Anarchist Ethics

Ethics is a bad word. Ethics is an idea created by bosses as a means of control. Anarchits are free. We don't do ethics.

OK. Personally I go for

No gods, no masters
From each according to ability, to each according to need
Plato's concept of justice as set out in tee Republic

Anarcho capitalists are not anarchists and the none aggression principle is bullshit.

and for trolley problems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86PUB4u2s2A

or maybe
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/106

do they?

maybe i've been lucky but i've never encountered an anarchist who took the none aggression principle seriously

Anarchism is about class struggle and some basic principals about how we should build a new world. In that new world they'll be debates about ethics just as there are today. I'm not really sure anarchism as a movement has or should have much to say about ethics.

The idea of ethics and morals in anarchist politics is not very populate around here which is, in my view, pretty detrimental and a damned shame. That said, I'm in full agreement that the non-aggression principle is bullshit.

This made me lol;

maybe i've been lucky but i've never encountered an anarchist who took the none aggression principle seriously

My experience too.
There was a story posted on here about some guy shouting 'you're breaking the NAP' whilst Greek anarchists gave him a good kicking. That was a classic.

Seriously though how can a principle that upholds property rights line up with anarchism. It's oxymoronic and er, just plain moronic.

Anyways, this thread may be of interest. http://libcom.org.libcom.org/forums/general/morality-emotion-politics-04012016

Ethics is a bad word. Ethics is an idea created by bosses as a means of control. Anarchits are free. We don't do ethics

.

Yeah, that's just incorrect.

I quite like the way it's put in the Anarchist Federation's aims & principles -- I think the last sentence that I've put in bold contains the seeds of an anarchist (although not uniquely anarchist) ethics:

Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are also expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, ability and age, and in these ways one section of the working class oppresses another. This divides us, causing a lack of class unity in struggle that benefits the ruling class. Oppressed groups are strengthened by autonomous action which challenges social and economic power relationships. To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as a political level.

Clearly you can ask questions about this approach along the lines of:

i) Does it suggest that oppression is bad because and only because it divides the working class? (I don't think that's the implication, but it's pretty close) and
ii) "To achieve our goal...." maybe implying that there's no intrinsic worth in relinquishing power over each other, it's just something we have to do to achieve our ends.

This might look like hairsplitting (or would if I had any hair), but I think these questions about "Doing x to achieve y" vs "Doing x because z is just fucking wrong" are quite important. Looking at a lot of leftist discourse about racism, for example, you sometimes get the impression that, if only someone could invent a form of racism that didn't Divide The Class, it would be fine.

Anarchist ethics would be:

No private property on capital
No monopoly on violence
No privileged authorities
No exploitation of work
No racism
No sexism
No discrimination of sexual orientation
No discrimination of religious conviction
No irreversible effects on the environment

I've thought about this a great deal, and I believe that the basic premise of anarchist ethics is that we have responsibility to one another. Over and beyond any sort of conception of rights, we have a commitment to each other and society as a whole.

From there, we arrive at smashing capitalism, the state, patriarchy, racism, and so forth.

FS98

non-aggression principle

As it comes with all sorts of baggage not really. Because Rand seems to use the non-aggression principle to avoid the need for a police force / army to defend property. I think anarchists would agree that violence has no place within an anarchist society but would include property rights, possession of capital etc as forms of violence.
I think anarchists do have ethics because we have a conception of what is right and wrong and we expect ourselves to live by it.

Noah Fence

The idea of ethics and morals in anarchist politics is not very populate around here which is, in my view, pretty detrimental and a damned shame.

I wouldn't give it too much credence if I were you. Just ask such a person why they're e.g. communist anarchists and not one or another form of Leninist and you'll be very quickly through the thin wall of posture and into ethics. It's unavoidable.

Gulai Polye #16

Your list of nine negative anarchist ethics puts me in mind of Calvinism and the need to overcome ‘total depravity’ as every person is enslaved to sin. Surely you can construct some positive inspirational standards.

factvalue

Noah Fence

The idea of ethics and morals in anarchist politics is not very populate around here which is, in my view, pretty detrimental and a damned shame.

I wouldn't give it too much credence if I were you. Just ask such a person why they're e.g. communist anarchists and not one or another form of Leninist and you'll be very quickly through the thin wall of posture and into ethics. It's unavoidable.

Leninism is counter revolutionary

FS98

That why I clarified and said the NAP without the property stuff. Basically the idea that the initiation of force is wrong. I have often heard the word state defined as an institution with a monopoly on the legitimate initiation of force. It seems that anarchists want to remove the monopoly on legitimate initiation of force from the institution.

even without the property stuff it still justifies unlimited force against who ever "started it"

radicalgraffiti

Leninism is counter revolutionary

That's has no bearing on the point factvalue is making. What he is saying is that the justifications for why someone is a Leninist, anarchist or whatever will boil down to ethics because in the end both Leninists and anarchists will say that they are doing the right thing. As soon as someone starts to justify doing or not doing something in terms of it being right, good, bad etc. (rather than making a judgement in terms of whether doing something is effective), you are on the terrain of ethics.

My take on all of this: anarchism without ethics is worth fuck all.

Khawaga

radicalgraffiti

Leninism is counter revolutionary

That's has no bearing on the point factvalue is making. What he is saying is that the justifications for why someone is a Leninist, anarchist or whatever will boil down to ethics because in the end both Leninists and anarchists will say that they are doing the right thing. As soon as someone starts to justify doing or not doing something in terms of it being right, good, bad etc. (rather than making a judgement in terms of whether doing something is effective), you are on the terrain of ethics.

My take on all of this: anarchism without ethics is worth fuck all.

You're both right. I agree with all that, except that the clause in bold is also ethical, in that this form of consequentialist ethics of Leninist vanguardism, based on 'scientifically' predetermined goals, undermines the autonomy of the class and instrumentalises a proletariat for the purpose of achieving these externally imposed objectives, in a manner more or less ethically isomorphic to the alienation at the basis of the capitalist production process. Compare this consequentialist paternalism to a class struggle anarchist ethic of destroying alienation by the creation of non-hierarchical social relations, rather than creating leaders to act on behalf of the class.

To add to the button's remarks earlier, I can't speak for them - and apologies if I've got this wrong - but I don't think the AF buy into utilitarianism, although I know one or two who favoured platformism were claiming it as their ethics of choice when I was a member a few years back.

What is it that lies behind anarchists' rejection of racism or sexism if not ethics?

I agree with all that, except that the clause in bold is also ethical, in that this form of consequentialist ethics of Leninist vanguardism, based on 'scientifically' predetermined goals, undermines the autonomy of the class and instrumentalises a proletariat for the purpose of achieving these externally imposed objectives, in a manner more or less ethically isomorphic to the alienation at the basis of the capitalist production process.

I get what you're saying, but I'd say that a consequentialist logic is precisely what makes Leninism unethical. Then again, I do understand that a Leninist would argue for this shite being ethical.

ethics or not ethics isn't a valid question, since everyone will be applying some ideas that can be considered ethics, even if they don't call it that. So it think the disagreement between people like Noah and others over morals is actually about different ideas of how ethics should work.

Morals ain't ethics though.

Khawaga

I agree with all that, except that the clause in bold is also ethical, in that this form of consequentialist ethics of Leninist vanguardism, based on 'scientifically' predetermined goals, undermines the autonomy of the class and instrumentalises a proletariat for the purpose of achieving these externally imposed objectives, in a manner more or less ethically isomorphic to the alienation at the basis of the capitalist production process.

I get what you're saying, but I'd say that a consequentialist logic is precisely what makes Leninism unethical. Then again, I do understand that a Leninist would argue for this shite being ethical.

i'm not all that informed about ethics, but do you disagree with this?

Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.

Because if this is accurate i don't see how Leninism can be consequentialist, if they considered the consequence of there actions they wouldn't be lennists.

Khawaga

I agree with all that, except that the clause in bold is also ethical, in that this form of consequentialist ethics of Leninist vanguardism, based on 'scientifically' predetermined goals, undermines the autonomy of the class and instrumentalises a proletariat for the purpose of achieving these externally imposed objectives, in a manner more or less ethically isomorphic to the alienation at the basis of the capitalist production process.

I get what you're saying, but I'd say that a consequentialist logic is precisely what makes Leninism unethical. Then again, I do understand that a Leninist would argue for this shite being ethical.

Sorry, clumsily written, I meant that it was still a form of ethical evaluation. And I agree, it's not ends-means immanent, so the means end up as the ends.

radical

Because if this is accurate i don't see how Leninism can be consequentialist, if they considered the consequence of there actions they wouldn't be lennists.

Yes, I agree with that formulation about consequentialist ethics.. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the outcome of such consequentialist considerations is necessarily ethical.

factvalue

Sorry, clumsily written, I meant that it was still a form of ethical evaluation. And I agree, it's not ends-means immanent, so the means end up as the ends.

That's basically what I meant; I guess we were talking at crossed purposes.

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #16

Your list of nine negative anarchist ethics puts me in mind of Calvinism and the need to overcome ‘total depravity’ as every person is enslaved to sin. Surely you can construct some positive inspirational standards.

I could but i wont, because thats the idea of freedom. You can fill out the emptiness called freedom with whatever you want. You wanna take a walk in the woods? Then do it. You wanna lay at the beach and take a rest there? Then do it. You wanna base jump off a high cliff? You can do that too.

What should i say? That it is better to take a walk in the woods than to take a rest at the beach? No man that is not for me to say things like that. Everyone has their different opinions about what is the right thing for them to do with their freedom.

Those who are overly influenced by Marx believed that Ethics/Morality can be reduced to ‘Class conflict’. ‘Ethical Ideas’ are claimed to be propaganda ,advocating against the self interest of working class.(see some of the posts above). [I should mention that there a group of Marxist called ‘Analytic Marxism’ that tried to develop a Marx friendly notion of ethics; from my understanding that school is dead and the project failed].

I personally find the Marx notion of ethics to be rather unpalatable. I don’t think anyone will buy into Marxist interpretation of morality unless one is already deeply committed to Marx. That notion of morality seem to lack any mass appeal; it seems more of an ugly underbelly that Marxist just have to swallow.

We can try to dig what an ‘Anarchist morality’ would actually look like by looking at the classical Anarchist thinkers. Yet, none of the major anarchist developed a comprehensive theory of ethics. Kropotkin talks about how law equates actual moral law (ie: ‘one out not kill)’ with fictional laws that protect the interest of the ruling class. If you are looking for moral system you will not find it in the writings of Kropotkin, Bakunin, Emma Goldman ect.

I recall reading an article that speculated what moral philosophies would be compatible with the classical Anarchist thinkers(sorry for the lack of source). If I recall correctly Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin were claimed to be compatible with virtue ethics. The ethical proposition that would drive their call for revolution would sound something like this: “a capitalist society fails to allow everyone to develop to their fullest; an Anarchist society designed for the needs/wants of humans would do a better job’.

I personally don’t think we need a grand ethical theory. Anarchism should be looked as an empirical claim. It claims that not only society can function without capital or hierarchy, but it would be better off. It also claims that revolution is the way of ‘getting there’. Whatever ethical system drives a person to act based on those claims is up to the individual. I doubt any ethical system will be against us once the empirical claims are accepted.

Gulai Polye

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #16

Your list of nine negative anarchist ethics puts me in mind of Calvinism and the need to overcome ‘total depravity’ as every person is enslaved to sin. Surely you can construct some positive inspirational standards.

I could but i wont, because thats the idea of freedom. You can fill out the emptiness called freedom with whatever you want. You wanna take a walk in the woods? Then do it. You wanna lay at the beach and take a rest there? Then do it. You wanna base jump off a high cliff? You can do that too.

What should i say? That it is better to take a walk in the woods than to take a rest at the beach? No man that is not for me to say things like that. Everyone has their different opinions about what is the right thing for them to do with their freedom.

Tosh. Take a walk in the woods or beat your dog with a length of hosepipe? Come on already. Do the former and many may join you, do the latter and many may kick your ass, I'd be at the front of the queue.

Gulai Polye

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #16

Your list of nine negative anarchist ethics puts me in mind of Calvinism and the need to overcome ‘total depravity’ as every person is enslaved to sin. Surely you can construct some positive inspirational standards.

I could but i wont, because thats the idea of freedom...What should i say? That it is better to take a walk in the woods than to take a rest at the beach? No man that is not for me to say things like that. Everyone has their different opinions about what is the right thing for them to do with their freedom.

I don't really understand why these don't sound positive to AB, they sound pretty damned good the way I read them.

From this reply of yours to AB, what seems lacking in your conception is a sense that autonomous individuals are only possible as part of wider social relations, and are not the universal, abstract, individualised, atomised sovereign moral entities of free market liberalism.

But you're right if you're simply pointing out that there is no universal standard of 'the good' that can be imposed from the outside. Perhaps what AB meant was that utopianism doesn't have to mean enforcing a blueprint but can also be an exploration of future possibilities for the application of anarchist communist principles?

Khawaga

radicalgraffiti

Leninism is counter revolutionary

That's has no bearing on the point factvalue is making. What he is saying is that the justifications for why someone is a Leninist, anarchist or whatever will boil down to ethics because in the end both Leninists and anarchists will say that they are doing the right thing. As soon as someone starts to justify doing or not doing something in terms of it being right, good, bad etc. (rather than making a judgement in terms of whether doing something is effective), you are on the terrain of ethics.

My take on all of this: anarchism without ethics is worth fuck all.

coming back to this, i'm not at all convinced that the difference between anarchists and leninists is that they hold different concepts of ethics. i don't believe that there is any one theory of ethics held by all anarchists or all leninists, or any particular group of anarchists or leninists.

I think its possible to do the same thing for different reasons and to do different things for the same reasons.

I think the properties of an action can only be determined though its consequences, what differentiated my politics from others with radically different politic who hold the same view and objectives, eg people who wish to seize control of the state to implement communism, is that they have different ideas about how society and people function.

Gulai Polye

Anarchist ethics would be:

No private property on capital
No monopoly on violence
No privileged authorities
No exploitation of work
No racism
No sexism
No discrimination of sexual orientation
No discrimination of religious conviction
No irreversible effects on the environment

this is all too specific, the underlining principles would be something like, to maximise freedom for all, and from that it would be clear that eg sexism racism, property, money get in the way of freedom. Or you could start with equality etc

coming back to this, i'm not at all convinced that the difference between anarchists and leninists is that they hold different concepts of ethics. i don't believe that there is any one theory of ethics held by all anarchists or all leninists, or any particular group of anarchists or leninists.

That's all fine and dandy, but really has nothing to do with what I was arguing. All I said is that both anarchist and leninists are motivated by ethics. And that ethics may very well be identical.

factvalue

Gulai Polye

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #16

Your list of nine negative anarchist ethics puts me in mind of Calvinism and the need to overcome ‘total depravity’ as every person is enslaved to sin. Surely you can construct some positive inspirational standards.

I could but i wont, because thats the idea of freedom...What should i say? That it is better to take a walk in the woods than to take a rest at the beach? No man that is not for me to say things like that. Everyone has their different opinions about what is the right thing for them to do with their freedom.

I don't really understand why these don't sound positive to AB, they sound pretty damned good the way I read them.

I think he meant positive/negative in a way that means positive = do this / negative = dont do this.
Communists also talk about command economy, so that would be positive ethic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(ethics)#Positive_and_negative_value

From this reply of yours to AB, what seems lacking in your conception is a sense that autonomous individuals are only possible as part of wider social relations, and are not the universal, abstract, individualised, atomised sovereign moral entities of free market liberalism.

I agree. But i think if isolated individuals are (theoretically) put into the world they would automatically form communities and build bonds wherever it will serve their interest. In that sense autonomous individuals are not an obstacle to socialising but instead is the foundation which socialising is build on.

But you're right if you're simply pointing out that there is no universal standard of 'the good' that can be imposed from the outside. Perhaps what AB meant was that utopianism doesn't have to mean enforcing a blueprint but can also be an exploration of future possibilities for the application of anarchist communist principles?

I just think it will quickly become too complex for anyone outside so nothing useful can be said about it. Besides, once people live under these new conditions, they are much better at deciding what to do than we are.

Khawaga

coming back to this, i'm not at all convinced that the difference between anarchists and leninists is that they hold different concepts of ethics. i don't believe that there is any one theory of ethics held by all anarchists or all leninists, or any particular group of anarchists or leninists.

That's all fine and dandy, but really has nothing to do with what I was arguing. All I said is that both anarchist and leninists are motivated by ethics. And that ethics may very well be identical.

well you where responding to my response to factvalue's claim that the difference between lenininst and anarchists was the ethics they hold

I was trying to clarify your mistaken interpretation of factvalue 's post. And unless I'm the one that got him wrong, you're still misunderstanding him. All he said was that the justification an anarchist may make for why she is not a Leninist is ethical in nature. And my respond to this was that a Leninist will also likely use ethical arguments to justify their stance. That's not an evaluation of the ethics of one against the other or a claim that Leninists and anarchists are distinguished based on ethics.

Khawaga

I was trying to clarify your mistaken interpretation of factvalue 's post. And unless I'm the one that got him wrong, you're still misunderstanding him. All he said was that the justification an anarchist may make for why she is not a Leninist is ethical in nature. And my respond to this was that a Leninist will also likely use ethical arguments to justify their stance. That's not an evaluation of the ethics of one against the other or a claim that Leninists and anarchists are distinguished based on ethics.

I agree with all that. I don't think it's too controversial to say that class struggle anarchists have an ethic of 'destroying alienation by the creation of non-hierarchical social relations, rather than creating leaders to act on behalf of the class' so that the ends are no longer in such tension with the means, and I'm not sure what the source of RG's disagreement is, or what RG disagrees with. There can't be many Leninists who aren't vanguardists in pursuit of state power but there are of course other (claimed) types of anarchist - liberal, individualist etc., but I wasn't thinking of them.

radicalgraffiti

Leninism is counter revolutionary

Is that good or bad in itself? In other words, presumably this isn't just a statement of your subjective preference. We're not talking about your favourite ice-cream or even about the strength of your feelings or views or about something which doesn't require any justification, we're talking about social revolution, so your statement does require some form of value judgement. Which form of value judgement?

radicalgraffiti

I think its possible to do the same thing for different reasons and to do different things for the same reasons.

Yes, it's possible to murder someone because you enjoy it or in order to prevent them from murdering a baby. People may do the same thing for different reasons but the whole point of practical ethics is to ask questions about the nature of reason and about what it is to act rationally on our reason for action.

radicalgraffiti

I think the properties of an action can only be determined though its consequences, what differentiated my politics from others with radically different politic who hold the same view and objectives, eg people who wish to seize control of the state to implement communism, is that they have different ideas about how society and people function.

Have you never acted on principle regardless of the consequences? Claiming that some action, such as the seizure of state power, is good or desirable, is claiming that it has qualities which it is rational to want, on the basis of beliefs about how society and people function. Given certain such beliefs, some people may think they have good (ethical) reasons to want to create a vanguard and seize control of the state if the desired consequence is to be realised i.e. if the revolution is to succeed. Whether or not we doubt their motivations, to claim that something has the qualities that it is rational to want in a thing of that sort, a thing (revolution) which is itself seen as good, is to make an ethical evaluation and claim that there are good reasons for wanting it which make it the right thing to do.

Gulai Polye

I think he meant positive/negative in a way that means positive = do this / negative = dont do this.

I think the way you framed it automatically contains plenty of positive suggestions.

Achieving an objective is not the same as having an ethical justification for an objective.
if some thing doesn't achieve an objective, or hinders the achievement of an objective that is a reason to reject it and chose other options regardless of the ethical basses of the objective.

"Can this method bring about revolution?" is not a question of ethics

Achieving an objective is not the same as having an ethical justification for an objective.

Agree.

"Can this method bring about revolution?" is not a question of ethics

Disagree.

if some thing doesn't achieve an objective, or hinders the achievement of an objective that is a reason to reject it and chose other options regardless of the ethical basses of the objective.

But if that effective option is unethical, should you then do it? Like, to get things done within certain organisations it can certainly be more effective to fill a room with your own, manipulate the rules of order and so on rather than patiently arguing your position in the open meeting or with individual comrades prior. But just because the latter option may not at first work that well, does it automatically mean you go for the less ethical option (assuming that it's a binary choice).

The saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind...

RG - Leninism destroys the revolution. Is the revolution good or bad? Does that make Leninism bad or good? Or do you think that counter-revolutionary acts are amoral and carried out by amoral agents, so that their effects are the same as those of a storm or a flood or something?

factvalue

RG - Leninism destroys the revolution. Is the revolution good or bad? Does that make Leninism bad or good? Or do you think that counter-revolutionary acts are amoral and carried out by amoral agents, so that their effects are the same as those of a storm or a flood or something?

i'm assuming that people who might potentially become Leninist or anarchists have already decide revolution is necessary/desirable, so the question of how to do a revolution is different to if we should.
I don't think the morality of the people involved is all that useful to understanding why groups/organisations/society function the way they do.

Khawaga

Achieving an objective is not the same as having an ethical justification for an objective.

Agree.

"Can this method bring about revolution?" is not a question of ethics

Disagree.

if some thing doesn't achieve an objective, or hinders the achievement of an objective that is a reason to reject it and chose other options regardless of the ethical basses of the objective.

But if that effective option is unethical, should you then do it? Like, to get things done within certain organisations it can certainly be more effective to fill a room with your own, manipulate the rules of order and so on rather than patiently arguing your position in the open meeting or with individual comrades prior. But just because the latter option may not at first work that well, does it automatically mean you go for the less ethical option (assuming that it's a binary choice).

The saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind...

That might achieve your short term objectives, but it will cause other people in the organisation to becomes alienated from the organisation, meaning the get less involved in the business of the organisational, and maybe leave. In the long term these kind of methods may succeed in creating a shell that does you biding, but unless that is you objective, you probably wont achieve what you want.

radicalgraffiti

i'm assuming that people who might potentially become Leninist or anarchists have already decide revolution is necessary/desirable,

Well that's a start I suppose. Right, so we have an ethical evaluation, ok.

radicalgraffiti

so the question of how to do a revolution is different to if we should...

..I don't think the morality of the people involved is all that useful to understanding why groups/organisations/society function the way they do.

Earlier, in response to your 'people may do the same things for different reasons', I wrote that

it's possible to murder someone because you enjoy it or in order to prevent them from murdering a baby. People may do the same thing for different reasons but the whole point of practical ethics is to ask questions about the nature of reason and about what it is to act rationally on our reason for action.

The ethical question of motivations seems central to me when comparing two groups advocating the same things, such as during the revolution in Russia when the Bolsheviks began advocating the same militant tactics as anarchists. I think the ethical principles of the people involved in that particular case is very useful in understanding why these two groups functioned in the way they did.

You have to be sceptical of the values touted in the name of things like economics or culture or politics if you want to gain any useful understanding of how power works in organisations or societies. But to attempt to turn yourself into some stereotypical empiricist in search of a myth of scientific objectivity seems to me to play right into the hands of the system of domination, because such an attempt is itself a mechanism of domination. Even so-called pure science is not value-free but employs all kinds of value judgements in making sense of the world, otherwise it wouldn't be science, just pseudo-scientific baloney.

The chimera of ethical value-freedom would blind any reasonable attempt by communist anarchism to adequately consider and question the many different forms of domination which it sets out to end. In what other area of life would people entertain the fucked-up notion that ethics is not relevant? Would it be sensible to tell nuclear, or nano-, or bio-scientists to just go right ahead and not bother taking such things into consideration?

I think this nonsense originated in all the chattering about whether ethics was or wasn't objective that went on during the last century. People trying to make themselves or their pet social theories look scientific wanted to distance themselves from ethics because clearly ethical statements couldn't be true or false in the same way scientific ones could. But since ethics is about practical reason and rationality, doing so drained these approaches of sensible human meaning and turned them into pseudoscience. It's time to move on.

the button

I quite like the way it's put in the Anarchist Federation's aims & principles -- I think the last sentence that I've put in bold contains the seeds of an anarchist (although not uniquely anarchist) ethics:

Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are also expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, ability and age, and in these ways one section of the working class oppresses another. This divides us, causing a lack of class unity in struggle that benefits the ruling class. Oppressed groups are strengthened by autonomous action which challenges social and economic power relationships. To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as a political level.

Clearly you can ask questions about this approach along the lines of:

i) Does it suggest that oppression is bad because and only because it divides the working class? (I don't think that's the implication, but it's pretty close) and
ii) "To achieve our goal...." maybe implying that there's no intrinsic worth in relinquishing power over each other, it's just something we have to do to achieve our ends.

This might look like hairsplitting (or would if I had any hair), but I think these questions about "Doing x to achieve y" vs "Doing x because z is just fucking wrong" are quite important. Looking at a lot of leftist discourse about racism, for example, you sometimes get the impression that, if only someone could invent a form of racism that didn't Divide The Class, it would be fine.

As the button quoted the Anarchist Federation (#15):

To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as a political level.

That comes closest to my understanding of what distinguishes anarchism from all other schools of political philosophy.

I consider anarchism proper to be about the principle of non-coercion., i.e. The deliberate overriding and/or bending of someone else's will and agency. Everything else develops from there.

I'd flesh out the principle of non-coercion by sorting it into different categories:

1. Coercion through physical violence: fists, knuckle dusters, batons, handcuffs, assault rifles, thermo-nuclear explosive devices. Of course, not all physical violence is coercive - there is self defence, and there may arise need to 'destroy what destroys you' - but the dividing lines can be so fine and jagged, making it all too easy to inadvertently stray into 'coercion', that I would consider the non-aggression principle a fairly useful heuristic.

2. Economic coercion: the deliberate withholding of the necessities of life - and I mean 'life', not just 'hand-to-mouth existence'. Basically incorporates all of the marxist critique of capitalism, and then some ...

3. Cognitive coercion: the idea that 'knowledge is power' hardly needs explaining. The deliberate withholding, manipulation or conditioning of information to shape and bend someone else's decision making. Includes any advertising that goes beyond factual and technical information, and reliance on 'caveat emptor'.

4. Emotional manipulation: if you truly loved me/your country/your football team and suchlike appeals to emotion, again with the deliberate aim of making someone do what s/he does not want to do, or not do what s/he would want to do.

In reality, of course, none of these different modes exist in isolation. They are interdependent, and cause and are caused in turn by each other.

The aim of anarchist activism within today's world and circumstances would be to seek ways of reducing coercive pressure.

An anarchist society would be one that solves its problems without taking recourse to means of coercion - the peaceful, mutual, apolitical 'administration of things' that F. Engels invoked, or, as I put it, the replacement of the Rule of Law with the Rule of Reason.

I also think that non-coercion, rather than non-aggression or non-violence, rather neatly rolls Gulai Polye's nine ethic principles into one.

An anarchist society would be one that solves its problems without taking recourse to means of coercion - the peaceful, mutual, apolitical 'administration of things' that F. Engels invoked, or, as I put it, the replacement of the Rule of Law with the Rule of Reason.

No many problems will be solved through violence in an anarchist society. Like for example if someone begin to act as a ruler (and people dont want that)... What will happen to him? Maybe he will be thrown out into the desert. That in itself requires the use of a lot of violence even though he did not directly got injured.

I also think that non-coercion, rather than non-aggression or non-violence, rather neatly rolls Gulai Polye's nine ethic principles into one.

No, when the population as a whole is ready for revolution, there will still be workers left who are in favour of capitalism and the state. To smash the state and get rid of capitalism will, for them, be an act of coercion. And so it will be. A revolution is coercive and so is the methods being used afterwards to defend the principles of the revolution.

Example: Someone tries to be a capitalist in the anarchist society. The anarchists reacts with coercion to deter exploitation of the workers.

No, when the population as a whole is ready for revolution, there will still be workers left who are in favour of capitalism and the state. To smash the state and get rid of capitalism will, for them, be an act of coercion. And so it will be. A revolution is coercive and so is the methods being used afterwards to defend the principles of the revolution.

Example: Someone tries to be a capitalist in the anarchist society. The anarchists reacts with coercion to deter exploitation of the workers.

Quoting it because, well, it's the first time I agree with GP.

And - gasp - to build on the point: class struggle is about power and power is about coercion. I want to coerce the shit out of my boss when it comes to pay and working conditions and, come the revolution, I'll be coercing my boss out of their power, position, property, and authority.

Chilli Sauce

And - gasp - to build on the point: class struggle is about power and power is about coercion. I want to coerce the shit out of my boss and, come the revolution, I'll be coercing my boss out of their power, position, and authority.

Lol, this seems ironic. Looking for an interesting way to discuss labour relations and because I'm a trollin' fucking asshole, just yesterday I convinced UV that your rich uncle had decided to give you your inheritance early, which was a chain of used car lots which he wanted to train you to run. The whole deal was worth several million and now you had the dillema of either turning it down or becoming a boss and was looking for ideas how to deal with the situation without becoming a capitalist bastard but also without turning down the opportunity of a lifetime. I hope you don't mind and there was no particular reason I picked you other than that she's aware that I know you quite well. So if you do ever need any help in that situation we both have our own unique idea.

Edit: Not sure why this is all in italics but I can't figure out how to fix it.

admin: fixed it for you. You had put an extra tag.

Clearly, you accept, and you sell that shit off once the old man kicks the bucket. I ain't no martyr.

Gulai Polye #38

A list of No, No, No, does not suggest to me a free society.
It suggests a view of human beings needing to be restrained.

However just to rewrite ‘don’t do this’ to ‘do this’, does not answer my objection as both are equally proscriptive.

Example: No monopoly on violence. Changed to - everyone has an equal right to knock seven bells out of everyone else. That would be ‘bloody’ wonderful!

Factvalue is correct that I feel the possibilities of human beings is a better way of expressing the opportunities and values of a free communist society.

Journeyman #49

I thought this an interesting post. However two points I think are worth critical comment.

‘4. Emotional manipulation: if you truly loved me/your country/your football team and suchlike appeals to emotion, again with the deliberate aim of making someone do what s/he does not want to do, or not do what s/he would want to do.’

To try and subtract emotion from human relationships is impossible. How do we know with certainty what we/someone wishes to do? If my friend says he does not want a beer, am I wrong to coax him by offering to buy him one, because I suspect he is skint? Does he accept my offer because he knows I don’t like drinking alone?

Am I being emotionally manipulated when I buy flowers for someone because I know they like them, though I think flowers are a waste of money? Or am I being manipulative because I want them to be my friend?

‘The aim of anarchist activism within today's world and circumstances would be to seek ways of reducing coercive pressure.’

Sorry but this strikes me as liberal nonsense. I believe in the class struggle to replace capitalism with libertarian communism. This will come when the working class is confident enough in its own abilities to abolish the state and share in the common wealth. This will require coercive pressure as the ruling class will not willingly give up its power and wealth. Historically this appears to be an unfortunate necessity.

Gulai Polye at #50 wrote:

No many problems will be solved through violence in an anarchist society. Like for example if someone begin to act as a ruler (and people dont want that)... What will happen to him? Maybe he will be thrown out into the desert. That in itself requires the use of a lot of violence even though he did not directly got injured.

and:

No, when the population as a whole is ready for revolution, there will still be workers left who are in favour of capitalism and the state.

Or maybe we can send them to re-education gulags for counter-revolutionaries and 'capitalist inroaders'?

I mean, I appreciate your revolutionary zeal, but do we really want to replicate council communism - you know: Soviet communism?

Example: Someone tries to be a capitalist in the anarchist society. The anarchists reacts with coercion to deter exploitation of the workers.

Someone trying to act on her capitalist - read: exploitative - instincts within an established operational anarchist society will have no more chance of success than committed Anarcho-communists have right now of actually shaping their lives according to their insights. In either case, social dynamics just won't permit it.

All it takes is to ignore the dissenters. No need for aggressive coercion to enforce compliance with the dominant paradigm.

Auld-bod at #55 wrote:

To try and subtract emotion from human relationships is impossible.

I'm not trying to subtract emotion from human relationships. I am trying to subtract coercion from emotion.

How do we know with certainty what we/someone wishes to do?

We don't! But we can always ask. Look, there have been times when I actually felt pressured by friends into accepting another drink or joint when I really didn't want to. I can report that those friendships have survived. Trial and error, and I am sure I have gotten it wrong on numerous occasions myself. I recon that in the grand scheme of events, an unwelcome beer, joint or bunch of flowers is not the most pressing of all problems. But being manipulated into accepting an agenda of nationalist or racist supremacy is right up there, and emotional coercion plays a large part.

This will require coercive pressure as the ruling class will not willingly give up its power and wealth.

In the first instance you are talking about what happens during the revolution. I'm talking about what happens after the revolution. But in the second instance I stand by what I said: a major aspect of my understanding of anarchism is the refusal to distinguish between means and ends, and in particular to buy into the notion that 'the ends sanctify the means'. That really leads me to question whether it is possible to use coercive pressure to end coercion. I don't believe it is! And as I said, 'destroying what destroys you - i.e. 'smashing the state' is not coercive, nor is engaging in self defence if and when the reactionary forces of the state try to interfere with our efforts to build the new society in the ruined shell of the old.

Just got to be really careful of inadvertent overreach.

Journeyman

Or maybe we can send them to re-education gulags for counter-revolutionaries and 'capitalist inroaders'?

I mean, I appreciate your revolutionary zeal, but do we really want to replicate council communism - you know: Soviet communism?

Im not against soviet communism, and keep in mind USSR was not soviet communism, if USSR was anything with communism then it was state communism, and im against the state. Remember it was Lenin who destroyed the free soviets.

Also a lot of the people who got send to the gulags were neither capitalist inroaders or counter-revolutionaries. They were enemies of the state. And how did you became that? If you didnt fullfill your quota dictated by the state you would be considered an enemy of the state. Some people didnt full fill their quota in protest others didnt because they simply were unable to. Such a lunatic practice will of course not be used in an anarchist society.

Or maybe we can send them to re-education gulags for counter-revolutionaries and 'capitalist inroaders'?

True we could do that, though i wouldnt use the word Gulags. If they are producing anything of value in these re-education camps then the value they are producing will belong to them. So no extraction of value will be implemented and thus no exploitation will take place.
Plus they could have their own little democracy going on inside the camps.

Another option is to send them to a place that is not anarchistic.

Someone trying to act on her capitalist - read: exploitative - instincts within an established operational anarchist society will have no more chance of success than committed Anarcho-communists have right now of actually shaping their lives according to their insights. In either case, social dynamics just won't permit it.

All it takes is to ignore the dissenters. No need for aggressive coercion to enforce compliance with the dominant paradigm.

Maybe, maybe not, im just taking into account if its not that simple.

Journeyman #56

I find your attitude a bit patronising. You wish to ‘subtract coercion from human relationships’. You say if in doubt about someone’s wishes - just ask. My understanding of human phycology is rather different. People often are uncertain about their ‘wishes’. When answering questions, people for any number of reasons do not always tell the truth. Some research shows that children as young as two years old have learned to lie.

We can try to be straight with people, and treat them well, though trying to untangle human emotions is ‘pie in the sky’. And probably a good thing too, as the ‘hidden persuaders’ are powerful enough.

I think means and ends are closely linked and the more violent the revolution the less revolution we shall have.

Just to be clear, I was referring to during the revolution, answering your point about ‘The aim of anarchist activism within today's world and circumstances would be to seek ways of reducing coercive pressure.’

I think ‘today’s world’ does not refer to after the revolution. Asking a capitalist to be less coercive would be like asking my cat to become a vegan.

My understanding of human phycology is rather different. People often are uncertain about their ‘wishes’. When answering questions, people for any number of reasons do not always tell the truth. Some research shows that children as young as two years old have learned to lie.

Not only this, but cognitive dissonance is fucking rampant in the world - especially given the low level of experience when it comes to class issues.

And this doesn't always work to our detriment - action often precedes consciousness and all that - but what people say (at various points) and how people act (at various points) when it comes to workplace issues, political activity, etc is often hugely incoherent and contradictory.

Gulai Polye #57

... and keep in mind USSR was not soviet communism ...

I suppose I asked for that - trying to conflate the USSR with communism. Really!!? Just for the record: I do subscribe loosely to the critique of the former "real existing socialism" as State Monopoly Capitalism - nothing unusual here. In view of Stalin's doctrine of 'Socialism in One Country', diametrically opposed to the necessarily international dimension of the as yet outstanding revolution, I think it could also be characterised as 'National Socialism' - which then would lead to further revision of political taxonomy by considering the former Hitler fascism 'National Capitalism' - in contrast to the current global corporate consumer 'International Capitalism', to which the only appropriate response is an International Workers' movement... Have we really only been treading water for the last 170 years?

Im not against soviet communism...

I'm not against soviet communism, either - but after some reflection I don't think it holds the answer, either - and this is where my 'gulag'-remark really is aimed at. It originates from my hanging out with a-syndicalists, as the only a-communist. We had virtually interminable discussions about future decision making processes: direct democracy vs representative democracy, worker's councils vs appointed management, majority decisions vs consensus decisions, etc, etc. None of these revisions of democratic processes seemed to quite catch what I myself was on about. I ended up using a very blunt example: a bunch of KKK vigilantes collectively deciding to hang "this here n^%#+r" from the next tree with branches strong enough to support his weight may very well tick all the boxes of anarchist collective decision making processes - but that doesn't make the outcome of that decision making process any more acceptable! It was then that the principle of non-coercion firmly established itself in my mind as that which distinguishes anarchism from all other schools of political philosophy: if we conscientiously refrain from imposing our views and decisions on other people coercively, it becomes virtually irrelevant what views and decisions we come to. In fact, the a-priori decision not impose one's views and decisions on others coercively severely limits the range of views and conclusions we can legitimately arrive at. Try it yourself!

And it seems quintessentially an-archist: what is needed for one person to put himself above another person? What enables all hierarchy and domination? How do we override someone else's will and bend their agency towards our own ends? Through coercive pressure, that's how!

So we go right back to the button quoting the Anarchist Federation (#15):

Quote:
To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as a political level.

And how do we do that? We renounce coercion, that's how!

Hence, I'm not so keen on gulags: somebody, or some body - a soviet perhaps (?) - must decide whom to send there, and why. In other words, someone must be vested with coercive powers, and such power inevitably corrupts. On reflection, it therefore seems no mere bad luck or coincidence that soviet communism morphed into Stalinism.

Auld-bod #58:

I find your attitude a bit patronising.

Sorry about that. And thanks for the heads-up! I'll try to keep a lid on it! Though some of it is down to my trying to keep a bit of an ironic distance to anarchist doctrine. I very deliberately do not want to allow anarchism to completely define who I am. Anarchism is a philosophical outlook that I subscribe to at the moment. If and when anarchist society has been established, the need to be an anarchist revolutionary will become redundant, and I for one intend to fade into the background and become one of many. I try very hard not to loose sight of the fact that in anarchist society, anarchists are nothing special whatsoever.

My understanding of human phycology is rather different. People often are uncertain about their ‘wishes’. When answering questions, people for any number of reasons do not always tell the truth.

Of course! When I was a kid - long before I ever thought of anarchism - someone told me a story about two old spinster sisters who had been living together forever. Every morning they would share one bread roll for breakfast. One preferred the crusty upper half, the other the softer lower half. However, both also assumed that the other had the same preference, and wanted to do her sister a good turn. Consequently, for decades, they both ended up eating the half that they didn't prefer... Ahhhwww! How sweet!

There obviously is a lesson in this: yes, we are often deeply confused about our own wishes and preferences. A lot of it has to do with alienation, manipulation and cognitive dissonance. But a lot of it is also due to the fact that, with the exception of total sociopaths, people are aware that the realisation of their own wishes and preferences invariably has repercussions on other people - and that awareness, I say, is a good thing. The beginnings of a collective consciousness, in fact, and anarchists ought to build on it.

At any rate, this deep confusion about our own wishes and preferences is nothing if not further justification for at least not imposing them on others through coercion. And we should try to work on building this habit now, rather than leaving it for after the revolution.

Chili Sauce #59

And this [cognitive dissonance] doesn't always work to our detriment - action often precedes consciousness and all that

Fair enough! But you almost make it sound as if we therefore should not ever attend to confusion and the problems generated by it? I mean, if we can't critically, including self-critically reflect on the ethical principles that underpin anarchism on a theory discussion thread with the title Anarchist Ethics, aren't you taking 'Anarchism of the Deed' just a bit too far?

Fair enough! But you almost make it sound as if we therefore should not ever attend to confusion and the problems generated by it? I mean, if we can't critically, including self-critically reflect on the ethical principles that underpin anarchism on a theory discussion thread with the title Anarchist Ethics, aren't you taking 'Anarchism of the Deed' just a bit too far?

Maybe I'll respond in more detail later, but just to say, you are way, way, way, way, waaaaaaaayyyy off base if you think my my post had anything to do with anarchism by the deed.

Journeyman #60

I am reminded of a discussion some years ago when I was told there was a fundamental contradiction if an anarchist argued with someone, as this was a form of coercion. I do not suggest you think this, however every useful insight needs to be balanced against ‘time and place’ – the reality check. Anarchism as pure philosophy is a millstone round the neck of anyone seeking real social and economic change.

You are right in thinking that we can model good behaviour - the Spanish CNT/FAI certainly believed this, as did the old Glasgow anarchists. Unfortunately it is impossible to practice anarchist communism until capitalism is sprung from our backs.

factvalue

radicalgraffiti

so the question of how to do a revolution is different to if we should...

..I don't think the morality of the people involved is all that useful to understanding why groups/organisations/society function the way they do.

Earlier, in response to your 'people may do the same things for different reasons', I wrote that

it's possible to murder someone because you enjoy it or in order to prevent them from murdering a baby. People may do the same thing for different reasons but the whole point of practical ethics is to ask questions about the nature of reason and about what it is to act rationally on our reason for action.

The ethical question of motivations seems central to me when comparing two groups advocating the same things, such as during the revolution in Russia when the Bolsheviks began advocating the same militant tactics as anarchists. I think the ethical principles of the people involved in that particular case is very useful in understanding why these two groups functioned in the way they did.

Bullshit, the way the groups where structured and their ideas of how the world functions tells us why they acted the way they did. claiming it is about ethics is saying it happened because they where bad people. You ignore the factors that lead to the decisions being made the way they where, and why it was possible for them to be implement in the way they where in favour of denouncing these involved as bad people. this can lead to looking for better leaders or misanthropy, but it doesn't give us an understanding of why what happened happened or how to avoid it in future.

factvalue

You have to be sceptical of the values touted in the name of things like economics or culture or politics if you want to gain any useful understanding of how power works in organisations or societies. But to attempt to turn yourself into some stereotypical empiricist in search of a myth of scientific objectivity seems to me to play right into the hands of the system of domination, because such an attempt is itself a mechanism of domination. Even so-called pure science is not value-free but employs all kinds of value judgements in making sense of the world, otherwise it wouldn't be science, just pseudo-scientific baloney.

this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EnUQltR9A
[youtube]Z9EnUQltR9A[/youtube]
is a video of rockets that didn't do what they are suppose to, no amount of ethics is going to tell you why.

factvalue

The chimera of ethical value-freedom would blind any reasonable attempt by communist anarchism to adequately consider and question the many different forms of domination which it sets out to end. In what other area of life would people entertain the fucked-up notion that ethics is not relevant? Would it be sensible to tell nuclear, or nano-, or bio-scientists to just go right ahead and not bother taking such things into consideration?

whether something should be done is an entirely different matter to how to do it, or why it didn't work.

In all fairness, radicalgrafitti, you are not at all getting at what factvalue is arguing. Likely because you don't necessarily understand what ethics are?

Khawaga

In all fairness, radicalgrafitti, you are not at all getting at what factvalue is arguing. Likely because you don't necessarily understand what ethics are?

you seem to be reading something a good deal more sensible into factvalues posts than is actually there

i mean look at this shit
factvalue

RG - Leninism destroys the revolution. Is the revolution good or bad? Does that make Leninism bad or good? Or do you think that counter-revolutionary acts are amoral and carried out by amoral agents, so that their effects are the same as those of a storm or a flood or something?

ffs

factvalue is certainly verbose and some of his posts are less than clear, but on this topic he's been relatively straightforward. But having said that, I do get that his posts may be hard to follow if you have never really thought about ethics. I mean, my appreciation of ethics as guiding political activity is just a few years old and before that I was prone to think it wasn't all that important.

for someone so condescending you you dont seem to have understood what i'm saying at all

I get what you're saying actually. That's not the issue at all, but you don't seem to get what either factvalue or I have posted. And I apologize for being condescending, that was not my intent. Fwiw, that you may not grasp ethics is neither here nor there. It just makes it more difficult to communicate. And that I think anarchists should actually be ethical rather than appealing to pure reason.

Journeyman

Gulai Polye #57
Have we really only been treading water for the last 170 years?

Yes the state has survived the last 170 years and all the succesful revolutions has only led to a stronger state. If we could just have a little bit of land somewhere and show the world how society could operate without a state... But we cant

It was then that the principle of non-coercion firmly established itself in my mind as that which distinguishes anarchism from all other schools of political philosophy: if we conscientiously refrain from imposing our views and decisions on other people coercively, it becomes virtually irrelevant what views and decisions we come to. In fact, the a-priori decision not impose one's views and decisions on others coercively severely limits the range of views and conclusions we can legitimately arrive at. Try it yourself!

Yes we should be non-coercive towards those who are non-coercive aka towards other anarchists. But against those who wanna exploit and rule over others we should act with defiance.

How do we override someone else's will and bend their agency towards our own ends? Through coercive pressure, that's how!

We dont, if someone doesnt wanna accept the principles of anarchism they can go somewhere else.

Hence, I'm not so keen on gulags: somebody, or some body - a soviet perhaps (?) - must decide whom to send there, and why. In other words, someone must be vested with coercive powers, and such power inevitably corrupts.

Well first and foremost, to be in an anarchist society it means you are at the front seat of society. You drive society. And when you have this power shouldn't there be some education before you are placed at the front seat? Well in the same way before someone can drive a car they are also send to a "camp" to get a driving license, because, you know driving a car can be dangerous but since it has its useful purposes we allow people to drive cars. Its the same with society.

Now imagine those camps you are calling Gulags in reality would perhaps even be like going on holiday. How about that? Who says it will be hard to live in a (anarchist educational) camp?

Besides when anarchists are trying to teach people about anarchism they are not doing something to others which they themselves have done to themselves first. Like opening a book and watch a movie. And that you can not say about Stalin.

And about that power corrupts: Well we got people like you who puts an effort into overseeing the processes that takes place :D

Gulai Polye #70

During a revolution and immediately after, violent counter revolutionaries would have to be disarmed and interned. I’d think that is pretty much unavoidable. Keeping people guarded cannot be anything other than unpleasant for all concerned, guards and guarded. An ‘education camp’ should therefore be transitory and not become part of a formal institution - if that happens it will never make itself redundant.

Khawaga

I get what you're saying actually. That's not the issue at all, but you don't seem to get what either factvalue or I have posted. And I apologize for being condescending, that was not my intent. Fwiw, that you may not grasp ethics is neither here nor there. It just makes it more difficult to communicate. And that I think anarchists should actually be ethical rather than appealing to pure reason.

that would be why your responding as if i'm denouncing ethics

that would be why your responding as if i'm denouncing ethics

I'm not. I am just trying to get a point across that I don't think you're understanding. And I am also arguing that anarchists should behave ethically (coz lordy, I know so many fucking anarchists that will stick to the rules of their organisation over acting ethically) Though due to how shitty electronic communication is, I can understand how you have interpreted my posts as if you were denouncing ethics. It does, however, seem that you disagree as to whether ethics should guide decision making in anarchists organisations.

The only one who has denounced ethics on this thread was Maclane Horton. You clearly do not have such a silly view of ethics as he does.

Ethics is a bad word. Ethics is an idea created by bosses as a means of control. Anarchits are free. We don't do ethics.

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #70

During a revolution and immediately after, violent counter revolutionaries would have to be disarmed and interned. I’d think that is pretty much unavoidable. Keeping people guarded cannot be anything other than unpleasant for all concerned, guards and guarded. An ‘education camp’ should therefore be transitory and not become part of a formal institution - if that happens it will never make itself redundant.

If you have to intern people I don't want to be part of your revolution, to paraphrase Emma Goldman.

cactus9

If you have to intern people I don't want to be part of your revolution, to paraphrase Emma Goldman.

Im already being interned now as we speak. Im in an internship because i have been misbehaving as a worker, so now they have send me to a capitalist so i can learn to become an obedient worker or something like that.

Anarchism doesnt have to be perfect just better than what exist now.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=intern

cactus9

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #70

During a revolution and immediately after, violent counter revolutionaries would have to be disarmed and interned. I’d think that is pretty much unavoidable. Keeping people guarded cannot be anything other than unpleasant for all concerned, guards and guarded. An ‘education camp’ should therefore be transitory and not become part of a formal institution - if that happens it will never make itself redundant.

If you have to intern people I don't want to be part of your revolution, to paraphrase Emma Goldman.

so in the event that we capture members of the counter revolutionary forces then you advocate we just shoot them

radicalgraffiti

cactus9

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #70

During a revolution and immediately after, violent counter revolutionaries would have to be disarmed and interned. I’d think that is pretty much unavoidable. Keeping people guarded cannot be anything other than unpleasant for all concerned, guards and guarded. An ‘education camp’ should therefore be transitory and not become part of a formal institution - if that happens it will never make itself redundant.

If you have to intern people I don't want to be part of your revolution, to paraphrase Emma Goldman.

so in the event that we capture members of the counter revolutionary forces then you advocate we just shoot them

I just want a nice revolution without internment or executions. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

cactus9

radicalgraffiti

cactus9

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #70

During a revolution and immediately after, violent counter revolutionaries would have to be disarmed and interned. I’d think that is pretty much unavoidable. Keeping people guarded cannot be anything other than unpleasant for all concerned, guards and guarded. An ‘education camp’ should therefore be transitory and not become part of a formal institution - if that happens it will never make itself redundant.

If you have to intern people I don't want to be part of your revolution, to paraphrase Emma Goldman.

so in the event that we capture members of the counter revolutionary forces then you advocate we just shoot them

I just want a nice revolution without internment or executions. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

It is actually a lot to ask. Its like asking for a football match being played out between two professional teams and then asking that there should be no penalties and no free kicks

Gulai Polye

cactus9

radicalgraffiti

cactus9

Auld-bod

Gulai Polye #70

During a revolution and immediately after, violent counter revolutionaries would have to be disarmed and interned. I’d think that is pretty much unavoidable. Keeping people guarded cannot be anything other than unpleasant for all concerned, guards and guarded. An ‘education camp’ should therefore be transitory and not become part of a formal institution - if that happens it will never make itself redundant.

If you have to intern people I don't want to be part of your revolution, to paraphrase Emma Goldman.

so in the event that we capture members of the counter revolutionary forces then you advocate we just shoot them

I just want a nice revolution without internment or executions. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

It is actually a lot to ask. Its like asking for a football match being played out between two professional teams and then asking that there should be no penalties and no free kicks

That's a terrible analogy.

Cactus9 #77
‘I just want a nice revolution without internment or executions. I don't think that's a lot to ask.’

My reading of history suggests revolutions need not be bloody - it is the counter revolution, which introduces the furious reaction of anti-working class terror. The revolution must contain this or be smashed. If the revolution mirrors its enemy, when does the revolution devour itself?

I just want a nice revolution without internment or executions. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

Good luck with that then.

Should we ever find ourselves in such a revolutionary situation (and here in the UK, this seems very unlikely in my lifetime), the bourgeois counter revolution would unleash untold violence against an organised and politicised working class. In such a fight for survival, it would be the duty of all of us to neutralise that violence. Inaction would only enable counter-revolutionaries and result in the destruction of any revolutionary gains. This neutralising would most likely include internment. Point is, whatever we do in such a situation, we don't lose our humanity and act like the kind of monsters the boss class invariably show themselves to be.

Serge #81

Excellent post.

Serge Forward

I just want a nice revolution without internment or executions. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

Good luck with that then.

Should we ever find ourselves in such a revolutionary situation (and here in the UK, this seems very unlikely in my lifetime), the bourgeois counter revolution would unleash untold violence against an organised and politicised working class. In such a fight for survival, it would be the duty of all of us to neutralise that violence. Inaction would only enable counter-revolutionaries and result in the destruction of any revolutionary gains. This neutralising would most likely include internment. Point is, whatever we do in such a situation, we don't lose our humanity and act like the kind of monsters the boss class invariably show themselves to be.

How can you non ironically think that interning people does not make you a monster?

If you have an anarchist revolution, violent or otherwise and then intern people, haven't you basically just smashed the state and then become the state?

I don't see how restricting the freedom of people who are trying to destroy anarchist society and reimpose capitalism or something worse is particularity bad, or how it makes you a state.

this just seems like liberal "if you defend your self from fascists your basically a fascist" nonsense

cactus9

If you have an anarchist revolution, violent or otherwise and then intern people, haven't you basically just smashed the state and then become the state?

Try read this and you will understand much more about the state (and that its not just a question about using violence)
The State: Its Historic Role
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-state-its-historic-role

And there is also this
How Nonviolence Protects the State
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state

Cactus, a revolution must be practical, surely?

You seem to suggest that capitalist rule with all the oppression, poverty, violence and murder that it creates is a better option than the creation of a non hierarchical fair and just society if its creation involves any violence or control of our class enemies and current oppressors. Considering the level of violence and it's purpose which would be very substantially less than the current level which violence is enacted daily I'm curious as to how you balance that in your head? As for the 'nice' revolution that you desire, well WTF? I would like a nonviolent revolution too but then I'd like to look like George Cloony rather than Buster Blood Vessel after a long stint at fat camp. That shit ain't happening but the violence of capitalism is, every fucking day. Do we really throw in the towel rather than cause some discomfort to the very people that would treat us as slaves our whole lives?

The thing is you're not defending yourself from 'statists'. You're defending yourself from counter-revolutionaries who are trying to re-impose 'normal' capitalism.

The working class does need to constitute itself as the ruling power in society. That's what the revolution is. That's why Marxists think that the state is an inevitable institution as long as classes exist, and why revolutions are 'authoritarian' actions. If the revolution consists of not actually doing anything against the capitalist order (which will inevitably mean, 'against some individual capitalists and their supporters'), it isn't a revolution.

Post copied from 'can't even Corbyn' comments at suggestion of AB:

radicalgraffiti wrote:
This is kind of why i don't think morals/ethics are all that useful for understanding politics, especially not when it focuses on the morals of individual people. The private motivations of the members of the tory or labour party, are impossible to determine and tell us vary little about what they do

Among other things the current ethical climate is characterised by a strong resistance to all forms of moralising, which is often seen as, and often is, elitist. But do you really believe that we'd be discussing extra-parliamentary organising if people's minds weren't poisoned by the enveloping climate of ideas within capitalism, like the idea that coercive authority creates a rational society, which like so many other currently popular notions may not even be fully conscious?

Ethics is unsettling. It's not very soothing to contemplate the possibility that, as ethical creatures, humans might have a disposition to acquiesce in emotional and cognitive pathways that we may not recognize in ourselves, or even be able to articulate, but which might be governing our social and political actions. But for example, one of the problems of creating a mass movement might be that in the prevailing ethical atmosphere in the wake of so much defeat people are more interested in their 'rights' than their virtues or (dare I even mention it?) their social responsibilities, so getting them to put the time in to organising rather than merely purchasing a vote is going to be harder.

In this era, in which there is widespread contempt for all but the most superficial thinking about how to live well, where 'rights' are given precedence over the capacities of the people possessing these rights, many people like yourself think it possible to create a just and rational society without just and rational people. I think that's probably just out to lunch. How long would it last, millions of people protecting themselves and their private vices against any suggestion of any form of claims against the other? The idea that people constantly make comparisons and judgements and condemn and admire and relentlessly form allegiances based on all this but that none of it has anything to do with politics is just plain weird. It IS politics. Just think of the servility involved in the ambition for respect in even the loosest social settings, even in web based three and four times removed anonymous Chinese parliaments like libcom.

Admiring capitalism (the right) or tolerating it (the left) are moral stances, and insulating yourself from the contemporary ethical environment in which this is taking place is a bafflingly apolitical ethical choice to make if you want to change anything.

If you wanted to really entrench 'business' and war and wage slavery and 'parliamentary democracy' deeply into a culture you'd need a story to sustain the conviction that this is all perfectly rational or civilised or scientific or free or at least as good as possible and certainly better than all the alternatives in some (as yet unspecified) way. Ethics is essential to maintaining sweat shops and concentration camps. Ignoring it is suicidal.

factvalue

Post copied from 'can't even Corbyn' comments at suggestion of AB:

radicalgraffiti wrote:
This is kind of why i don't think morals/ethics are all that useful for understanding politics, especially not when it focuses on the morals of individual people. The private motivations of the members of the tory or labour party, are impossible to determine and tell us vary little about what they do

Among other things the current ethical climate is characterised by a strong resistance to all forms of moralising, which is often seen as, and often is, elitist. But do you really believe that we'd be discussing extra-parliamentary organising if people's minds weren't poisoned by the enveloping climate of ideas within capitalism, like the idea that coercive authority creates a rational society, which like so many other currently popular notions may not even be fully conscious?

You have this completely backwards, society is saturated with moralise, it is the default way to engage with politics.
Complaining about politicians expenses without understanding what politicians role in society is, complaining about bankers bonuses while they fire workers without criticising the roll of banks or CEOs, making anti gentrification about haircuts and fashion not business practices. All of this is moralising.

This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to people supporting Corbyn, they believe the previous leaders where bad people, so when one comes along who is apparently not what are they going to do? they have no critic of the structure of the labour party or its role in society,

factvalue

Ethics is unsettling. It's not very soothing to contemplate the possibility that, as ethical creatures, humans might have a disposition to acquiesce in emotional and cognitive pathways that we may not recognize in ourselves, or even be able to articulate, but which might be governing our social and political actions. But for example, one of the problems of creating a mass movement might be that in the prevailing ethical atmosphere in the wake of so much defeat people are more interested in their 'rights' than their virtues or (dare I even mention it?) their social responsibilities, so getting them to put the time in to organising rather than merely purchasing a vote is going to be harder.

you start with your conclusion and try to construct reality around that rather than observing how things are and seeking an explanation.

humans are not ethical creatures, ethics are a thing humans can do, humans are not rational creatures, rationality is a thing humans can do (sort of)

you see a simple problem, people chose the easy option (and this is entirely rational of them) and try to fit it into your pre-existing idea that everything is about ethics.

the problem is not that people are to busy thinking about their rights and haven't spent enough time thinking about their responsibilities, the problem is people have a misguided ideas of how social change happens and what their own capabilities are, in fact their entire objectives are wrong.

factvalue

In this era, in which there is widespread contempt for all but the most superficial thinking about how to live well, where 'rights' are given precedence over the capacities of the people possessing these rights, many people like yourself think it possible to create a just and rational society without just and rational people. I think that's probably just out to lunch. How long would it last, millions of people protecting themselves and their private vices against any suggestion of any form of claims against the other? The idea that people constantly make comparisons and judgements and condemn and admire and relentlessly form allegiances based on all this but that none of it has anything to do with politics is just plain weird. It IS politics. Just think of the servility involved in the ambition for respect in even the loosest social settings, even in web based three and four times removed anonymous Chinese parliaments like libcom.

you appear to be making up positions to disagree with, everything is political.

the fact that people are incapable of being genuinely just and rational does not mean a communist society is impossible, to claim so is simply liberalism, its the classic liberal response, "its a nice idea, but people are mean and selfish so it'd never work" but you have taken the opposite position "but people can be good and selfless" this is not a contradiction, you have just accepted the flawed premiss, that society is simple a sum of the individuals who make it up, when in reality society is system with its own logics and feedbacks that reshapes its members just as it is shaped by them.

factvalue

Admiring capitalism (the right) or tolerating it (the left) are moral stances, and insulating yourself from the contemporary ethical environment in which this is taking place is a bafflingly apolitical ethical choice to make if you want to change anything.

again you seek to present things in terms of ethics, when they are about world views and the scope of posibility

factvalue

If you wanted to really entrench 'business' and war and wage slavery and 'parliamentary democracy' deeply into a culture you'd need a story to sustain the conviction that this is all perfectly rational or civilised or scientific or free or at least as good as possible and certainly better than all the alternatives in some (as yet unspecified) way. Ethics is essential to maintaining sweat shops and concentration camps. Ignoring it is suicidal.

i haven't disagree with this, but it is not only ethics, ethics is the tool to justify what people want to do anyway.

slothjabber

The thing is you're not defending yourself from 'statists'. You're defending yourself from counter-revolutionaries who are trying to re-impose 'normal' capitalism.

who said statists but you? who has said anything contrary to this statement? my earlier post was based on this exact premiss

slothjabber

The working class does need to constitute itself as the ruling power in society. That's what the revolution is. That's why Marxists think that the state is an inevitable institution as long as classes exist, and why revolutions are 'authoritarian' actions. If the revolution consists of not actually doing anything against the capitalist order (which will inevitably mean, 'against some individual capitalists and their supporters'), it isn't a revolution.

the working class in seizing power and abolishing capitalism ceases to be the working class, the Marxist definition of state is shit and serves noone but those who want to confuse the difference between the democratic re establishment of society on communist lines with hierarchical body for ruling over others

RG

You have this completely backwards, society is saturated with moralise, it is the default way to engage with politics.
Complaining about politicians expenses without understanding what politicians role in society is, complaining about bankers bonuses while they fire workers without criticising the roll of banks or CEOs, making anti gentrification about haircuts and fashion not business practices. All of this is moralising.

This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to people supporting Corbyn, they believe the previous leaders where bad people, so when one comes along who is apparently not what are they going to do? they have no critic of the structure of the labour party or its role in society,

For whatever reason you've mistaken agreement for disagreement in this bit. What I was suggesting was that whereas most people resist the imposition of moral absolutes (should they detect them), the entire political culture, our social world, is inherently ethical.

In the cases you mention you are explicitly comparing what should be with what is. The ethical behaviour you questioned (a variety of misdirected morals outraged) is produced by an unequal society which stunts and corrupts ethical reasoning. Not only is there an in-built irrationality resulting from the tendency to be persuaded of the value of an institution based simply on the fact that it already exists, resulting in morality being popularly identified with conformity to the established order, as you seem to have done. But regarding these irrational apologetics and identifications with what already is, in these statements of yours here, you are suggesting that not every opinion is as good or bad as any other, so I must assume that there has to be some principle of decision by which you have eliminated the trivial and irrelevant, something which indicated to you the direction of preferable judgement, supported by your fuller knowledge and reflection compared with those you are criticising. I am advocating that this moral principle, supported by fuller knowledge and reflection, is a necessary precursor to a successful revolutionary transformation of capitalist relations.

If it's possible to be mistaken in our moral judgements, there must be some basis for the distinction between ethically true and false. Consider the moral outrage which would erupt if these same outraged people gradually caught sight of the lies hiding the full injustice of the situation you've described. The moral institutions of which people have been most certain, such as slavery and serfdom, have turned out to be fallible and evil. They were overthrown partly by an appeal to more enlightened conscience. The only way to recognise the error of a moral institution is by seeing its inconsistency with other, better, more just, more rational moral institutions.

you start with your conclusion and try to construct reality around that rather than observing how things are and seeking an explanation.

humans are not ethical creatures, ethics are a thing humans can do, humans are not rational creatures, rationality is a thing humans can do (sort of)

you see a simple problem, people chose the easy option (and this is entirely rational of them) and try to fit it into your pre-existing idea that everything is about ethics.

the problem is not that people are to busy thinking about their rights and haven't spent enough time thinking about their responsibilities, the problem is people have a misguided ideas of how social change happens and what their own capabilities are, in fact their entire objectives are wrong.

My conclusion seems so self-evident that in combination with your previous rejections of all supporting arguments, I can see no real way out, short of suggesting a reading list on anarchist ethics which, based on your previous exchange with Khawaga you may well view as patronising. I agree with you that it is entirely rational for people to 'choose the easy option' as you put it. I don't think they have done so correctly because I think they lack the necessary ethical discrimination, having been so thoroughly indoctrinated by capitalism to approximate as closely as possible the isolated liberal atoms you mentioned later on in your post, and I include myself in that, to a far greater extent than I'm comfortable with.

Ethics is a logical study of the degree to which the validity of judgements of right and wrong implied in our expressed or tacit choices, may be harmonised into a coherent, rational system. Communist anarchism for me embodies a plausible attempt at just such a system concerning itself with the rational conduct of life, which incorporates the central idea that people are social creatures.

One of the ways in which it does this is by showing that logically the aim of any rational activity is a whole which includes the necessary means, in the same way that competing routes to the same destination contain features by which the possibility of reaching the destination of each one may be judged. It's a dynamic, imperfect and forever unfinished system, based on provisional information, reflecting life itself. Those claiming their (narrow conception of) rights are missing something:

"What was it that morality, evolving in animal and human societies, was striving for, if not for the opposition to the promptings of narrow egoism, and bringing up humanity in the spirit of the development of altruism? The very expressions 'egoism' and 'altruism' are incorrect, because there can be no pure altruism without an admixture of personal pleasure - and consequently, without egoism. It would therefore be more nearly correct to say that ethics aims at the development of social habits and the weakening of the narrowly personal habits. These last make the individual lose sight of society through his regard for his own person, and therefore they even fail to attain their object, i.e. the welfare of the individual, whereas the development of habits of work in common, and of mutual aid in general, leads to a series of beneficial consequences in the family as well as society." [Kropotkin, Ethics, pp. 307-8]

What is good or bad ought to be what is useful or hurtful to a society of such imperfect but in the above sense, ethically-minded individuals.

you appear to be making up positions to disagree with, everything is political.

the fact that people are incapable of being genuinely just and rational does not mean a communist society is impossible, to claim so is simply liberalism, its the classic liberal response, "its a nice idea, but people are mean and selfish so it'd never work" but you have taken the opposite position "but people can be good and selfless" this is not a contradiction, you have just accepted the flawed premiss, that society is simple a sum of the individuals who make it up, when in reality society is system with its own logics and feedbacks that reshapes its members just as it is shaped by them.

I think with this we're getting close to some of the central issues in your rather reductive dismissal of morals and ethics. Are you saying with the Leninists that society is the result of historical laws that lie outside of human control, so that morality is simply a product of particular determining economic forces? Or, given what you seemed to be asserting above - that popular morality expresses prevailing power relations - do you think that universal codes are simply an excuse for the state, which can justify its existence by claiming to act to ensure that such principles are applied to all?

In terms of the individual, I can't express myself better than to quote from the Ethics entry in the FAQ:

So what, for anarchists, is unethical behaviour? Essentially anything that denies the most precious achievement of history: the liberty, uniqueness and dignity of the individual.

Individuals can see what actions are unethical because, due to empathy, they can place themselves into the position of those suffering the behaviour. Acts which restrict individuality can be considered unethical for two (interrelated) reasons.

Firstly, the protection and development of individuality in all enriches the life of every individual and it gives pleasure to individuals because of the diversity it produces. This egoist basis of ethics reinforces the second (social) reason, namely that individuality is good for society for it enriches the community and social life, strengthening it and allowing it to grow and evolve.

radicalgraffiti

slothjabber

The thing is you're not defending yourself from 'statists'. You're defending yourself from counter-revolutionaries who are trying to re-impose 'normal' capitalism.

who said statists but you? who has said anything contrary to this statement? my earlier post was based on this exact premiss

I think I was replying to Cactus rather than you (I can't actually remember, it was days ago), but never mind.

radicalgraffiti

slothjabber

The working class does need to constitute itself as the ruling power in society. That's what the revolution is. That's why Marxists think that the state is an inevitable institution as long as classes exist, and why revolutions are 'authoritarian' actions. If the revolution consists of not actually doing anything against the capitalist order (which will inevitably mean, 'against some individual capitalists and their supporters'), it isn't a revolution.

the working class in seizing power and abolishing capitalism ceases to be the working class, the Marxist definition of state is shit and serves noone but those who want to confuse the difference between the democratic re establishment of society on communist lines with hierarchical body for ruling over others

The working class can only 'abolish capitalism' if it makes itself the master of society. If it refuses to do that (February-October 1917 in Russia for example - though it would not have been possible to 'abolish capitalism' in Russia alone) then it doesn't abolish capitalism, or do much else either. The working class needs a body to 'rule over' others - the pro-capitalists inside and outside the revolutionary territory who are trying to restore the status quo. And I think that it will be hierarchical (if by that you mean vertically structured) - the entire working class of (for example) Belgium isn't going to come together to discuss how to deal with the capitalist French government. There must be some degree of delegation to 'higher' co-ordinating bodies.

If you don't that's a state because the working class is a majority, that's fine, but then again, logically that means you don't see Marxists as being statists, because that's what we're talking about. The revolutionary working class organising itself at 'above the workplace' level in order to co-ordinate the defence of the revolution and its extension.

And it's only by abolishing capitalism tat the working class ceases to be the working class. So in order to abolish itself it has to put itself in the position of commanding society, ie to establish a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. If it doesn't do that, it can't do anything. The revolution is the establishment of the proletariat as a state power (though, granted, a very different one from all previous states).

The point is, the revolution starts in capitalist society, and until it's completed, we're still in capitalist society. It is the completion of the revolution that marks the change, not the beginning. A bit like travelling from one place to another - until you get where you're going, you haven't arrived. A single revolutionary territory cannot 'establish socialist society'. It can only be a proletarian dictatorship because until all the rest of the working class is free (and thereby, the working class everywhere is in a position to transcend class), the world human community hasn't been formed. We're still in a position of classes and warring states. It is the winning of the world revolution by the working class that allows this potential, not overthrowing the local bourgeoisie.

factvalue

RG

You have this completely backwards, society is saturated with moralise, it is the default way to engage with politics.
Complaining about politicians expenses without understanding what politicians role in society is, complaining about bankers bonuses while they fire workers without criticising the roll of banks or CEOs, making anti gentrification about haircuts and fashion not business practices. All of this is moralising.

This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to people supporting Corbyn, they believe the previous leaders where bad people, so when one comes along who is apparently not what are they going to do? they have no critic of the structure of the labour party or its role in society,

For whatever reason you've mistaken agreement for disagreement in this bit. What I was suggesting was that whereas most people resist the imposition of moral absolutes (should they detect them), the entire political culture, our social world, is inherently ethical.

no i don't, i reject the idea that people are inherently ethical as i stated in my last post, it follows that i reject the idea that the world is inherently ethical. Most people however tend to believe in moral absolutes.

factvalue

In the cases you mention you are explicitly comparing what should be with what is. The ethical behaviour you questioned (a variety of misdirected morals outraged) is produced by an unequal society which stunts and corrupts ethical reasoning. Not only is there an in-built irrationality resulting from the tendency to be persuaded of the value of an institution based simply on the fact that it already exists, resulting in morality being popularly identified with conformity to the established order, as you seem to have done. But regarding these irrational apologetics and identifications with what already is, in these statements of yours here, you are suggesting that not every opinion is as good or bad as any other, so I must assume that there has to be some principle of decision by which you have eliminated the trivial and irrelevant, something which indicated to you the direction of preferable judgement, supported by your fuller knowledge and reflection compared with those you are criticising. I am advocating that this moral principle, supported by fuller knowledge and reflection, is a necessary precursor to a successful revolutionary transformation of capitalist relations.

The point i'm making is the tendency to moralise results in the seeking of people to moralise about, but because the problem in each case is a problem of system this moralising obscures the reality, and this is the general tendency of moralising. This is a matter that is empirically verifiable, not ethics, what you do with the knowledge may be a matter of ethics.

factvalue

If it's possible to be mistaken in our moral judgements, there must be some basis for the distinction between ethically true and false. Consider the moral outrage which would erupt if these same outraged people gradually caught sight of the lies hiding the full injustice of the situation you've described. The moral institutions of which people have been most certain, such as slavery and serfdom, have turned out to be fallible and evil. They were overthrown partly by an appeal to more enlightened conscience. The only way to recognise the error of a moral institution is by seeing its inconsistency with other, better, more just, more rational moral institutions.

what is true and false is not a matter of ethics, its a matter of reality, you can look at something from different ethical view points and come to different conclusions. But reality is what it is regardless of what opinion we have of it. Of cause peoples perception of the world and ethics will lead to them changing it, but the reality of it is not an ethical issue, even if we can't fully know that reality and only perceive it though filters like morals and ethics

factvalue

you appear to be making up positions to disagree with, everything is political.

the fact that people are incapable of being genuinely just and rational does not mean a communist society is impossible, to claim so is simply liberalism, its the classic liberal response, "its a nice idea, but people are mean and selfish so it'd never work" but you have taken the opposite position "but people can be good and selfless" this is not a contradiction, you have just accepted the flawed premiss, that society is simple a sum of the individuals who make it up, when in reality society is system with its own logics and feedbacks that reshapes its members just as it is shaped by them.

I think with this we're getting close to some of the central issues in your rather reductive dismissal of morals and ethics. Are you saying with the Leninists that society is the result of historical laws that lie outside of human control, so that morality is simply a product of particular determining economic forces? Or, given what you seemed to be asserting above - that popular morality expresses prevailing power relations - do you think that universal codes are simply an excuse for the state, which can justify its existence by claiming to act to ensure that such principles are applied to all?

that you can say "your rather reductive dismissal of morals and ethics" shows you haven't understood at all.

The idea that economic forces determining everything is clearly wrong, but peoples views are shaped by the society they live in, they are not all the same, and people are often not aware of that, and they probably cant all be the same, which one reason moralising is a bad approach.

There is no "correct" system of ethics/morals, they are a human creation, this doesn't mean they are all equally good, but how we determine which are good and bad are based on our own views and objectives which confit. There are no underlining morals or ethics to reality.

thats nothing but word games slothjabber

Really? I think it's pretty crucial in how we understand the process of revolution. The failure of the soviets to prevent the Provisional Government waging war between February and October 1917 is not just 'word games'. The failure of the workers' and soldiers' councils in Germany to overthrow the German state in 1918-19 is not 'word games'. The failure of the Spanish collectives to overthrow the Republican government in 1936 was not 'word games'.

But it's only tangentially connected to ethics I suppose, so maybe better on another thread.

Radicalgraffiti #95

I agree with much of your posts, though sometimes I think you and FV are describing the same thing from different perspectives.

You reject the idea that people are inherently ethical. If that is the case, why do even very young children appear to have a notion of right and wrong? I totally accept that their view point is egocentric, however when a child cries out that something is not fair, then usually they are basing it on an idea of ‘fair play’ (respect for ‘the rules’ or equal treatment of all concerned). Not too far from a rudimentary ‘ethic’ (if defining ethics as a set of beliefs about right and wrong behavior).

RG

no i don't, i reject the idea that people are inherently ethical as i stated in my last post, it follows that i reject the idea that the world is inherently ethical.

That seems at odds with your assertion that society is not just the sum of its members. I mean, why do you assume feedback, complexity, emergence etc. for society on the one hand but then deny them to its individual human components? If I'm following the drift of your logic correctly here, you may simply be rehearsing the crude arithmetic whereby people are just the sum of their physical components, in which case, since being ethical involves possessing some form of consciousness, if the world were not inherently conscious, would that not imply that people weren't inherently conscious? Would water be wet only if water molecules were wet?

Of course more likely you're just reminding me once again of Hume's 'can't get an ought from an is', with which I agree in most cases, although there is definitely more to say about that one, if you cared to look into its genesis in the philosophy of Hume's day. Anyway, I'm not claiming that ethics is isomorphic with pure science, if that's what you're arguing against. But I did make that clear quite a while ago.

Most people however tend to believe in moral absolutes.

I think it's more accurate to say that most people view moral rules as absolute, which is why they're so shocked to hear that they need to look for new moral truths, or when they see such things acted out in front of them, particularly when they've received their behavioural blueprints from some authority, like when Russian Marxists witnessed the inexplicable outbreak of revolution in what was for them an impossibly underdeveloped country.

The point i'm making is the tendency to moralise results in the seeking of people to moralise about, but because the problem in each case is a problem of system this moralising obscures the reality, and this is the general tendency of moralising.

While you have been discussing moralising, I have been discussing ethics. Moralising is about blaming people, ethics is about analysing their actions.

This is a matter that is empirically verifiable, not ethics, what you do with the knowledge may be a matter of ethics.

On the contrary, ethics has two aspects, a rigorously theoretical dialectical part and an empirical material part. Ethics functions to ascertain the likely correspondence with truth that our moral value judgements are capable of, given our current state of knowledge.

It begins with an assumption of certain empirical facts about human beings, about their needs, drives, impulses, etc.. A moral perception can only be shown to be in error through its inconsistency with other moral perceptions, i.e. moral data are no better in this respect than physical data. And much like physical data, they allow of a continual process of self-correction via theoretical feedbacks which unify our moral judgments into a continually developing rational system.

So when you criticise me for cherry picking data to fit with my preconceptions you are describing the process of any normal science, where observations are theory-laden since they would be impossible and would make no sense without their interpretive systems. Without empirical assumptions about how people will respond to certain conditions, together with more general assumptions about the desirability of pleasure over pain etc., there would be no reason to select one set of actions and not another.

It is then a matter of constructing the negatives to these hypotheses and comparing them with each other and with reality and refining and discarding to attain greater and greater accuracy in the normal way. In this manner anarchist communist ethics avoids authority, by carrying over the methods of science into the ethical arena, the domain of human action.

If you start with the hypothesis that since humans have an ineluctable drive to control their environment to provide for their needs, you might hypothesise that some form of possession of things based on use is also unavoidable. You might then compare the results of this with the need to harmonise the individual's use of things with the interests of society. After you've taken all manner of empirical considerations into account, a just rule of property could then be arrived at which works in most cases and will be subject to change as further relevant factors emerge. This is one reason why anarchists avoid issuing detailed, rigid, prescriptive blueprints for society.

On the dialectical side, a rule is rarely applicable by itself but is always subject to countervailing factors, such as that murder or lying is sometimes ethical, so that as with the Newtonian law of inertia, deviations from the rule help you to analyse the particulars of any given case.

But yes I agree with you that ethics is about what people do, how they act on knowledge, which is why it's such an important component of revolutionary politics.

what is true and false is not a matter of ethics, its a matter of reality, you can look at something from different ethical view points and come to different conclusions. But reality is what it is regardless of what opinion we have of it. Of cause peoples perception of the world and ethics will lead to them changing it, but the reality of it is not an ethical issue, even if we can't fully know that reality and only perceive it though filters like morals and ethics

Look, you're absolutely right to be sceptical of the absurd claims of moral absolutism, no argument there. But when you justify your stance on ethics by repeatedly insisting that there is at least one volitional and indemonstrable premise in every moral system, as if I have ever denied the simple logic that you have to start with an ought if you want to arrive at an ought, you plainly have not thereby demonstrated that moral systems contain nothing but arbitrary assumptions.

There is no "correct" system of ethics/morals, they are a human creation, this doesn't mean they are all equally good, but how we determine which are good and bad are based on our own views and objectives which confit.

That all assumptions are not equally true or equally false, or that all moral systems are not equally good or equally bad, is evidence against your claim that they are entirely subjective, so you have not only failed to show that morality is nothing but a matter of opinion or convention but have offered evidence to the contrary.

Just some thoughts, I guess that you would not count political philosophy to be a branch of ethics but otherwise I would divide anarchist ethics into two main branches, how anarchism ought properly to be conducted and anarchists to comport themselves in carrying out their beliefs and other ethics which may, while not inherent in anarchism, may be often found associated with anarchist beliefs. I don't have any examples as I'm not yet clear about this but I think it's a distinction worth making. Please correct me if I am wrong.

cactus9

While ethics is obviously normative, remembering what Auld-bod said earlier, I think there's perhaps something a little too prescriptive in the 'rules for comportment' frame-view. It would be a mistake to confuse an interest in a rational, scientific approach to ethics, with its division into a purely abstract theory of moral value judgements and an applied art of living according to those judgements, with the attitude of a preaching, moralising absolutist who always knows in advance what is good and bad in any conceivable situation and feels compelled to impress this good news on everyone around them.

One of the most commonly expressed objections to the idea that critical scientific deliberations are applicable within ethics is that this only goes for the means, while the ends are an arbitrarily chosen matter of volition rather than reason. But this raises no difficulties for the version of ethics I'm talking about, since this kind of ethics bears a relationship to the other moral systems you've referred to analogous to that of pure mathematics in its relationship to the various number systems which are possible. Whether or not an action is valid depends on the empirical assumptions you start with, remembering that just like mathematics, ethics is directly applicable and inherently connected to reality.

Hypothetically I should prefer life to death (most of the time) except when it comes to the physical safety of people I love, or if the pleasure over pain imperative were not able to produce an argument which appealed to any desire in me to preserve my life. Rather than absolutes, this form of ethics deals in hypothetical imperatives which allow you to plan ahead coherently and prefiguratively. Knowing the necessary means implied by a given choice of ends you can decide more clearly which road to take.

I think that a much more popular application of this sort of ethics, while always inordinately difficult but particularly at the time, would have illuminated the actual ends implied by the Bolshevik choice of means, and that such a just appreciation of their inclination towards hierarchical power relations would have quite possibly determined a very different outcome.

An example of an alternative ethical theory which is frequently encountered in anarchist circles is hedonism (or utilitarianism) in which pleasure is the only human good and where elaborate calculations may be carried out for the purpose of finding the balance of pleasure inhering in any act. Speaking for myself I must tell you that I'm as fond of a tasty dinner as the next person but I wouldn't go so far as to claim that the ability to cook me one is the ne plus ultra of ethical behaviour, and that's the clean version.

I meant to get back to this thread sooner

Auld-bod

Radicalgraffiti #95

I agree with much of your posts, though sometimes I think you and FV are describing the same thing from different perspectives.

You reject the idea that people are inherently ethical. If that is the case, why do even very young children appear to have a notion of right and wrong? I totally accept that their view point is egocentric, however when a child cries out that something is not fair, then usually they are basing it on an idea of ‘fair play’ (respect for ‘the rules’ or equal treatment of all concerned). Not too far from a rudimentary ‘ethic’ (if defining ethics as a set of beliefs about right and wrong behavior).

right, this is best argument so far imo.

I think that by the time children are capable of expressing that something is unfair they have been exposed to society for several months, so we cant be sure this is something inherent to humans and not developed socially.

I'm also not convinced this reaches the level of being "ethical", i agree it can lead to thinking about ethics, but i don't think its enough to make ethics an inherent trait of humans

slothjabber

Really? I think it's pretty crucial in how we understand the process of revolution. The failure of the soviets to prevent the Provisional Government waging war between February and October 1917 is not just 'word games'. The failure of the workers' and soldiers' councils in Germany to overthrow the German state in 1918-19 is not 'word games'. The failure of the Spanish collectives to overthrow the Republican government in 1936 was not 'word games'.

But it's only tangentially connected to ethics I suppose, so maybe better on another thread.

using vague definitions because that serve to obstruct doesn't help understand or explain any of that, start another thread if you want, but i have not patience for marxisms vagaries and tendency to push terminology that supports their preexisting ideas rather than aiding understanding and communication.

factvalue

RG

no i don't, i reject the idea that people are inherently ethical as i stated in my last post, it follows that i reject the idea that the world is inherently ethical.

That seems at odds with your assertion that society is not just the sum of its members. I mean, why do you assume feedback, complexity, emergence etc. for society on the one hand but then deny them to its individual human components? If I'm following the drift of your logic correctly here, you may simply be rehearsing the crude arithmetic whereby people are just the sum of their physical components, in which case, since being ethical involves possessing some form of consciousness, if the world were not inherently conscious, would that not imply that people weren't inherently conscious? Would water be wet only if water molecules were wet?

no, thinking about ethics is a thing done by individuals, society doesn't think, the people they make up society think. society has structures and applies pressure to people. there are ethical issues in society but thats not the same thing as being inherently ethical.

factvalue

Most people however tend to believe in moral absolutes.

I think it's more accurate to say that most people view moral rules as absolute, which is why they're so shocked to hear that they need to look for new moral truths, or when they see such things acted out in front of them, particularly when they've received their behavioural blueprints from some authority, like when Russian Marxists witnessed the inexplicable outbreak of revolution in what was for them an impossibly underdeveloped country.

there is not moral truth, there are moral judgements

factvalue

The point i'm making is the tendency to moralise results in the seeking of people to moralise about, but because the problem in each case is a problem of system this moralising obscures the reality, and this is the general tendency of moralising.

While you have been discussing moralising, I have been discussing ethics. Moralising is about blaming people, ethics is about analysing their actions.

it was you who brought up moralising in post #90 you said

Among other things the current ethical climate is characterised by a strong resistance to all forms of moralising, which is often seen as, and often is, elitist. But do you really believe that we'd be discussing extra-parliamentary organising if people's minds weren't poisoned by the enveloping climate of ideas within capitalism, like the idea that coercive authority creates a rational society, which like so many other currently popular notions may not even be fully conscious?

so dont pretend that you where talking aobut something else when i respond to you

factvalue

So when you criticise me for cherry picking data to fit with my preconceptions you are describing the process of any normal science, where observations are theory-laden since they would be impossible and would make no sense without their interpretive systems. Without empirical assumptions about how people will respond to certain conditions, together with more general assumptions about the desirability of pleasure over pain etc., there would be no reason to select one set of actions and not another.

no its not the phrase "empirical assumptions" is nonsense its an oxymoron, there is nothing remotely scientific bout what your describing. yes scientists make assumptions, but this is a thing that contradicts science, its something scientists seek to minimise as far as possible, its why things like double bind tries exist.

factvalue

If you start with the hypothesis that since humans have an ineluctable drive to control their environment to provide for their needs, you might hypothesise that some form of possession of things based on use is also unavoidable.

hypothesis are things that require testing, not assumptions that then build on with more assumptions. you can start with an idea and extrapolate from it, but this is writing fiction not science.

factvalue

You might then compare the results of this with the need to harmonise the individual's use of things with the interests of society. After you've taken all manner of empirical considerations into account, a just rule of property could then be arrived at which works in most cases and will be subject to change as further relevant factors emerge. This is one reason why anarchists avoid issuing detailed, rigid, prescriptive blueprints for society.

the reason i oppose rigid blue prints for society is that society is to complex and changeable to come up with one perfect solution.
the idea they we shouldn't come up with planes because we might come up with a just rule of property is ridiculous, " oh no we cant think about that what if it contradicts our politics" wtf?

factvalue

There is no "correct" system of ethics/morals, they are a human creation, this doesn't mean they are all equally good, but how we determine which are good and bad are based on our own views and objectives which confit.

That all assumptions are not equally true or equally false, or that all moral systems are not equally good or equally bad, is evidence against your claim that they are entirely subjective, so you have not only failed to show that morality is nothing but a matter of opinion or convention but have offered evidence to the contrary.

my point I don't consider all moral systems equally good, this is my subjective opinion, what my opinion is has no effect on reality and doesn't necessary indicate anything about what is actually the case. i am convinced i'm right, i'm sure your convinced your right, that doesn't mean there is a discoverable perfect ethics that is objectively correct, there are ethical approaches that produce results i like better and there are approaches that produce results i dislike, this is not evidence against subjectivity

radicalgraffiti #102

I don’t think we basically disagree. Though I feel it is a bit of a grey area.

When a baby is being persuaded to eat from a spoon it can take the form of a game of ‘one for you one for me’. The infant can be learning several things simultaneously, social bonding, elementary language, numeracy, sharing and taking turns. This may be viewed as helping develop a child’s innate potentialities.

Can an ethical viewpoint be developed if it is not in some sense innate?
(I believe the particular values an individual acquires are socially derived.)

Just in case no one has already mentioned then:

Anarchist Morality by Kropotkin

Ethics by Kropotkin

Also An Anarchist FAQ A.2.19 What ethical views do anarchists hold?

I also touch on the issue here:Mutual Aid: An Introduction and Evaluation (second edition available from AK Press UK)

Erich Fromm's work is of interest as well.

RG - sorry for delay, been away

no, thinking about ethics is a thing done by individuals, society doesn't think, the people they make up society think. society has structures and applies pressure to people. there are ethical issues in society but thats not the same thing as being inherently ethical.

There are several problems with this. You're sliding heedlessly back and forth between physical and social ontology, in this post shifting from your previous use of 'world' to 'society' talk, having initially gone in the other direction, previously arguing that if people aren't inherently ethical then 'the world' is not inherently ethical, which led to my questioning your logic and consistency in my previous post. But instead of addressing these points you've simply switched ontologies and then gone on to answer your own questions about societies not thinking or something, at least as far as I can make out, your vocabulary is somewhat loose and ambiguous and you don't seem to be giving the discussion a great deal of consideration. What exactly do you mean by 'inherently' or that ethics is a 'thing' for instance?

there is not moral truth, there are moral judgements

And are all moral judgements merely opinions or based only on convention? Do they never involve serious error i.e. lack of correspondence with reality?

it was you who brought up moralising in post #90 'Among other things the current ethical climate is characterised by a strong resistance to all forms of moralising' so dont pretend that you where talking aobut something else when i respond to you

Yes indeed, and I was characterising your position not mine, so what's your point?

no its not the phrase "empirical assumptions" is nonsense its an oxymoron, there is nothing remotely scientific bout what your describing. yes scientists make assumptions, but this is a thing that contradicts science, its something scientists seek to minimise as far as possible, its why things like double bind tries exist.

If, based upon long observation, you assumed that in most cases repeatedly lying was damaging to solidarity, this empirical assumption would condition your future ethical behaviour. (On a separate issue, and please don't take this the wrong way, but would it kill you to use conventional grammatical code occasionally? It usually takes longer to get to the meaning of your posts than it should, and it would be kinder on your readers/more comradely?)

On empirical assumptions, you might wish to describe a non-relativistic quantum phenomenon by alternatively using either conventional Schroedinger theory or de Broglie-Bohm theory. Even though each is perfectly consistent with the empirical data, the innate empirical assumptions at work in each case, particularly in the very description of the measurement process itself, characterise and determine what counts as data, and in rather different ways, and also what intellectual structures are developed on the basis of these data. The same will be true of any schematising which doesn't just summarise data, which seems to be what your conception of science amounts to.

hypothesis are things that require testing, not assumptions that then build on with more assumptions. you can start with an idea and extrapolate from it, but this is writing fiction not science.

See previous response

the idea they we shouldn't come up with planes because we might come up with a just rule of property is ridiculous, " oh no we cant think about that what if it contradicts our politics" wtf?

Sorry, I can't figure out where you're coming from here, it doesn't appear to have any connection with what I wrote.

my point I don't consider all moral systems equally good, this is my subjective opinion, what my opinion is has no effect on reality and doesn't necessary indicate anything about what is actually the case. i am convinced i'm right, i'm sure your convinced your right, that doesn't mean there is a discoverable perfect ethics that is objectively correct, there are ethical approaches that produce results i like better and there are approaches that produce results i dislike, this is not evidence against subjectivity

You're just re-rehearsing the same things that I've already responded to over and over again.

Auld-bod

radicalgraffiti #102

I don’t think we basically disagree. Though I feel it is a bit of a grey area.

When a baby is being persuaded to eat from a spoon it can take the form of a game of ‘one for you one for me’. The infant can be learning several things simultaneously, social bonding, elementary language, numeracy, sharing and taking turns. This may be viewed as helping develop a child’s innate potentialities.

Can an ethical viewpoint be developed if it is not in some sense innate?
(I believe the particular values an individual acquires are socially derived.)

i didn't realise how long i'd left this

i do think we largely agree, i get the impression we are using innate differently, to me if things are innate they don't need to be taught or learned

factvalue

RG - sorry for delay, been away

no, thinking about ethics is a thing done by individuals, society doesn't think, the people they make up society think. society has structures and applies pressure to people. there are ethical issues in society but thats not the same thing as being inherently ethical.

There are several problems with this. You're sliding heedlessly back and forth between physical and social ontology, in this post shifting from your previous use of 'world' to 'society' talk, having initially gone in the other direction, previously arguing that if people aren't inherently ethical then 'the world' is not inherently ethical, which led to my questioning your logic and consistency in my previous post. But instead of addressing these points you've simply switched ontologies and then gone on to answer your own questions about societies not thinking or something, at least as far as I can make out, your vocabulary is somewhat loose and ambiguous and you don't seem to be giving the discussion a great deal of consideration. What exactly do you mean by 'inherently' or that ethics is a 'thing' for instance?

there is not moral truth, there are moral judgements

And are all moral judgements merely opinions or based only on convention? Do they never involve serious error i.e. lack of correspondence with reality?

there is no moral reality though

factvalue

it was you who brought up moralising in post #90 'Among other things the current ethical climate is characterised by a strong resistance to all forms of moralising' so dont pretend that you where talking aobut something else when i respond to you

Yes indeed, and I was characterising your position not mine, so what's your point?

you know, if you going to do that in future then maybe you should say, because its not at all obvious this is suppose to correspond to what i supposedly think

factvalue

no its not the phrase "empirical assumptions" is nonsense its an oxymoron, there is nothing remotely scientific bout what your describing. yes scientists make assumptions, but this is a thing that contradicts science, its something scientists seek to minimise as far as possible, its why things like double bind tries exist.

If, based upon long observation, you assumed that in most cases repeatedly lying was damaging to solidarity, this empirical assumption would condition your future ethical behaviour.
....

On empirical assumptions, you might wish to describe a non-relativistic quantum phenomenon by alternatively using either conventional Schroedinger theory or de Broglie-Bohm theory. Even though each is perfectly consistent with the empirical data, the innate empirical assumptions at work in each case, particularly in the very description of the measurement process itself, characterise and determine what counts as data, and in rather different ways, and also what intellectual structures are developed on the basis of these data. The same will be true of any schematising which doesn't just summarise data, which seems to be what your conception of science amounts to.

its not an assumption if you base it on observation.

I'm using science as actual scientists use it, and falsifiability is a fundamental requirement of science.

Don't bring up quantum physics as if the ongoing nature of the field somehow supports your idea of speculation on top of speculation as science.

factvalue

(On a separate issue, and please don't take this the wrong way, but would it kill you to use conventional grammatical code occasionally? It usually takes longer to get to the meaning of your posts than it should, and it would be kinder on your readers/more comradely?)

You, while writing paragraphs defending using words in completely contrary way to their normal usage want to complain about my grammar?
and yes it would i have dyslexia

factvalue

the idea they we shouldn't come up with planes because we might come up with a just rule of property is ridiculous, " oh no we cant think about that what if it contradicts our politics" wtf?

Sorry, I can't figure out where you're coming from here, it doesn't appear to have any connection with what I wrote.

this could describe all your responses to me tbh

but i though you quite clearly said we should make ridged plans in case we came to conclusions we didn't like here

You might then compare the results of this with the need to harmonise the individual's use of things with the interests of society. After you've taken all manner of empirical considerations into account, a just rule of property could then be arrived at which works in most cases and will be subject to change as further relevant factors emerge. This is one reason why anarchists avoid issuing detailed, rigid, prescriptive blueprints for society.

factvalue

my point I don't consider all moral systems equally good, this is my subjective opinion, what my opinion is has no effect on reality and doesn't necessary indicate anything about what is actually the case. i am convinced i'm right, i'm sure your convinced your right, that doesn't mean there is a discoverable perfect ethics that is objectively correct, there are ethical approaches that produce results i like better and there are approaches that produce results i dislike, this is not evidence against subjectivity

You're just re-rehearsing the same things that I've already responded to over and over again.

well you clearly didn't understand before, i don't want to drop the point just because you don't appear to get it

First I must apologise if I offended you regarding your dyslexia, that was clumsy and unthoughtful of me and not at all what I intended comrade. Please don’t hold it against me if you can help it.

1.

'there is no moral reality though'

The moral realism versus subjectivism argument is not about which entities fill up the world.

'my point I don't consider all moral systems equally good, this is my subjective opinion, what my opinion is has no effect on reality and doesn't necessary indicate anything about what is actually the case. i am convinced i'm right, i'm sure your convinced your right, that doesn't mean there is a discoverable perfect ethics that is objectively correct, there are ethical approaches that produce results i like better and there are approaches that produce results i dislike, this is not evidence against subjectivity'

I fully agree with your statement about moral reality, in the sense of there being no way to encompass moral or any other value judgements - apart from basic pain and pleasure dispositions - within the limited scientific naturalism that is currently the dominant dogma. Values are even less explicable by materialism than consciousness and cognition, due to their inherent practical connection with the assessment of conduct in a physical world analysed by materialism to the exclusion of mind, and essentially, dead.

It seems evident by now that you hold a common expressivist form of Humean subjectivism, for which value judgements are the expression of our attitudes and feelings but are neither true nor false with reference to such private dispositions and motivational states. Being a moral realist I believe the contrary, that our private moral judgements and motivational responses attempt to align themselves with more general evaluative truths, along with the empirical facts that help to instantiate them, and that they can be correct or incorrect with respect to such truths.

Two people who, observing the same circumstances and assessing them in terms of moral judgements which they respectively regard as a matter of private sentiments and as objective value structures presented with varying weight by the circumstances themselves, will clearly give very different accounts both of their own experiences and the experiences of others, as they will of past and future experiences or of choices between conflicting possibilities etc..

So for example, presented with the possibility of committing grievous bodily harm for slight advantage to myself, I would judge the reason for doing the harm to not outweigh the slight advantage, regardless of the fact that I would not personally suffer the harm. Presumably in your view this would be because I was motivated by benevolent feelings, since there could be no other explanation, there being no moral reality 'out there' to direct me. This misinterpretation of my realist position is also the standard attempt on the part of subjectivists to transform moral realism into a theory of metaphysics.

By asserting that 'there is no moral reality though' you are implying that there has to be something else in the world as well as the empirical facts for and against of the case at hand. And you're doing this because you possess just such a thing, namely the personal feelings which you identify with moral judgements. But there's no need for me to replace your appeal to our subjective motivational states with some spooky grounding of moral truth somehwere 'out there' simply because basic truths come in many more varieties than the material and mathematical. Moral value judgements don't need anything else other than value to make them true or false.

Referring back to Noah's example from much earlier of the asshole beating the dog, obviously the empirical facts of the case provide the reason to act, in the sense that if you don't prevent the abuse the dog will be harmed. But the more general moral truth at work, that preventing the bodily harm of a sentient creature counts as a reason for doing something about the abuse, doesn't need anything else of a different kind to explain why it's true, since it's just as true as 2 + 2 = 4 all by itself.

For materialist subjectivists like yourself, it's obvious that mental facts can't be true in themselves but need physiology or behaviour etc. to explain them. So since you view moral values as emotional states they can have no truth value for you. Of course moral values are inherently about practical matters in the external world so there's a flagrant category error to cope with which leads to bewilderment over what a reason for action actually is.

Obviously anti-realism is always available; perhaps after all there is no more truth to morality than the conventional, as with spelling and grammar. But then even in physics and mathematics you can't be certain that your value judgements are attempts to respond to objective truths, and there's no experiment that you can perform to decide for or against the existence of such an independent reality. It's just that moral realism, as with any realism, appears to me to be much more productive, just as it appears impossible to you.

2.

you know, if you going to do that in future then maybe you should say, because its not at all obvious this is suppose to correspond to what i supposedly think

Your Post # 95:

The point i'm making is the tendency to moralise results in the seeking of people to moralise about, but because the problem in each case is a problem of system this moralising obscures the reality, and this is the general tendency of moralising. This is a matter that is empirically verifiable, not ethics, what you do with the knowledge may be a matter of ethics.

‘Supposedly’?

3.

I'm using science as actual scientists use it,

Well no, you're not using science, you're discussing scientific methods incoherently, and you're getting it wrong.

You, while writing paragraphs defending using words in completely contrary way to their normal usage want to complain about my grammar?

We have very different notions of what constitutes 'normal usage' but I'm not interested in norms of this kind, which you apparently believe are about as objective as ethical ones. I prefer precision in the correct use of scientific terminology. When the likes of ‘I can’t help but think’ or ‘I could care less’ or ‘disinterested’ to mean ‘uninterested’ or ‘phenomena’ and ‘criteria’ to signify one item or when ‘begging’ a question to mean ‘raising’ one have entered into ‘normal usage’, well, I think you know what you can do with it.

The confusion of terms used in the everyday with their use in science is one of the most common fallacies of those without scientific training, which is the vast majority of the population, not excepting Cambridge professors, for example. As C. P. Snow once wrote, not one in a hundred of them even knows what ‘mass’ means in physics.

Take your assertion

it's not an assumption if you base it on observation'

An obvious example of such an (empirical) assumption might be the use of computer models (themselves based on assumptions about the atmosphere's behaviour) for estimating past atmospheric temperature in regions where thermometric readings are not possible, through feeding in data from nearby stations. Whether or not they count as ‘measurements’ or whether they conform to your definition of 'observation', such results are clearly based upon observation and they're regularly fed into global climate models as assumptions at the beginning of an assessment of the progress of climate change.

I think people get the impression that because scientists use so much instrumentation this must mean that science distrusts reason and relies far more on experiments and observations. But the essence and precondition of accurate and productive observation is rigorous reasoning and theoretical knowledge. Would you be able to walk into, say, a quantum optics lab and make the same observations as the scientists in there unless you had gone through all the reasoning and theoretical learning they'd had before setting up any of their apparatus?

Any observation they make is based on multiple assumptions, as is any assumption based on those observations. Observation without assumptions is utterly sterile. What would our quantum scientists be observing if their eyes hadn't been illuminated by all manner of assumptions and the rigorous deductions they had made from them? You don't get anything for just standing there vacantly gawping at nature, which is what you'd be doing if you'd no theory WITH WHICH TO TEST a hypothesis.

Absence of assumptions/bias is part of a fairy tale about science which is currently in 'normal usage' in which observations have a starring role as the starting point of scientific investigations, rather than as elements in a logical analysis. First you clear your mind, then you pick up your scientific method lamp, rub it and allow it to positively collect ‘facts’, then it classifies them for you, after which, if you’re very good and resist making any assumptions or having any thoughts, these facts whisper in your ear a working hypothesis which explains them.

Only in the final stage, when the method genie is testing these whispers before entering them for you in the Book of Laws should you allow yourself the indulgence of making rational deduction. Of course you must not become enthralled or entranced by your deductions. Always hold fast to the belief that deduction adds nothing new to the information already supplied by your observational premises. Remember scientists: Dedeuction only brings out into the open what was there in the observations to begin with. Finally, recite the credo: ‘Galileo, Kepler and the boys excluded mind from science long, long ago. All is concrete, including the theory of everything, now and forever,’ then click your heals, vigorously rub your lamp and say 'Hypotheses non fingo!!'

You seem rather charmed by this fantasy. It also seems related to your subjectivist anti-realism about ethics. But this observation-worship is curiously self-defeating since your naturalistic/materialist haste to capture what you imagine to be the solid ground of empirical reality is reminiscent of nothing so much as the idealism of the Vienna Circle’s logical positivists, who analyzed the physical world as a construction out of sense data.

In the grip of popular empiricism, you appear to be proposing that observation frees us of assumption, and claiming that we can achieve absolute truth, free from error, if only we remove from the facts of sense perception all trace of the source of error contained in assumptions, judgements and inferences. But what ‘facts’ would remain if sense perception contained no assumptions or interpretations? What would there be to know and what would remain with which to know it? Some of these unavoidable assumptions will of course eventually be found wanting and jettisoned via the progress of science, together with the illusions that once relied on them for their previous status as ‘facts’.

And then there’s the question of why we were ‘collecting facts’ about some particular phenomenon in the first place. Why would some facts be relevant to our inquiry but not others? And how will we know them if they show up, will they be carrying a copy of Bare Particulars Monthly and reclining on a stained-glass sofa while floating down the river in a singing bubble? Or will we rather have to sift through a plethora of happenings to find them by assuming what we already know?

The logical positivists’ attempt to separate theoretical and observational language, a symptom of the subtraction of mind from physical theory at the end of the renaissance, is completely undermined by the 'theory-ladeness' of measurement: Without some minimal substantive empirical/theoretical assumptions about the quantity being measured, such as how easy it will be for the measurement instruments available to physically manipulate and how it relates to other observables, what would the numbers on the screen indicate and how would anyone be able to ascertain whether they were evidence for anything?

Observations, like facts, come with all sorts of assumptions (such as the one about physical bodies continuing to exist when we don't see them - although there are plenty of instances and philosophical positions, including of course in quantum theory, in which this obvious 'fact' is longer the case). You don't want to be going about clearing your mind or some bollocks to do science because you need a real multiplicity of assumptions and possibilities in there if you’re going to produce novel results where others didn't notice them. And finally, you won't know if they possess enough validity to form the basis of new assumptions, unless you use the assumptions of the theory of the probable error of observations.

'falsifiability is a fundamental requirement of science.'

Taken to its logical conclusion, Popper's scheme for avoiding the problem of induction, since it rules out even assigning a greater likelihood to a theory, would leave us with no established theories, no science at all. Did finding the Higgs give no-one any more confidence in the Standard Model (not that I believe it should have)? Not that scientists would be at all bothered by onlookers’ opinions about their daily use of induction.

And falsifying a theory can be a complicated old business. Even the relatively simple Newtonian system of mechanics and gravitation doesn't predict a great deal on its own. To get anything out of it you have to make additional empirical assumptions which are logically independent of it, such as when Newton himself derived Kepler's Laws within his system by assuming that planetary masses were negligible compared to that of the Sun, so as to be able to drop their mutual interactions from the orbital calculation. There was no evidence for this at the time, since the only evidence we had was from telescopic observations, whose interpretation of course depends in turn upon assuming the then current optical theories of the propagation of light through space, the atmosphere, and the telescope itself. Given all this, it seems obvious that it is impossible to falsify any one theory at a time. (I mentioned this 'theory-ladeness' of observation several posts ago, remember?)

The truth is that most scientific theories are accepted long before any measurement techniques arise for testing them, and when the new experimental techniques are developed it is THEY who are tested against the currently accepted theory, not the other way round. The purpose of experimentation is to apply a theory with increasing scope and precision, and eventually to allow persistent anomalies to surface that would precipitate crisis and revolution. Normally then, if an experimental result contradicts a theory, the scientists involved don't just scrap the theory but ask questions about how the experiment was carried out or whether there was something wrong with one of the auxiliary assumptions. The theory in use is rarely ever questioned.

4.

Don't bring up quantum physics as if the ongoing nature of the field somehow supports your idea of speculation on top of speculation as science.

I don't believe I brought up quantum physics in such a way, but could you please demonstrate how you believe I did whatever it is this claim amounts to? I chose those quantum theories as an illustrative example of how the assumptions contained in the specification of measurement procedures shapes the empirical content of theoretical concepts simply because I've been using and thinking about quantum physics for a few months, and also because I’ve been reading Andrew Whittaker’s recently published biography of my personal scientific hero, physicist John Bell from Belfast, one of the greatest scientists in history.

But there are countless other examples of empirical assumptions, one of the most famous being Dalton’s Law, which states that the weights of elements in a chemical compound are related to each other in whole-number proportions. At first the best available experimental results didn’t conform to this but in time it was only by assuming Dalton’s Law that subsequent experimental chemists were able to correct and improve their measurement techniques.

5.

'but i though you quite clearly said we should make ridged plans in case we came to conclusions we didn't like here'

All I was trying to say was that contingency should play a part in ethical societal decisions: 'After you've taken all manner of empirical considerations into account, a just rule of property could then be arrived at which works in most cases and will be subject to change as further relevant factors emerge.' Ethical ideas are historically grounded, and like expanding ideas of freedom they are conditioned by social context and new possibilities, so rigid blueprints would impede the natural flow of events.

On the other hand, what does your new point here have to do with this (my italics): 'the idea they we shouldn't come up with planes because we might come up with a just rule of property is ridiculous, " oh no we cant think about that what if it contradicts our politics" wtf?

?