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Topic: An anarchist's ethics (Read 409 times) |
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The Almighty Bobbu
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An anarchist's ethics
« Thread started on: Apr 17th, 2008, 5:31pm » |
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I consider myself an anarchist, and this is pretty self-explanatory politically. However, where does this leave me ethically speaking?
Personally, I believe there are only two necessary ethical rules which can be applied to life in an anarchist situation:
1. Each and every person may do whatever they wish so long as they do not infringe upon the freedom of any other being capable of informed and responsible free choice.
2. Each person must take full responsibility for their actions, unless they were not capable of making an informed and responsible free choice when they acted.
And that's it. Can anyone pick any holes in my ideas?
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Bryn
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Re: An anarchist's ethics
« Reply #1 on: May 16th, 2008, 09:13am » |
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Ok so firstly you have as a predicate of your justification a belief in free will, for, in order that one may be held responsible in any just way, they must be free to actually MAKE decisions themself. Many would assert that we are never free.
But that doesn't apply if you don't buy all that stuff, so..
Moreover, the big question lies with a question of responsibility. For, as soon as you posit that the very notion of governmentally prescribed morality is a breach of your freedom, you lose the moral authority to say to other people that
"1. Each and every person may do whatever they wish so long as they do not infringe upon the freedom of any other being capable of informed and responsible free choice."
For this maxim applies when you accept that the well-being of the collective can sometimes have consequences for the individual. However, in your anarchist world, you lose the authority to hold this maxim. But even if you say that you keep the moral authority, You've still lost any tangible actual authority with which to carry it out. i.e. if people do infringe upon the freedom of others, then there is no body through which one could exact justice on those, and therefore there is zero solvency to the aforementioned maxim.
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"If someone's after some stargazin', I'm gonna be doin some hellraisin'" From the bizzare lower 6th mind of Ben Coyle, chieftain of the avant garde.
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The Almighty Bobbu
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Re: An anarchist's ethics
« Reply #2 on: May 24th, 2008, 11:16pm » |
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Your point that there is no enforcing body to uphold the principles totally misses it's mark, I'm afraid.
In an anarchist society there is no necessity for anyone to enforce some kind of reaction to anyone's actions - there simply is a reaction to an action. The idea of an officialised justice is not applicable within the anarchist's principles.
Let me give an example - say a man rapes a woman in an anarchist society. You seem to be under the impression that one would need to punish this person somehow in order for justice to be done. I should point out that I think the concept of justice is a stupid one - or at least the idea that justice can be meted out by anyone or any group. Justice, the idea that everyone deserves something for their acts, is absurd. Every act has it's consequences in the world, so why do we need to add extra consequences, either negative or positive? You only need to look around with clear eyes to see that the world deals out it's own justice.
So, the example of the man who rapes the woman. She tells the society and gives whatever evidence she can. It is not hard in this day and age to prove such things, so long as they are The man will be outcast from his society for his actions, not through act of court but through force of the society as a whole.
Should the woman lie about such a thing, as it is the case in the current world, then eventually she will be found out; whether by force of the evidence, or through humans simple lack of ability to keep secrets! There is no necessity to have a right to enforce some form of justice, because there is no need to enforce any kind of justice.
And, in an ideal anarchist world, no-one would infringe upon anyone else's freedom because they would already know the consequences and not purposefully do anything with negative ones. But, of course, that is but a distant dream with humanity in the state it is at the moment; it's not something I'm holding my breath for, lol!
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Coops
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Re: An anarchist's ethics
« Reply #3 on: Nov 17th, 2008, 12:08pm » |
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I would also consider myself an anarchist, although I think that people will cooperate freely without the need for any authority 'imposing' cooperation upon them. Surely an anarchist's ethics would essentially be as simple as tit for tat
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Bryn
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Re: An anarchist's ethics
« Reply #4 on: Apr 2nd, 2009, 12:12pm » |
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Right,
i) Why would the man necessarily be ostracised? I can see a plausable case for why he may be, now here are some cases where he may not:
1- His family/friends don't believe the evidence. This happens all the time in the status quo. What you're then left with is a scenario in which either the family friends go too (unlikely), the family and friends campaign and are unsuccesful in which case there is huge social strain and dissaffection within the community, or the family and friends are succesful at convincing other people despite the evidence in which case you've got a rapist on the loose. When you don't have a central authority to go through the rigorous demands of PROPER evidence, you rely on essentially hearsay and intuitive feelings - a crap standard of guilt.
2) Many societies often fall into a comfortable corruption, whereby things like rape are accepted because of the benefit they bring to some people - e.g. in parts of Afganistan, rape cries often fall on deaf ears because the desired benefit for some outweighs the social harm to others. This is compounded when you have an existing social influence of tolerance, false consciousnesses about the role of women, and the socila reprocusions of accusing a respected figure. In many aboriginal cultures in Australia, you can see frequent occurences of all the above. This particular criticism can only be alleviated within a completely equal and ahierachical society - and arguably even then these things cannot be certainly prevented from developing in the future.
ii) What happens when he is ostracised?
Surely a rapist could easily find another group of people to live within? Then no natural justice has been met, because the action has been relatively inconsequential. If your answer is that other groups would be suspicious of a man who is without a group to live in, then that just leads to a really crap world in which people don't trust eachother - making interaction and/or social fluidity really difficult. This leads to all sorts of problems. And, finally, if your answer is that somehow there would be some way of checking with the previous group whether the man is an outcast, then 1) you have a problem whereby the previous group have an incentive to say he isn't, as it takes hime off their hands, or 2) it just means that there is no chance for rehabilitation for a deeply troubled man. He's just fucked - out there on his own, forever. Whilst it could be argued that for rape this would be justified, what if he was outcast for something else, like stealing frequently for example - this man is now ruined rather than reformed.
iii) As for fairness, an anarchist paradigm completely skews any fair play. If I wish to get someone kicked out because he raped me, I have a worse chance of obtaining future safety if the person is popular, because it is mine and his peers that I have to convince, not a cold arbiter such as the stae.
iv) What about resources? Private charity is all well and good, but how do you fund a psychiatric centre for those with schizophrenia? You can't, because it isn't in the direct interest of most people, doesn't offer results that are visible to the average lay person though hugely beneficial to the sufferer, but costs a lot. Moreover, if people are split into small groups then you accrue huge inefficencies in the services you're able to provide.
And if people aren't in small groups, then that leads to..
v) ... a whole host of problems. If a large group of people (say 10,000) are together, then that means that the 'ostracise' mantality can never work, because 1) you can't keep track of them coming back into society(without being more authoritarian than a state), 2) you can't convict them, because most people won't be aware of the 'trial'.
Moreover, it means that massive levels of corruption can occur without people getting onto it - because there is not state to moniter patterns and changes in, say, spending or gambling or food supply etc, only the slow ripple of people finally noticing.
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"If someone's after some stargazin', I'm gonna be doin some hellraisin'" From the bizzare lower 6th mind of Ben Coyle, chieftain of the avant garde.
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