Most discussions about morals and ethics, revolve
around the individual, not the collective, the society…
There is a clear ‘‘thou shall not’’ for the individual,
but not for the state/society at large…
but let us break this down…
Private morality… that is the very familiar one…
The ‘‘Ten Commandments’’ are private morals, not
public morals and that makes a difference…
The first question between private morals and public/
communal morals, is why are they so different?
The state allows itself actions that it prevents individual to
do on their own… the conservative holds that the
state takes into its own hands what properly should
be done by the individual…the state has '‘usurped’
power away from the individual…
In political philosophy this is a critical question…
who has the power and why do they have the power?
The state has claimed for itself power over the individual…
there are a couple of ways to look at this…
without the state keeping control, the society
at large reverts to Hobbes ‘‘war against all’’…
the ‘‘State of Nature’’ in which every individual
attempts to have power over their neighbors…
life in this ‘‘State of Nature’’ is as Hobbes put it,
‘‘Short, nasty, brutish’’… the very civilization that
we are so proud of, is in fact a repudiation of
Hobbes ''State of Nature"… a war of all against all…
Whereas the technical, modern world is the result of cooperation
between individuals and individuals and the individual
and the state…Every single step of our modern world comes
from the cooperation of people…but this cooperation requires,
demands that people have some sort of rules, morals
that allows this cooperation…a game can only be
played is if everyone plays the same game with the same rules/morals…
the State/society has the same thing going on… it can only
be successful if, if everyone plays the same game, the same way…
Which is just another definition of ‘‘Justice’’…
But has mentioned, the state claims for itself, powers
and exclusion of rules that keep the individual player
powerless… for example, the state claims for itself
the exclusive power to punish criminal behavior…
up to the point of capital punishment…
But on what basis can the state claims powers and
exclusions that it denies individuals? What is
the rational for allowing the state powers and exclusions
that it denies the individual?
One of the reasons is this very ‘‘State of Nature’’ of Hobbes…
to avoid this, the state proclaims itself ‘‘sole’’ possessor
of the right to punish, the right to declare war, the right to tax,
the right to enforce laws, the right to capital punishment…
These acts and more are the sole right of the state…
but does the state also have ethical, moral duties to
perform, fulfill?
The ‘‘United States Constitution’’ is the format for
the ethics and morals of the United States…The do’s
and don’ts that the official government can or cannot perform…
The Constitution is to the United States as laws are to us…
Now note a couple of things, one, the laws, the Constitution
has no relationship to our ‘‘happiness’’, individual or collective
happiness… So, remove happiness from being a part of the
government and its morals…
But the question does arise, on what basis do we think about
morals in a state or a collective?
We tend to be egotists… we believe the world revolves
around us, imagine our surprise when that doesn’t happen?
Who works for who? does the state work for the individual or
does the individual work for the state? Marx and Capitalism
believe that the individual works for the state…
Conservatives believe that the state works for individuals…
Who has priority, the state or the individual? my own death,
while not imminent, is also on the horizon…and society/the state
will go on without me… this suggests that the state, on some
level, is a ‘‘higher’’ level than individuals…
We human beings are social beings… our very survival
depends on other human beings… we must have a tribe,
a city, state, country, in order for us to survive…
but communism and capitalism which are nihilistic,
is not the answer… and exclusive devotion to one’s tribe
is also not the answer…
so, how do we work out the ethics, morals between
the individual and the state, that allow both to succeed.
For a society to work, it must have some balance between
the state and the individual… the power must be
balanced between the two… One of the problems with
the MAGA/GOP is that they are trying to swing the power
exclusively into one direction… into the hands of the wealthy…
to create an oligarchy is the goal of the MAGA/GOP right now…
but that doesn’t change the nature of our question…
where does power lie and why should it be there instead
of another place? and what is the relationship between
the one, the individual and the state, especially when
the state has become an oligarchy.
does morals and morality change when the nature of the
government changes? is morals the same in a democracy
as it is in an oligarchy?
questions such as these should, should keep you
up at night…
Kropotkin