Draft only: Please do not cite without the permission of the author. Many thanks.
The virtues of non-domination: Anarchism for and against republicanism
Benjamin Franks
Abstract
Virtue theory is long associated with statist, and especially conservative, political theory. Amongst the reasons for this connection is the assumption that the maintenance of the hierarchies of domination provides the necessary means for developing appropriate character traits and identifying the most heroic moral actor (from Aristotle to Roger Scruton). This paper, by contrast argues that social practices based on principles of non-domination, drawn from contemporary and older anarchist sources, are the richest in maintaining and promoting internal goods such as bravery, wisdom and justice. It highlights the particular anarchist interpretations of ‘non-domination’, distinguishing it from standard republican political theory. It further addresses the reasons why standard conservative, hierarchical virtues, which require institutions of domination, in particular patriotism are not (or no longer) virtues and that wisdom involves the egalitarian diffusion of hierarchical power not the production of relationships of domination.
Introduction
This paper is part of a wider project develops the case forthe particular suitability of virtue theory to anarchism (and anarchism to virtue theory). It shows how the significant virtues, like wisdom, justice and courage are not only consistent with anarchist practice, but are particularly generated from activists that contest domination. Consistent with the traditions of analytical political philosophy,[1] this paper clarifies concepts such as ‘radical virtue theory’ and ‘non-domination’, to demonstrate its similarities to and differences from the tradition of republican political theory, in order to explain how practices consistent with anarchist constellation of principles allow for the interpersonal virtues to flourish. It refutes arguments that portray virtue theory as being dependent on domination, especially from conservative critics, particularly Roger Scruton, that view virtuous relationships as being those which maintain hierarchical values and social arrangements.This argument seeks to defend an account of anarchist ethics that is neither consequentialist nor deontological.[2] The conclusions stands in opposition to many previous academic treatments of anarchism, which from the likes of Robert Paul Wolff tend to treat anarchism as realist and deontological[3] or Saul Newman who consider that a ‘radical’ and ‘renewed’ anarchism should be based on subjectivism.[4]
Many activists, whose activity rarely involves detailed consideration of their ethical perspective tend to drift from a dogmatic universalism to an entirely personal basis for ethics. This is not necessarily a problem, when full immersed in a set of anti-hierarchical social practices it is often unnecessary to identify the normative content or epistemological status of ones underlying principles. Indeed, the types of discourse and professional practice which characterise much contemporary moral philosophy could undermine radical actions, just as over-analysis of concepts utilised in the wooing of lovers, interrupts the romantic flow. To challenge the reciter over the apparent contradiction that ‘to see her was to love her’ and that ‘he loved her blindly’[5] would not only to miss the point of the poetic utterance but cool the erotic passions. Similarly interrupting discussions on how to deal with an imminent fascist threat against anti-poverty protestors[6] is unlikely to be assisted with calls for meta-ethical clarifications of the epistemic status of ‘rights’. Nonetheless, as Matthew Wilson has indicated, when it comes to deciding priorities or dealing with disputes within groups there are significant disadvantages if there is a failure to identify shared, effective, legitimate grounds for decision-making.[7]So if there are practical outcomes to the argument identified here, it is in defending a form of analysis, which is already utilised in some anarchist quarters, as a tool for planning and assessing radical practices.
Radical Virtue Theory: Outlined
Virtue ethics is widely associated with Aristotle. Because of his authoritarianism, including advocacy of slavery, there is a challenge, to radicals appealing to this applied theoretical approach. This challenge is discussed in more detail below with respect to contemporary conservative virtue theory. There is however, an immediate appeal ofAristotelianism for radicals. Aristotle, as the Hellenist D. J. Allan explains, regarded politics and ethics to be practical, investigative activities generating better ways of living.[8]There is, as AndriusBielskis identifies a commitment to praxis, broadly defined as political action combined with practical wisdom, generated by discussion.[9]The Politics begins with Aristotle identifying that society is constructed out of people organising into practical associations to generate goods (internal and external).[10] However, Aristotle’s ‘fatal flaws’ (for the anarchist) are the assumptions that these associations have to be hierarchically organised internally as there are natural leaders and natural slaves,[11] and these hierarchical social institutions need to be under the control of a single natural authority, the state.[12]
Radical virtue theory outlined here, is based on Alasdair MacIntyre’s ‘revolutionary Aristotelianism’.[13] It rejects the authoritarian features of Aristotle’s theory and reconstructs it on egalitarian grounds. MacIntyre’s radical virtue theory has much in common with the commitments of many anarchist thinkers and movements, though as shown below, there are some areas of potential difference. Anarchist virtue similarly has significant similarities with the Perfectionism outlined by anarchist-influenced philosopher Samuel Clark.[14]Clark’s Perfectionism,likevirtue theory in general, is geared towards eudaimonia (flourishing). Clark bases his account of anarchism largely on the avoidance and contestation domination.[15]Clark like Aristotle, the great proponent of virtue theory, initially described it in individual terms, he also highlights how a flourishing individual requires a community in order for the virtues to develop.[16] MacIntyre’s Aristotelian virtue ethics,[17] like Clark’s Perfectionism,[18] stresses that social enhancement is the product of collective individual enhancements. So, encouraging activities which encompass bravery, compassion, wisdom, liberality and integrity, rather than cowardice, hardheartedness, ignorance, insularity and deceitfulness are likely to lead to a better social outcome. These inter-personal attributes are goods in-themselves, but the more they are practised and the greater their extent the more likely produce a happier more fulfilled society, and the more they are undermined then the social world becomes more fractured and dystopic.[19]
Some apparent differences between Clark’s Perfectionism and radical virtue theory are more apparent than real. Clark suggests that there is a weakness in virtue theory, as other non-moral features are also required for a prospering individual and society – such as good health. As Clark notes, it is not immoral in itself to sick[20](although ill-health brought about by greed is criticised by Aristotle).[21] So for Clark, there is an account of the good, which must include health. However, MacIntyre’s virtue theory includes such non-moral resources in his account of practices maintained by institutions. Practices are rule governed activities (although these norms may adapt over time), which generate internal goods, as well as potentially producing external goods.[22] These are protected by particular, types of stable resources (institutions). So good health, through the intellectual, physical, emotional and psychological well-being of human labour would constitute part of the resource framework for the generation of virtues and one of the features that need to be sustained in order for virtuous practices to flourish.[23] Good health on its own would not be desirable, if it is part of a malign practice, for instance intervening to deliberately extend the physical strength of a torturer engaged in persecution.[24]
There are more significant differences between Clark’s perfectionism and MacIntyre’s – as well as important divisions between MacIntyre and the anarchist variant.Clark differs from MacIntyre in one significant manner. Clark, although critical of Robert P. Wolff’s version of anarchism,[25] considers the goal of an anarchist perfectionism is to produce independent moral agents as this make for a more robust account of the good.[26]This is not the ‘monkish’ independence, but a fully developed but unconstrained moral reasoning compatible with positive freedom, the ability to determine one’s own goals, rank preferences and have resources to act to fulfil them in a rational manner.[27] However, Clark’s account is still based on the fixed, modern liberal model of independent agency and agent perfection. MacIntyre, by contrast identifies that humans are necessarily dependent beings, and that developing virtue-rich practices requires us to recognise this feature of our physical being.[28]A view shared, for instance by Ericco Malatesta. ‘It is a fact that Man [sic.] is a social animal whose existence depends on the continued physical and spiritual relations between human beings.’[29]If we were not mortal creatures that were prone to disease, then there would be no need for the virtue of compassion and nurturing. MacIntyre criticises Aristotle for prioritising the self-sufficient ‘superior’ as the ideal of the virtuous agent, marginalising the virtues of those who develop the capacities for dealing with dependence.[30]Further, there is no single account of the ideal agent, perfection being reached differently according to ones location within the network of inter-personal social practices.[31]
Radical virtue theory recognises that resources such as shelter, food, companionship are need for humans to thrive. A virtuous person is not required to achieve the impossible, such as fly unassisted, or procreate independently. However, anarchist virtue theory differs from Aristotle and (in the main) MacIntyre in rejecting that there is a fixed or innate goal, which rationality will discover. For their virtue theories refer to the realisation of human potential to reach this fixed telos.[32]Anarchist virtue theory recognises shared common and pervasive biological needs whose satisfaction is necessarily for development, also recognises that there is no fixed biological essence from which a theory of the good is derived. If technology alters such that procreation and child-rearing is possible asexually, then some of the virtuous practices and institutions associated with reproduction would significantly alter.
Greater goals (telē) than the specific objectives of a particular social practice are generated and sustained through agents participating in - and between - adjacent activities. For instance a general guiding account of ‘human liberation’ forms the telos of someone who, for instance, participates in anti-fascist activism and then takes part in selective environmental direct action before engaging in union activity. The telos, however though stable is adaptable as what constitutes ‘liberation’ might become more sophisticated over time, and the agent to be emancipated might extend beyond a particular species. These stable but adaptable telē are pervasive and core, but not necessarily universal.
Thomas Swann and the Leninist Alex Callinicosargue that universals are required to avoid conflict and promote revolutionary change.[33] To use Swann’s example of a group of anarchists from the same movement, but some wish to assist an animal rights direct action group over those assisting an anti-racist organisation, because they have different revolutionary telē. Without a single universal final principle or goal, argues Swann, the conflict would not be wholly resolvable. However, such conflict might itself be socially productive as each informs the other in order to sway the debate, and resolution which is mutually beneficial can take multiple forms (find common ground, share resources between the two goals as a collective, a mutual parting in the hope of future reconciliation) and can subtly shift the apparently rival telē. Even if there was a universal goal (and it is unclear as to what single method discovers it), as different peoples have different histories their interpretations of the ‘universal’ would still conflict. Instead, as MacIntyre argues,it is through shared practices that people encounter one another and find agreement, but such agreements can only be contingent, even if they are stable. To jump from shared concerns to a ‘single collective subject with a universal interest, is to go from good politics to bad metaphysics.’[34]
Non-Domination: Defined
Under the influence of Wolff’s ‘philosophical anarchism’ absence of coercion, which generates a de facto rejection of the state, has been inaccurately regarded as the anarchist minimum within academic philosophy.However, as republican theorists, such as Quentin Skinner,have pointed out mere rejection of actual coercion is insufficient to identify political freedom, instead they prioritise ‘non-domination’. Skinner, one of the major contemporary republican political theorists, explains thatnon-domination includes not just the notion of negative freedom, but also absence of ‘alien control’ which can impact on the agent’s decision making without direct coercion.[35]For instance, a person who has a powerful overseer (dominus), might make decisions on the basis of what the overseer would want and the potential punishment meted out if denied, even though the superintendent makes no active intervention.[36] Simply by being in a subservient position within a hierarchy, where one can be subject to the interests of others as above your own (even if these are not ever carried out), means that the individual knows themselves to be unfree and therefore not a freely acting agent.[37]To be free, is to have to identify where your interests lie and act on them.Domination, necessarily requires power structures and identities based on stable inequalities of controlling power.
Kelvin Knight provides a detailed account of different republican political theorists, and their similarities with and differences to radical virtue ethics and thus to anarchist virtue theory. He explains that there initially strong parallels between republican theory and MacIntyre’s ethics, which because of their shared antagonism towards liberalism, led to a degree of convergence.[38] Both historically promote the development of character and a complex view of agency,[39] although more contemporary republican theorists’ account of agency tends largely towards liberal conceptions of the agent as being a rational being acting in their own self-interest, which arbitrary power violates.[40]For republican freedom to be realised, not only must the individual be under no dependent control, but that freely willed institutions are required to maintain one’s liberty. For almost all republican theorists, non-domination shares Aristotle’s statist ‘fatal mistake’, that the instrument for non-domination requires the state (for republicans, one which isunder the control of the free citizenry As Knight observes: ‘Whereas republicans identified ethics with the public activity of citizens, liberals privatised morality’.[41] Republicanism, requires the citizenry to be moral to uphold the state, and for the state to protect the conditions for their moral improvement.[42]
Drawing on the work of J. G. A. Pocock, Knight explains that non-domination is understood in statist terms. Republicanism regards the generation of virtues, and virtuous practices as depending on, and being generated by the state.[43] Knight then explains that despite the similarities, there are significant differences between republicanism and revolutionary virtue ethics. Republicanism compartmentalises the ‘self’, in fixing the identity of the ideal moral agent, within the model of the republican. MacIntyrean ethics argues that the unified moral agent has different identities in different practices and contexts.[44] Further, Knight argues, consistent with anarchist, that radical virtue theory is incompatible with statism, as it promotes not just one identity, but to subjugate private interests to a single managerial authority.[45] Republicanism whilst providing an account of the non-dominated citizen does so in relation to the dominated non-republican subject, whether these be the slaves to the freemen in the original Roman ideal, or the dominated worker (‘wage-slave’) who provides for the free employer in the modern republic. The republican state helps to negotiate and stabilise this hierarchy.[46]
By contrast Alex Prichard argues that an anarchist republicanism can be discerned in the works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, which does not depend on a centralised state to protect the freely acting individual, but on multiple, freely combining voluntary organisations.[47]The notion of the free, independent citizen advanced by republican theorists,[48] like Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, shares similarities with Clark’s perfectionist model of the independent individual. By contrast Errico Malatesta, Michael Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, are closer to MacIntyre’s social view of responsible but fluidly, interdependent beings. Anarchism shares with republican theory the notion that inherently valuable qualities, such as freedomare imbedded in particular types of civil institution and that dominating power disrupts the generation of goods like inter-dependant freedoms. However, republican accounts of non-domination because they are based on a statist framework, identify the notion of ‘domination’ in different ways to anarchists.For republicans virtuous attributes are those that maintains the hierarchy of the state to protect from domination, for anarchists the state is a form of domination.[49]
As such, whilst Prichard’s label ‘republican anarchism’ captures some important historical and theoretical similarities, between the two schools and is a valuable corrective to more reductive, neo-Kantian readings of anarchism in general, and Proudhon in particular, it is perhaps inadequate as republicanism is based on civic virtue co-ordinated by and structured within the state. The intersecting layers of the citizen are ultimately the responsibility of the single locus of authority. As such republicanism structures apparently similar concepts in ways distinct from anarchism. The types of virue the republican stategenerates for its own survival, such as those of patriotismare incompatible with anarchist virtue theory.[50]
Virtues and Anarchist Non-Domination
Whilst ethical discourse is a frequent and overt feature of anarchist activist discussion, concerning issues like rights, good outcomes, equality, fairness, bravery and integrity, the identification of a systematic, coherent ethical outlook is rarely a central area of concern. Indeed some have shied away from ethical analysis, considering contemporary ethical discourse, to be simply the ideological superstructure produced by capitalism to stabilise class rule.[51] However a recent example of an explicit endorsement of virtue theory comes from a recent edition of The Cunningham Amendment, headlined: ‘Eudaimonia: Living a flourishing life’.