophical project can be seen as anarchist, and analogous to the critique which Bakunin puts forward of the residual power relations in the Marxist emancipatory project. For Nietzsche, the irony is that the philosophies which most claim to be virtuous and moral are those which precisely emasculate their own hidden will-to-power.

In this paper, I will take cognisance of this Nietzschean claim, which has also been central to the development of anarchist thought – a suspicion of authority, and especially when it presents itself as supposedly benevolent and good. Within a general anarchist tradition, the value of authority per se is contested and this can provide a crucial framework for understanding key elements of Nietzsche’s own work.

However, tensions in the affinity between Nietzschean thought and anarchism are also evident on both sides. From an anarchist perspective, certain motifs within Nietzsche’s texts such a the Eternal Return or the Ubermensch risk a falling back into metaphysics or mysticism while, from a Nietzschean perspective, the moral imperative of anarchism might be subjected to the same critique Nietzsche applies to other forms of ethics.

The paper will conclude with a reflection on how this debate is played out in a more contemporary setting, concerning both affinities and disaffinities in the respective influences of neo-Nietzscheanism and neo-anarchism on current French political theory.

Matt Wilson

Freedom, Conflict and Values.

Freedom is a central principle within all anarchist thought. Alexander Berkman's position is reasonably exemplary: “Anarchism means that you should be free; that no one should enslave you, boss you, rob you, or impose upon you. It means you should be free to do the things you want to do, and that you should not be compelled to do what you don't want to do.”

But to what extent is such a pure expression of freedom viable as a political and moral idea? It has been well noted that freedom is a complicated concept, open to numerous interpretations, as well as plain abuse. The distinctions between positive and negative freedom may add a little clarity, but even here anarchists disagree which form to support. David Graeber suggests anarchists follow negative freedom; Randall Amster believes they tend towards positive freedom. And even when a community of anarchists know - and agree on - what they mean when they talk of freedom, problems persist. How do we reconcile competing freedoms? Is freedom always to be treated as the highest good – over justice, or equality? If not, how do we find an appropriate balance? Are we free to cause harm? If not, who defines harm? And who does what to stop us harming?

Pressing questions indeed, which liberals and communitarians have written extensively about. The same, somewhat strangely, somewhat alarmingly, can not be said of anarchists, especially within contemporary, 'movement' focused anarchism. In fact, if we take a random sample of recent, and in other ways excellent, anarchist writing, such as those of Graeber or Uri Gordon, or collective publications like that of Trapese or Notes From Nowhere, we are likely to find very little – if anything – about the complexities of freedom, and how anarchists answer the many difficult questions that these complexities and difficulties raise. Where are the discussions about how we might deal with dangerous individuals, about who should be free – animals? unborn children?, about how to act when consensus cannot be reached, about positive and negative freedom, about genuine conflicts of freedom? Almost nowhere.

Why is this so? One reason is that anarchists are, by definition, committed to a libertarian ethos that rejects authority and coercion; however, the problems freedom throws at us make it all but impossible to apply these principles without certain clauses; discussing freedom, then, will inevitably turn at some point into discussing reasons for and ways of denying certain freedoms – something anarchists are extremely uncomfortable doing. This discomfort is laudable; it demonstrates a genuine commitment to libertarian principles; it is also, however, dangerous. By refusing to engage in discussions about the limits of freedom, anarchists perhaps hope to stick to an ideal, where compromise is seen as unacceptable. But ignoring a problem does not make it go away.

Anarchists also believe that, through consensus decision-making, most disputes will be resolved within communities; it is not our job to resolve these future problems in advance. If disputes can not be resolved, community members must be free to leave and join another group. Consensus has considerable potential, but is doubtful that it will be able to reconcile all differences. When it fails, the notion of relocation is, to be blunt, entirely unacceptable. People can not simply be expected to pack up and leave their communities, their friends, their homes, their jobs. Just as there are limits to freedom, so too are there limits to the viability of consensus.

It seems then that anarchists have generally neglected to consider the ways in which freedoms may by necessity be curtailed, either through conscious deliberation, or through the predominance of certain values or norms. If anarchism is to be a viable philosophy in an industrialised, plural world, it needs to come to terms with how to deal with these pressing issues. Anarchists already hold other values in high regard; equality, respect, justice, sustainability. These values need to be articulated more clearly and honestly; when we talk of diversity, we must recognise that not every belief is welcome; when we talk about freedom, we must recognise not every act is acceptable. Only other values can help us explain and explore these limitations to freedom; if they are not expressed, they will exist nonetheless, and they will be all the more illiberal as a result.

Paul McLaughlin

In Defence of Philosophical Anarchism

This paper will explore the historical relationship between anarchism and moral philosophy. It will trace the emergence of philosophical anarchism, as a specific moral position, through the Enlightenment tradition; and it will examine two associated assaults on this tradition – by Stirner and Marx – that led later anarchists, from Bakunin onwards, to distance themselves from philosophy as such (conceived as a methodology applied by specific social classes under specific social circumstances). It will also demonstrate the extent to which philosophical anarchism has been misrepresented by both its supporters (like Robert Paul Wolff) and its opponents (like John P. Clarke) in the twentieth century. Finally, a contemporary form of ‘weak’ but ‘engaged’ philosophical anarchism will be defended against the objections of activists and postmoderns.

Michael Vaughn, University of Warwick

“Was Bergson an Anarchist? The Metaphysics and Ethics of Creativity”

Working on Henri Bergson’s social thought, it is increasingly apparent to me that his is, in broad outline, an anarchist philosophy. However, as a philosopher whose research and writing was for the most part (at least on the face of it) engaging with the physical and life sciences rather than political sciences, the tone and emphasis of his work would bear little resemblance to that of canonical anarchist thinkers. That is to say, while Bergson’s metaphysics and his views on science are worked through in incredible detail, his ethics remain largely implicit.

What themes in Bergson suggest anarchism, then? First, he views nature and human nature as open, creative processes with their own emergent order. Second, he formulates a critique of the existing order, particularly the scientific, technological and moral order that doesn’t recognise the reality of creative emergence, and actually inhibits it through a mechanisation of nature and habituation of human nature. Third, he has a vision of an alternative “open society” where individuals participate in rather than seek to control natural processes and each other. Fourth, he has a highly developed methodology for going about realising this paradigm shift in the way we live (which in modern terms would be a shift towards sustainability, cooperation etc). And finally, he makes a clear distinction between ‘society’ as a natural emergent order and ‘the state’ as an imposed order that fails to follow what he calls the “articulations of the real” (on this last point he would incline towards social anarchism, his work on evolutionary biology suggesting that society is as natural and real as individuality and doesn’t have a voluntary or contractual origin).

Bergson’s metaphysics is based on the reality of change and creativity at the physical, biological, psychological and social levels. Events, physical or social, taken in their real complexity, are never ‘given in advance’. However, Bergson is not a radical libertarian and creativity does not mean anything goes. Metaphysical creativity as a kind of self organisation or continual emergence of order has real articulations. This provides Bergson with a basis on which to oppose both the technological reorganisation of the material world and the political reorganisation of society as fundamentally inappropriate to the creative, emergent nature of real organisation. What’s more, at all levels a centralised, premeditated, top-down organisation exerts a real inhibition on natural processes as we treat them according to our needs rather than according to their natures.

Interestingly, Bergson advocated a liberal democratic politics, emphasising equality. However, I would suggest that the notion of equality is incompatible with a complex, process-based ontology because equality precisely depends on an abstract universal law being imposed on every individual. Now this is the very opposite of an emergent order the very nature of which is to introduce real difference. In conclusion, I will indicate that this tension in Bergson’s thought (which seems to me to be present in much anarchist thought) between the ethics he appears to want and that which his metaphysics will allow him, may be resolved if there was a concept of equality that could be based on the really emergent qualitative differences, rather than an abstractly imposed quantitative identity, between individuals.

Dr Niall Scott

Anarchist Ethics, Responsibility and Health.

In this paper I will explore the perspective provided by anarchist ideas on ethics and responsibility to see if they can be useful in pursuing the goal of individual health promotion in terms of the patient-led NHS model. Where anarchism promotes individual freedom, autonomy and responsible action in its ethical outlook, some key problems arise. Firstly, such a stance, if used to support improving individual lifestyle choices, has to deal with the difficult issues of consumer choice. Secondly the role of the state viewed by some forms of anarchism as fundamentally limiting human freedom, so how does this sit with the role of the state in the promotion of healthy lifestyles? Thirdly, individual freedom in anarchist thought needs to be robust enough to dispense with consumer ‘freedom’, which is arguably at the root of many unhealthy lifestyles and behaviours. An emphasis on a responsible individualism however, can easily neglect the relationship between health and social responsibility. My second aim is to see if an anarchist conception of individual responsibility with regard to the promotion of healthy lifestyle can be successful at the in-group/community level.

Sébastien Caré

Anarcho-capitalism and Moral Philosophy: Deontological versus Consequentialist Ethics

The most important controversy among anarcho-capitalist theorists concerns the question of whether their doctrine should be based on deontological or consequentialist ethics. Right-based anarcho-capitalists, such as Murray Rothbard, claim that a stateless society is founded on natural law basis, more precisely on a nonaggression axiom according to which the only justification for the use of force is to deal with aggressive force initiated by someone else. However, consequentialists such as David Friedman argue that rights are merely human constructs created through contracts, and that a libertarian system can only come about by contract between self-interested parties who agree to refrain from initiating coercion against each other. In that perspective, an anarcho-capitalist society is justified by its advantageous consequences for all parties concerned.

The aim of this paper is to compare the two moral versions of anarcho-capitalism, notably their implications on the two different types of society they respectively lead to. Indeed, deontological anarcho-capitalism supposes that a universal system of rights (including the sovereignty of the individual and the principle of non-aggression) would spontaneously emerge from the different decisions of private courts. Rothbard holds that this legal code would be based on a widespread acceptance of the ethic of reciprocity that would pledge the courts to follow it. However, consequentialist anarcho-capitalism claims that there is not such thing as a universal set of rights that would transcend individual preferences. David Friedman rather proposes that “the systems of law will be produced for profit on the open market, just as books and bras are produced today”. In other words, people would have the law system they pay for, and laws would differ from place to place depending on the tastes of the people who would buy them. Friedman has then to aknowledge that unlibertarian laws may result from an anarcho-capitalist system, such as laws against drugs or homosexuality. But he thinks this would be rare, given that “if the value of a law to it supporters is less than its cost to its victims, that law […] will not survive in an anarcho-capitalist society”.

The confrontation of these two versions of anarcho-capitalism underlines their respective weaknesses, and the literally “precariousness” of anarcho-capitalism. Nothing, except the “prayer” of its theorists, can ensure that an anarcho-capitalist society would actually be libertarian and effectively maximize individual liberty.

Sam Clark

Anarchist Perfectionism: structure, history, prospects

Recent work in intellectual history and philosophy has uncovered and developed perfectionism as a strand of ethical thought distinct from utilitarianism, Kantianism, and virtue ethics. In this exploratory paper, I consider the structure, history, and prospects of a specifically anarchist perfectionism. I begin by describing perfectionism in general. The perfectionist claims: (1) that the right is the promotion of the good; (2) that the good is human flourishing; and (3) that human flourishing consists in the cultivation and use of certain social, aesthetic, emotional, rational, moral, and/or reflexive capacities. Next, I show, by investigating problems in interpretation and critique, that some classical anarchist thought can productively be understood as perfectionist. I concentrate on the roles that human nature and its development have played in anarchist thought, on the capacities anarchists have regarded as central to that nature, and on the social and material conditions of cultivation of those capacities. Finally, I make some suggestions about the possible shape and content of a revitalised anarchist perfectionism. The result of this work is both a distinctive understanding of the history of anarchist thought, and an anarchist ethic which we now may find attractive.

Seferin James

Problems with the Phenomenological Reduction and the State

Twentieth Century French Philosopher Jacques Derrida is not exactly known as an anarchist but this paper will argue that there is the possibility for a fertile crossover between Derrida's philosophy and anarchist politics. The promise of such a possibility for Derrida's philosophy is that it represents the most likely path for its effective politicisation. The promise of such a possibility for anarchism is that the difficulties facing activists in their desire for radical experience, as well as the problem of the state, can be effectively reformulated. It is therefore argued that there is good reason to explain Derrida's philosophy to anarchists and anarchism to Derrida's philosophy. This paper begins with an exposition of Husserl's phenomenological reduction and Derrida's critical engagement with the possibility of this methodology. This paper then argues that the phenomenological reduction is not confined to Husserl's philosophy but is actually a common, though perhaps unrecognised, abstract trope of thought in a number of politically relevant contexts. Derrida's problematisation of the phenomenological reduction offers a means of explaining some of the difficulties faced by feminists and anarchists seeking a radically different experience of life without patriarchy and authority. As well as explaining some of the problems faced by radical activists, Derrida's problematisation of the phenomenological reduction lends itself superbly to an ethical questioning of the state. This ethical argument suggested by Derrida's mode of thought is that attempts to instantiate a moral structure through the state necessarily involves an impossible attempt to suspend morality in relation to the state itself. This argument not only functions as a reformulation of the classic anarchist critique of sovereign authority, it also creates a way of effectively explaining the problem with the current extension of state power by understanding them as attempts to put morality even further out of play.

Stefan Riegelnik

The Failure of Moral Philosophy

Moral reasoning is reasoning about what one ought to do because it is morally right or wrong. This means it has to be shown on what conditions moral normative statements are justified. Since moral judgments are directed toward actual actions and decisions, reasoning about moral statements is not mere sophistry. Moral reasoning belongs to the realm of what is called practical philosophy, and philosophers in this branch seek to and answers to the question on what grounds moral judgments could be justified. Thus, David Hume asks [...]whether they [Morals] be derived from Reason, or from Sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and innerer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgment of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human species.(David Hume: An Enquiry into the Principles of Morals)

But moral philosophers have not been able to put moral judgments on a ground such that it could be understandable why persons necessarily have to follow certain norms. This is so because moral philosophy in all its varieties has not succeeded in showing that moral judgments are justified out of pure practical reasoning (Kant), basic intuitions (Moore), or sentiments people have as human beings (Hume). As a consequence, various theories have been defended that represent a kind of moral substitute, e.g. utilitarianism or contractualism. But all these theories fail in answering the free rider problem', and, more seriously, the necessity to participate in or to fulfill a contract'. Any contract that is supposed to constitute the interactions in a society as whole cannot but justified with reference to some higher-order-principle, which ultimately would be a moral norm. My skeptical attitude toward moral theories of any kind may provoke disagreement. But what I want to emphasize is, that even if moral judgments are shown to be true or justified, at the end it is always up to the particular person to decide whether to follow a norm or not.

Thus, first, I want to point out that morality cannot be used to induce changes in a society. In addition, I will show that the lack of justified normative statements means that no order or hierarchy in a society is morally justified. As a conclusion I want to question the relationship between moral philosophy and anarchism as it was prominently defended by Georges Sorel and sometimes hinted at by Peter Kropotkin.

Stephen Conduit

Ecosophy and the Anarchist Character

This paper suggests a possible foundation for a practical commitment to an ecologicalp hilosophy of anarchism and its requisite social structures in an indifferent or antagonistic environment. The paper assumes that anarchism is fundamentally if perhaps only inchoately a doctrine of ecological responsibility. Such responsibility can be formulated at a personal level as an ecosophy. Based on work by Naess, Drengson, Devall and Emerson, ecosophy is initially and tentatively imagined as a practical wisdom about life’s final causes as experienced in nature, with one’s own life as the realm of communal responsibility with nature, one of its purposes. The implications of the idea of ecosophy are correspondingly anarchist, and both are strengthened by making explicit their implicit commensurability. To do this requires a prefiguring commitment to ecosophical anarchist community, an immense ethical burden for its adherent. Thus there is a need to formulate traits of character, perhaps as virtues or as dispositions to virtue, which to the extent they can be acted on reciprocally with others similarly disposed, acquire external validity as experiences of ecosophical anarchist community before such a community exists or is even possible. The communal nurturing of these character traits may be evidence of its possibility. The character traits here briefly stipulated are: vulnerability, indeterminateness, purposiveness, economy, responsibility, communality, reflexivity and frugality. For each trait an ecosophical meaning is indicated, from which coherent, communally valid ecosophies might be inferred, and the idea of ecosophy made more explicit. This in turn can inform the formulation of an eco-anarchist doctrine which must be and can be justified as a mode of ecological responsibility. The argument is circular.

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