Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 6:03 pm in light of my previous post, we can rethink what
it means to be human, to ask questions like
the Kantian questions, and work them out
in terms of morality and ethics... in other words,
questions like ''what am I to do" "what should I believe in"
"what can I know" are not legal questions and they are not
political questions, not even philosophical questions,
but they are moral/ethical questions...
even a basic question like, ''what is the meaning of life"
is a moral, ethical question, not a political or legal question...
rethink existence in terms of what is morals, what is ethical?
those are the questions we should be asking..
what is the point of government? that is not a political or
legal question but an ethical/moral question.... and the laws
passed by the government, they are in fact moral, ethical
laws, not legal or political laws.....

what is the moral, what is the ethical.. that is the questions
we should be facing....

Kropotkin

But, Kropotkin.

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2023 4:30 pm here we try, try to connect certain ideas into one
coherent picture....

what we are trying to avoid is Hobbes ''state of nature",
where ''every man is at war with each other"
where, as Hobbes says,

"the nature condition of mankind is a state of war in which
life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"

and there is no progress of any kind, personal or social..
we are just engaged in a daily war with each other for
the basic necessities of existence, food, water, safety/security,
even love.... and what is the basic point of existence?
to move past the animal existence of seeking the necessities
of existence.. there must be more to life than just spending our
days eking out a bare minimal existence.. always in fear of our
fellow man... who could take what necessities we have, our
shelter, our food, even our children or spouse...this type
of existence is nothing more than animal like...

and we are more than just animals. and the path to
to becoming animal/human and then finally fully human,
lies within the growth of the society and state around us....
it is this state/society that has lifted us past, beyond
the existence of being an animal.... so much so that when
a Republican wants a return to a smaller government, they
are actually calling for a closer relationship with Hobbes
"state of nature" .. if we remove the state, we get Hobbes
"state of nature" and only a fool would want that.....

In many ways Hobbes was just plain wrong. Let's take the Europeans coming over to the 'americas'. Recent research has shown that Europeans had worse teeth and nutrition, were much less free and were terrified of superiors, were less generous with neighbors, their women had less control over their sexuality and marriages. It is often presented as if we, now, are closer to the Europeans coming over to the americas, when in fact many things that we take for granted, the natives took for granted, including ideas of equality and freedom. In fact native leaders could lose support at any time and were not considered in some special category of humanity. Further many ideas about social relations, freedom, equality, relations between the sexes and more were shared in debates between the two cultures and via missionary reports and other autobiographical materials, which were very popular in middle class, educated and expert groups in Europe, had huge effects on the idea in the Enlightenment. This has been denied DESPITE what many of the leading lights at the time said about their being influenced by non-civilized natives. The natives considered the Europeans in general to be poor at rational argument, unhygienic, unfree and petty. And this view was often shared by Europeans who got to know these cultures. Just for a moment consider the part about poor at rational argument. It was a core principle of most native cultures that everyone had the right to voice opinions and most social and political issues were debated by any interested member of the tribe or even larger groups who had small cities. The natives were often stunned by how dull many of the arriving Europeans were. They were not used to reasoning, making arguments, expressing opinions, disagreeing with elders and authorities. And lots of European men, women and children when returned from lives in tribal setting with the natives, ran away to rejoin them because of the freedom and respect they experienced there.

A great read on this is....
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity Kindle Edition
by David Graeber and David Wengrow