Anarchy and the state of nature

I have to write a 12,000 word thesis. I would like to do it on the concept of the state of nature. Exploring whether humans are fundementally ‘evil’ in the abscence of authority, obviously that brings me to philosophers such as Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke, but I would like to link it somehow to current anarchist or anti-capitialist ideas.

I have many ideas, but am finding it hard to concentrate them into any form of real structure.

I would be very grateful for any help, ideas, websites, books or anything really.

Thank you

I think that people are fundamentially social, and will work togheter quite nicely in the state of nature.

It might be interesting to note that real govenmental authority was not needing until the avent of farming and therefor property.

So if theivery is evil, and people are naurally evil, becuase property is an invented unnatural idea, and people will defult to theivery if they are not being supported well by the property system.

I have a copy of ‘Anarchism’ by Daniel Geurin (Introduction by Noam Chomsky). It’s yours if you want it. It’s very anti-capitalist.

There is anarchism that is not anti-capitalist, in case you didn’t know that. I lean toward Austrian economics.

When asking if humans can keep from being evil w/o the intervention of authority… “evil” is probably defined by the intervening authority, or those who benefit from its intervention…

The differences between anti-capitalism and anarchism is something that i would like to explore further, do anti-capitalists want capitalism replaced with anarchy, and if so, do they believe that human beings are capable of co-existing peacefully, happily and prosperously in the abscence of authority. Is it really possible for everyone to be equal in a state of nature?

Thank you about the offer for the book, but it would be much easier for me to find it in a bookshop, its gonna be a lot of hassle getting the book from you to me.

Type in a search for the Anarchist cookbook 2004, from there it’ll send you to two porn sites for passwords and then you can download. Its full of things on anarchy and destruction.

In a more philosophical direction (if it can be called that) look up the greek philosophy of the Cynics, Diogenes and co. Thats more in the direction of “Exploring whether humans are fundementally ‘evil’ in the abscence of authority,”.

when I talk of anarchism, I do not mean social chaos… just to clarify.

Not all anti-capitalists are anarchists, no. Some anti-capitalists use authority to enforce their opinion of an ideal economic structure, because the individuals w/in their system do not cooperate in it voluntarily (in the absence of authority).

I have posted this elsewhere…

Some say we are either born with rights or that we ought to have rights because we are human – they advocate the idea of natural rights [ as in the Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) of the French Revolution – and as implied in the American Declaration of Independence (1776) ].

Others say rights are a human invention, a legal principle, not a natural one, because rights do not occur in nature – we are obviously not born free (we are born dependent on our caregivers), and are not born or remain equal in rights (children do not have the same rights as adults do, we do not remain children – for starters).

Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism identifies the goal of rights as being the creation of as happy a society as possible (the basic utilitarian principle). The right to be left alone if you are not harming anybody (setting limits on government involvement in private affairs) (the harm principle) may seem like it focuses on the individual, but the ultimate goal is for the happiness of the population.

Kant insists people are ends in themselves and may not be treated as means to an end (they assign purpose, purpose should not be assigned to them from the outside) – even if that end achieves some social utility.

Should decisions effecting many people in a society be made on the basis of social utility or individual rights? ***
Negative Rights

– rights of noninterference, as in the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. The limit of your own liberty is the liberty of another person – your liberty cannot take their liberty away, or you forfeit your own liberty.

Positive Rights

– rights to receive something from somebody, usually government. For example, the right to have your life sustained if you can’t provide for yourself. “Welfare” is considered by some a ‘positive right’, as is education… and affirmative action. Should the government be responsible to meet the needs of the people – are the people entitled to having these needs met – and what exactly is a need (as opposed to something one can live w/o, a ‘benefit’)?.

Dworkin: Rights Can’t Be Traded for Benefits ***

Dworkin argues we can use one of two models (there are others) for our political thinking about rights:

  1. Find a balance between the rights of the individual, and the rights of society. “If the government infringes on a right, it does the individual wrong, but if it inflates a right, it does the community wrong.”

Dworkin disagrees w/ this model, because it treats the individual as means to an end, and takes away that person’s political equality (they don’t get the same rights as everyone else). Dworkin would agree with the adage, “It is better that many guilty people go free than one innocent person be punished,” (social benefits don’t determine the outcome of a trial). You can not find a ‘balance’ between individual and societal rights, because to take away an individual’s rights (on the one hand) is not “equal to” inflating those rights (on the other hand). You can however find a balance between the rights of distinct individuals, as this would retain their dignity.

  1. Invading a right is far worse than inflating it. When you inflate a right, you deprive others of some benefit, rather than taking away their dignity, as in the case of invading a right. An assault on human personality is worse than depriving someone of some benefit (preventing people from protesting is worse than not making sure the streets are passable). This is the model Dworkin favors.

*** Question to consider: Some people think that positive rights are actually “benefits”. If rights (negative or positive) are a human invention (legal rather than natural), then are not ‘all’ rights actually ‘benefits’?

Points of discussion taken from pp. 270-281 of “The Moral of the Story, An Introduction to Ethics,” by Nina Rosenstand (McGraw Hill, 2003).

Wow, I don’t know who messed up the way the username She™ appears, but GEE s/he asks good questions & is suuuuper neutral! :wink:

Criminality is parasitism: take it all but offer little or nothing in return.
A modern criminal feels kinship with capitalists who manipulate and exploit the masses; a kinship of superiority and a shared dependence on those they consider beneath them. The difference being that one does it institutionally, within conventional rules and regulations, while the other despite them. A criminal may also feel superior over the ones he wants to include himself, lacking the means and/or the opportunities they had.
As long as he remains unpunished he remains superior to those he feels a secret kinship, through their common exploitation of their inferiors, but if caught and punished his affinity turns bitter and vengeful, feeling betrayed by those who ought to have understood him the most.
Resentful criminals become brutal revolutionaries, their wrath directed not towards those that exploit and manipulate the masses he now exploits and manipulates to avenge himself, but towards those that denied him the right to do so with impunity; his wrath using ethics as tools converted to weapons.
What ethical outrage he feels is not due to the capitalist’s exploitative methods but due to his attempted monopolization of a common resource, converting a criminal to a fanatic anarchist, based on natural law.