This manifesto presents a radical reconceptualization of anarchy through the lens of Metamonistic Proto-Ontology. Rather than treating anarchy as a political ideology or future social form, we argue that anarchy is the fundamental process of reality itself—an ongoing dynamic of self-organization inherent to all levels of existence, from physical systems to biological ecosystems to human societies. We demonstrate that the traditional dichotomy positioning anarchy as either primitive chaos or utopian endpoint is fundamentally flawed. Instead, anarchy (...) represents the continuous process of self-organization through immanent conflict resolution with preserved feedback loops. The state is reconceptualized not as anarchy’s enemy but as a temporary crystallization within the anarchic process— one that becomes pathological only when it loses responsiveness to conflict as a form of feedback. Drawing on evidence from physics (dissipative structures), biology (ecosystems, immune systems), cognitive science (neural networks), and successful examples of decentralized coordination (open source, commons management, mutual aid networks), we establish that most functional coordination in reality already operates anarchically. The paper concludes with practical strategies for restoring anarchic processes in fossilized social structures through creating redundancy, restoring conflict as feedback, and catalyzing bifurcations. (shrink)

This article proposes a radical ontological shift in understanding anarchy, moving it beyond political theory into the realm of fundamental principles of being. Through the lens of metamonistic philosophy [1], anarchy is reconceptualized not as a utopian project but as the immanent and continuous process of reality's self-ordering. We assert that all observable order emerges from this anarchic fundament. The state and hierarchy are analyzed as specific, often pathological, forms of this self-organization. Metamonism provides an ontological basis for (...) recognizing anarchy not as a future ideal but as the eternal present of any complex system, thereby reframing political struggle as an effort to cultivate the quality of this immanent anarchy. The article concludes by operationalizing this theory into a practical framework for diagnosing and fostering healthy self-organization in human communities. -/- Keywords: metamonism, anarchy, self-organization, complexity theory, synergetics, process philosophy, ∇U-field, emergence, ontology, community governance. (shrink)

This forum contribution addresses two major themes in de Goede’s original essay on ‘Financial security’: (1) the relationship between stable markets and the proverbial ‘security dilemma’; and (2) the development of new decision-technologies to address risk in the post-World War II period. Its argument is that the confluence of these two themes through rational choice theory represents a fundamental re-evaluation of the security dilemma and its relationship to the rule of law governing market relations, ushering in an era of perpetual (...) physical and financial insecurity. (shrink)

This paper applies Cyclic Theory to political philosophy by examining the di- alectic between anarchic states and hyper-controlled societies. We propose that the synthesis, or Aufhebung, lies in what may be called a “Thesean Democracy,” a dynamic political system that maintains identity through perpetual renewal. By analyzing historical and literary examples, including the Warring States unification under the First Emperor of Qin and George Orwell’s 1984, we illustrate the dangers of extremes and the necessity of balance.

This article examines Hesiod’s Chaos and Anaximander’s apeiron individually and in relation to each other through the frame of René Descartes’ notion of natural geometry and through bounds and limits in Euclid and Immanuel Kant. Thanks to this frame, it shows that, in his poetic vision, Hesiod saw in Chaos the act of bounding such that different things can appear while, in his speculative vision, Anaximander saw in the apeiron the self-limiting limit of bounded things, which is to say, time (...) as distinct from the temporality of bounded things resulting from Chaos. Thus, together, Chaos and the apeiron present the spatiotemporal order of the world. Finally, delving further into Anaximander’s fragment shows that the justice (dike) ruling over all includes the apeiron as the time foundational to temporality, meaning justice is without foundation and therefore anarchic. (shrink)

“Jury Nullification, Verdictal Asymmetry, and the Ultimate Logic of Anarchy” is a critical examination and analysis of the ‘anarchy objection’ to jury nullification, a common argument against informing juries of their nullification power. The anarchy objection posits that jury nullification leads to inconsistent verdicts (verdictal asymmetry) and, as a result, social anarchy and chaos. Through careful analysis, I argue that the anarchy objection is predicated on two flawed premises: first, that jury nullification promotes verdictal asymmetry, (...) and second, that such asymmetry leads to anarchy. Such commitments are, I argue, empirically unsupported and conceptually misguided. Verdictal asymmetry is an intrinsic feature of the common law system, present at nearly every adjudicative stage, and not uniquely linked to jury nullification; yet we certainly do not live in an environment of jural/social anarchy. Finally, I discuss how the principle of treating like cases alike is primarily a procedural constraint, not a mandate for verdictal symmetry. By dismantling the anarchy objection, I aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the jurisprudence surrounding the jury nullification debate and its role within the legal system. (shrink)

This manuscript introduces Conscious Anarchy, a philosophy designed to align human society with principles of sustainability, equity, and cooperation. It addresses the flaws of current systems – control, inequality, and unsustainable hierarchies – by proposing a transformative framework grounded in decentralized governance, ethical resource distribution, and the responsible use of technology. Conscious Anarchy fosters a gradual awakening to humanity’s interconnectedness. It emphasizes practical steps such as integrating empathy into education, testing decentralized governance models, and leveraging technology for transparent (...) resource management. While full transformation may take generations, immediate action is essential. By embracing balance and cooperation, humanity can avert systemic collapse and create a sustainable, equitable future. Conscious Anarchy invites individuals, communities, and institutions to contribute to this shared vision of lasting harmony and collective growth. (shrink)

In Kant’s “Doctrine of Right” there is a philosophical and interpretive puzzle surrounding the translation of a key concept: Gewalt. Should we translate it as “force,” “power,” or “violence”? This raises both general questions in Kant’s legal-political philosophy as well as puzzles regarding Kant’s definitions of “barbarism,” “anarchy,” “despotism,” and “republic” as the four possible political conditions. First, I argue that we have good textual reasons for translating Gewalt as “violence”—a translation which has the advantage that it answers these (...) questions and puzzles convincingly. Translating Gewalt as “violence” has two further, somewhat surprising advantages. It allows us to explain how human beings can be caught in situations with no morally good ways out, and it gives us an ideal Kantian refutation of the death penalty. I then explore Kant’s account of the establishment of public authorities by means of an analogy between the birth and development of a natural person (a human being) and an artificial one (a state). This analogy helps to clarify the difference between the necessary coercive element involved in ideally establishing a state and the likely violence involved in actually establishing one. The third and final section uses the ideas of barbarism, anarchy, despotism, and republic to identify four different types of political forces operating at any given time in actual historical societies. Once we use Kant’s theory to improve our understanding of the various challenges our historical societies present, we also realize the importance and usefulness of philosophical precision when we translate Gewalt as “violence” and correctly define barbarism, anarchy, despotism, and republic. (shrink)

In this paper I critically examine an influential argument in favor of political realism. The argument claims that international relations, by analogy with Hobbes’s state of nature at the individual level, are governed by anarchy which makes it irrational for states to observe the principles of morality and justice since there are no guarantees that they will be observed by other states. However, this analogy is unsustainable due to the differences that exist between agents on the international and individual (...) levels. Compared to the insecurity of the state of nature, the level of insecurity of international relations is lower, which makes it possible for co-operation between states to be established. This conclusion is additionally corroborated by insights of the game theories, especially those of iterated prisoner’s dilemma. (shrink)

This is a small essay written as a response to Yaron Brook and Bryan Caplan's debate on anarcho-capitalism. Anarchy is a beloved extreme for both sides of the political spectrum. Yet even its proper definition remains quite obscure. I tried to point out the issues with the one commonly used, including in the mentioned debate. Instead, I made an attempt to highlight the moral principle indicative of anarchism and argue that it should be used as its sole possible definition.

This paper develops the Meta-Monist interpretation of life as a phenomenon of the Conflict–Moment–Impulse (CMI) mechanism. Development is understood as pressure resolved through the creation of new spaces: stars, cells, societies, and consciousness all follow the same principle. Life is thus not a miraculous exception but a lawful manifestation of cosmic tension. The paper frames hierarchy as a temporary resistance mechanism emerging within the anarchic field of being, and outlines testable hypotheses based on the ratio between internal and external pressures (...) (Pi/Pe). It concludes by situating life as the paradigmatic expression of anarchy: order arising immanently from conflict without external design. (shrink)

Freedom of speech is widely regarded as a cornerstone of modern democracy and human rights. Yet in contemporary society, this concept is frequently misinter- preted as an unlimited right to speak, thereby enabling prejudice, disinformation, and irresponsible discourse under the banner of freedom. This paper redefines free- dom of speech as inseparable from responsibility. Drawing on classical philosophy, liberal theory, and G¨odel’s incompleteness theorems, I argue that freedom without responsibility collapses into anarchy, whereas responsibility restores freedom to its genuine (...) meaning. (shrink)

A recent book by Niko Kolodny, The Pecking Order, makes the case that societal hierarchies deserve more attention than they have been given in political philosophy hitherto, and explores the descriptive and moral implications of societal hierarchies. Though a pathbreaking work, Kolodny’s elaboration is nevertheless flawed in several key respects. First, Kolodny’s descriptive approach to societal hierarchies lacks an account of ‘structure’. In response, I theorize several levels of ‘structurality’, and argue for the existence of ‘interactional hierarchies’, ‘meso-structural hierarchies’, and (...) ‘macro-structural hierarchies.’ Second, Kolodny neglects the moral notion of a “collective inferiority complaint”. To address this, I tie together several unconnected strands of thought in Kolodny’s text that imply that natural individuals have a collective moral claim against finding themselves in macro-structural relations of inferiority. Third, Kolodny attempts to justify the State and the capitalist firm through a series of “tempering factors” that allegedly mollify the societal hierarchies that these phenomena involve. I demonstrate that Kolodny’s “secondary” tempering factors are aimed at addressing meso-structural offices, only, and that they are insufficient to render even these morally un-objectionable. Further, I show they are not robust enough to meet our collective moral complaint against macro-structural relations of inferiority. Fourth and finally, I argue that anarchism offers a better alternative to a Kolodnian account of societal hierarchies. Anarchist philosophy provides additional tempering factors that render meso-structural hierarchies morally un-objectionable, and that transform macro-structural hierarchies into something else entirely. I theorize the contrast class to societal hierarchies: ‘interactional horizontalities, ‘meso-structural horizontalities, and ‘macro-structural horizontalities.’ I conclude that anarchism is best understood as an ideology that is: skeptical of all societal hierarchies, opposed only to macro-structural hierarchies, open to all societal horizontalities, and dedicated to macro-structural horizontalities. I suggest that this understanding of anarchism not only helps to complete Kolodny’s project, but also to resolve ongoing disputes in anarchist studies. (shrink)

This paper responds to an ingenious footnote from Robert Nozick’s book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Using a table of four possible situations, Nozick defines what it is to be jealous, envious, begrudging, spiteful and competitive. I deny a claim that Nozick makes for his table, a claim needed for these definitions. I also point out that Nozick fails to capture what he has in mind by jealousy.

Disciplinary issues -- Field studies -- Appendix: Theory of law : legal ethnography, or, the theoretical fruits of the inquiries into folkways. /// Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1995 to 2008 /// DISCIPLINARY ISSUES -- LAW AS CULTURE? [2002] 9–14 // TRENDS IN COMPARATIVE LEGAL STUDIES [2002] 15–17 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES: ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTUALISATION [1997] 19–28: 1. Legal Culture in a Cultural-anthropological Approach 19 / 2. Legal Culture in a Sociological Approach 21 / 3. Timely Issues of (...) Central and Eastern Europe 24 // COMPARATIVE LEGAL CULTURES? [2001] 29–48: 1. Legal Comparativism Challenged 29 / 2. Comparative Legal Cultures versus Comparative Law 34 / 3. Contrasting Fields 40 [a) The Historical Understanding of Socialist Law 42 / b) Convergence of Civil Law and Common Law 44] 4. Concluding Remarks 46 // THEATRUM LEGALE MUNDI: ON LEGAL SYSTEMS CLASSIFIED [2005] 49–75: 1. Preliminaries 49 / 2. Proposals 50 / 3. Impossible Taxonomy, or the Moment of Practicality in Legal Mapping 69 / 4. Diversity as a Fundamental Quality of Human Existence 74 // LEGAL TRADITIONS? IN SEARCH FOR FAMILIES AND CULTURES IN LAW [2004] 77–97: 1. Comparative Law and the Comparative Study of Legal Traditions 78 / 2. ‘System’, ‘Family’, ‘Culture’, and ‘Tradition’ in the Classification of Law 80 / 3. Different Traditions, Differing Ways of Thinking 85 / 4. Different Expectations, Differings Institutionalisations in Law 88 / 5. Different “Rationalities”, Differing “Logics” 92 / 6. Mentality in Foundation of the Law 94 / 7. Defining a Subject for Theoretical Research in Law 96 // SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING OLD IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY OF LAW? [1995] 99–102 --- FIELD STUDIES -- MEETING POINTS BETWEEN THE TRADITIONS OF ENGLISH–AMERICAN COMMON LAW AND CONTINENTAL-FRENCH CIVIL LAW: DEVELOPMENTS AND EXPERIENCE OF POSTMODERNITY IN CANADA [2002] 105–130: I. Canadian Law in General 105 / II. Canadian Legal Developments in Particular [1. The Transformation of the Role of Precedents 112 / 2. The Transformation of Law-application into a Collective, Multicultural and Multifactorial Search for a Solution 116 / 3. Practical Trends of Dissolving the Law’s Positivity 120 / 4. New Prerogatives Acquired by Courts 125 {a) Unfolding the Statutory Provisons in Principles 126 / b) Constitutionalisation of Issues 127 / c) The Supreme Court as the Nation’s Supreme Moral Authority 129}] // MAN ELEVATING HIMSELF? DILEMMAS OF RATIONALITY IN OUR AGE [2000] 131–163: I. Reason and its Adventures 1. Progress and Advance Questioned 131 / 2. The Human Search for Safety Objectified 133 / 3. Knowledge Separated from Wisdom 135 / 4. Pure Intellectuality thereby Born 137 / II. The Will-Element Formalised in Law 5. Mere Voluntas in the Foundation of Legal Positivism 141 / 6. Formalism with Operations Fragmented 145 / III. The State of America Exemplified 7. “Slouching into Gomorrah” 147 / IV. Consequences 8. Utopianism-cum-Voluntarism 154 / 9. With Logic in Posterior Control of Human Formulations Only 159 / V. Perspectives 10. And a Final Resolution Dreamed about 161 // RULE OF LAW? MANIA OF LAW? ON THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN RATIONALITY AND ANARCHY IN AMERICA [2002] 165–180: {Transformation of American Law and Legal Mentality 165 / With Repercussions on the Underlying Ethos 168 / Legislation through Processualisation 170 / With Hyperrationalism Added 172 / Example: Finding Lost Property 172 / Practicalness Veiled by Verbal Magic 173 / Ending in Jurispathy 175 / Transubstantiating the Self-interest of the Legal Profession 178 / Post-modernity, Substituting for Primitiveness 178} // TRANSFERS OF LAW: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS [2003] 181–207: 1. Terms 182 / 2. Technicality 190 / 3. Contrasts in Transfers of Law 200 {Contrasts 200 / Criticisms 202 / Alternatives205} 4. Conclusions 206 // THE DANGERS FOR THE SELF OF BEING SELF-CENTRED: ON STANDARDS AND VALUES [2002] 209–212 --- APPENDIX -- THEORY OF LAW – LEGAL ETHNOGRAPHY, OR THE THEORETICAL FRUITS OF THE INQUIRIES INTO FOLKWAYS [2008] 213–234 1. Encounters 213 / 2. Disciplines 218 / 3. The Lawyerly Interest 223 / 4. Law and/or Laws 226 / 5. Conclusion 233 --- Index of Subjects 235 / Index of Normative Materials 242 / Index 244 . (shrink)

My very first published article as a graduate student in 1995 in a peer-reviewed journal (PoMo Magazine) that no longer exists. Published in PoMo Magazine, vol. 1, nr. 1 (Spring/Summer 1995). I elaborate a non-metaphysical phenomenology that is at the same time a way of thinking and a way of being "without why." My starting point is Reiner Schürmann's anarchistic interpretation of Heidegger. It was my first (somewhat sophmoric) attempt to develop a kind of ontology.

This paper responds to the call "For Planetary Governance" written by Benjamin Bratton and issued by The Terraforming and Strelka Mag. Through a hermeneutics of the nuclear facilitated by Martin Heidegger, Jean Baudrillard, and Patrick Jagoda, it examines the atomic bomb as the final symbol of a nationalist, metaphysical age of spirit, and the initial structure of a postnational, antimetaphysical age of control. Progressing from Baudrillard's nihilism through Jagoda's ludology, this paper then deploys David Graeber's critique of bureaucracy to interpret (...) the generalization of control in the intermediate international age, a generalization that prevents passage to the ethical planetary governance Bratton solicits. Finally, Jagoda's theory of experimental games is placed into conversation with Legacy Russell's glitch feminism and Fred Moten and Stefano Harney's critique of governance in an attempt articulate a combinatorial science of play and planning suited to a properly antimetaphysical and ethical planetarity. (shrink)

Nozick’s entitlement theory of justice has its major attempts to defend the institution of private property and to criticize the redistributive measures on the part of government. Nozick frowns at Rawls’ approach and the approach of welfare economics, which focused on evaluating only current time-slices of a distribution with no concern about the procedural aspects of justice. His notion of distributive justice has its anchorage on the account of what and how a given person is entitled to in virtue of (...) what he has acquired and earned. While Rawls, whose position seems incompatible with that of Nozick holds a notion of justice on the account of the equality of the claims of each person in respect of basic needs and of the means to meet such needs. Nozick’s theory is a reaction against Rawls’ notion of distributive justice which he terms patterned, and of which he feels if upheld would consistently interfere with individual’s rights. This paper therefore argues that contrary to what Robert Nozick seems to suggest we do not see his theory as all satisfying nor any alternative, rather we are convinced that the inherent merits of his theory would suitably complement other patterned theories of distributive justice. This paper employed the expository method as well as critical analysis and prescriptive methods. (shrink)

'. . . this book will be valuable to upper-division and graduate students interested in the validity of SC theories.'-PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE.

This is a greatly expanded version of my article "Anarchism and the Beats," which was published in the book, The Philosophy of the Beats, by the University Press of Kentucky in 2012. It is both an historical and a philosophical analysis of the postwar American counterculture. It charts the historical origins of the postwar American counterculture from the anarchists and romantic poets of the early nineteenth century to a complex network of beat poets and pacifist anarchists in the early decades (...) after World War II. The beat poets understood themselves to be religious prophets of a new form of liberated consciousness. Poetry was both a means to achieve this new form of consciousness and a means to express that consciousness once it was achieved by other means including travel, psychedelic drugs, sex or meditation. The transformation of consciousness sought by the beats was therefore primarily religious in nature, not political or ideological. However, that does not mean that the beats believed that the transformation of consciousness they sought had no political or social implications. On the contrary, the beats were almost all anarchists. It merely means that, for them, political ideology follows consciousness, not the reverse. (shrink)

In Anarchie, Staat, Utopia aus dem Jahre 1974 legte Robert Nozick eine libertäre Staatstheorie dar, die er auch als Utopie verstanden wissen will. Ist nun diese Selbst-Etikettierung berechtigt? Hierzu möchte ich sowohl Nozicks Auffassung von einer Utopie betrachten, als auch nach einem sinnvollen Utopie-Begriff suchen, dem ein als utopisch bezeichneter Text zu genügen hat. Dabei werde ich hauptsächlich den Blick auf Thomas Morus’ genre-prototypischen Text über die Insel Utopia richten. Neben der Frage, ob Nozicks Staatstheorie als Utopie bezeichnet werden sollte, (...) möchte ich zum Schluß versuchen, eine Antwort auf die Frage zu finden, warum sich Nozick eines Begriffs bedient, der im allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch durchaus nicht immer positiv verstanden wird. (shrink)

Every metaphysic, according to Reiner Schürmann, involves the positing of a first principle for thinking and doing whereby the world becomes intelligible and masterable. What happens when such rules or norms no longer have the power they previously had? According to Cornelius Castoriadis, the world makes sense through institutions of imaginary significations. What happens when we discover that these significations and institutions truly are imaginary, without ground? Both thinkers begin their ontologies by acknowledging a radical finitude that threatens to destroy (...) meaning or order. For Schürmann it is the ontological anarchy revealed between epochs when principles governing modes of thinking and doing are foundering but new principles to take their place have not yet emerged. For Castoriadis it is chaos that names the indeterminationdetermination that governs the unfolding of the socio-historical with contingency and unpredictability. And yet for both thinkers their respective ontologies have political or ethical implications. On the basis of the anarchy of being, Schürmann unfolds an anarchic praxis or ethos of “living without why.” And on the basis of his notion of being as chaos, Castoriadis develops his political praxis of autonomy. The challenge for both is this move from ontology to practical philosophy, how to bridge theory and practice. The key for both seems to be a certain ontologically derived sense of freedom. In this paper, I analyze and compare their respective thoughts, and pursue the question of how anarchy or chaos and the implied sense of an ontological freedom might be made viable and sensible for human praxis, how radical finitude in the face of ontological groundlessness might nevertheless serve to situate a viable political praxis. (shrink)

Giovanbattista Tusa explores the geophilosophical possibility of rethinking the figure of the earth in twentieth-century Western philosophical thought and suggest new opportunities for thinking that open up with the twenty-first century. On the one hand, “Earth” as a Western concept has been reduced to an exhaustible resource—an endangered planet condemned to its own ending. On the other hand, another continent seems to have emerged in contemporary philosophical thought in reaction to this brutal relationship with the planet—“Earth” as a dark, impenetrable (...) and indestructible reserve, the last resource of thought. A materialization of an unconditional power, this Earth seems to reproduce the original need for a wild, ultimate refuge for the philosophical thought of the twentieth century. To this archaic Earth of thought, whose survival seems to depend on preserving itself untouched, and untouchable, I confront another possibility, the geo-anarchy of other earths—the material insurrection of planetary energies. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick defends a libertarian theory of property rights under a minimal state. Whether libertarian theory supports or excludes intellectual property (IP) rights remains controversial. This paper shows that, although Nozick only mentions intellectual property (IP) a few times in the book, these discussions turn out to be surprisingly pivotal for his arguments. Indeed, Nozick calls IP rights a “fundamental” issue for libertarian theory. So, it is important to analyse the structural, methodological, and substantive implications (...) of what Nozick says (and does not say) about IP rights. I will show that, in Part 1 of ASU, IP rights illustrate the non-ideal problems of persistent libertarian disagreement and deep value pluralism that libertarian protective associations need to come to terms with (whether through battle or reconciliation). In Part 2 of ASU, Nozick discusses patents to illustrate the limits of the Lockean Proviso. His embrace of counterfactual reasoning opens the surprising possibility that even property rights in physical resources may be up for time limitations, inheritance laws, or other rectifying regulations. Overall, Nozick’s discussion of IP rights illuminates the somewhat neglected role of non-ideal libertarian theory, epistemic indeterminacy, counterfactual reasoning, and the role of pragmatic, “rule-of-thumb” remedies in Nozick’s theory. In the final analysis, Nozick does not develop a fully coherent picture of IP rights, and his proposed solution, putting time limits on patents, seems somewhat ad hoc. Although IP rights play an underappreciated role in the book, his discussion raises more questions than it answers. The Nozickian answer is that the epistemically humble libertarian (or liberal) has to approach the regulation of IP rights, and other thorny issues of real-world property-ownership, with an open mind. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State and Utopia, Robert Nozick argues, first, that free-market anarchism is unstable -that it will inevitably lead back to the state; and, second, that without a certain "redistributive" proviso, the model is unjust. If either of these things is the case, the model defeats itself, for its justification purports to be that it provides a morally acceptable alternative to government (and therefore to the state). I argue, against Nozick's contention, that his "dominant protection agency" neither meets his (...) monopoly condition for statehood nor need run afowl of his redistributive requirement. This being the case, his argument against free market anarchism fails. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick made the argument that income redistribution violates the Kantian categorical imperative. Nozick’s retrospective enslavement argument is still used today in discussions about the moral justification of taxation. This article explicates four implicit premises of Nozick’s argument: the self-ownership principle, its fullness, the absence of restrictions on the appropriation of natural resources, and the absence of restrictions on the distribution of the fruits of cooperation. Without additional justification for each of these premises, Nozick’s (...) argument cannot show that income redistribution violates the categorical imperative. (shrink)

Nozick argues, in “Anarchy, State, and Utopia”, correctly I think, that we can go from an equal distribution of wealth to an unequal one through just means. Nozick then asks: If people voluntarily move from a just distribution of wealth, D1, to a different distribution, D2, “isn’t D2 also just?” While Nozick thinks the new distribution of wealth, D2, is just, I think that it is at least possible to go from a just state of affairs to an un-just (...) state of affairs by just means. I then argue that any unequal distribution of wealth cannot maximize the good derived from wealth. Therefore, on the basis of plausible utilitarian ideas, any distribution of wealth that isn’t at least roughly equal is un-just, even if it was arrived at by just means from an equal and just distribution of wealth. (shrink)

Central to Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia is a defense of the legitimacy of the minimal state’s use of coercion against anarchist objections. Individuals acting within their natural rights can establish the state without committing wrongdoing against those who disagree. Nozick attempts to show that even with a natural executive right, individuals need not actually consent to incur political obligations. Nozick’s argument relies on an account of compensation to remedy the infringement of the non-consenters’ procedural rights. Compensation, however, cannot (...) remedy the infringement, for either it is superfluous to Nozick’s account of procedural rights, or it is made to play a role inconsistent with Nozick’s liberal voluntarist commitments. Nevertheless, Nozick’s account of procedural rights contains clues for how to solve the problem. Since procedural rights are incompatible with a natural executive right, Nozickeans can argue that only the state can enforce individuals’ rights without wronging anyone, thus refuting the anarchist. Thanks to Annette Dufner, Arnt Myrstad, Arthur Ripstein, Gopal Sreenivasan, James Sterba, Chloe Taylor, Sergio Tenenbaum, and Shelley Weinberg. Thanks also to Matt Zwolinski and Jonelle DePetro, who commented on earlier versions of the paper at the Central APA 2007 and at the 2006 Illinois Philosophical Association Conference (respectively). Finally, thanks to my graduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for their active engagement with the ideas during a seminar on liberal theories of justice (fall 2007). (shrink)

The methodological anarchy that characterizes much recent research in artificial intelligence and other cognitive sciences has brought into existence (sometimes resumed) a large variety of entities from a correspondingly large variety of (sometimes dubious) ontological categories. Recent work in spatial representation and reasoning is particularly indicative of this trend. Our aim in this paper is to suggest some ways of reconciling such a luxurious proliferation of entities with the sheer sobriety of good philosophy.

In Escape from Leviathan, Jan Lester sets out a conception of liberty as absence of imposed cost which, he says, advances no moral claim and does not premise an assignm..

The last two decades have stood witness to a quiet revolution in epistemology. We used to think of ethics and epistemology as quite distinct areas of inquiry – ethics concerned with action, and epistemology concerned with belief. While ethics is the domain of values, epistemology is the domain of facts – the facts that we must get right, and get right first, in order to know how to pursue our values in ethics. The only competing values in epistemology, we were (...) taught, were those of acquiring truth and avoiding error. But proponents of the revolution have pushed us to find values in the stronghold of truth. They have argued that rationality, justification, and even knowledge can depend on what is practically or even morally at stake, so that we can't do epistemology without thinking about values. And some have gone further, arguing that ethics is not just about action, after all, but also includes distinctively moral, and not just epistemological, questions about what to believe. The revolution in our understanding of the relationship between ethics and epistemology is well underway. -/- Yet as in all revolutionary movements, there comes a moment when the revolutionaries must decide amongst themselves whether what they seek is reform or annihilation of the received world order. The reformists seek calculated interventions in the order of things. But the radicals want to go farther. They believe that more of the old must be thrown out, before the new can be ushered in. This is a chaotic period, when the revolution can yet be lost, if and as the alternative begins to look like total anarchy. And many possible visions of the future remain in play. This paper is a contribution toward working through these issues amongst the revolutionaries in epistemology. Let there be no surprises in this paper: I am of a reformist mindset, and the aim of this paper is to hold the line on cautious, calculated intervention, even in the pursuit of bold results. (shrink)

This work offers an analysis of all the legal and moral issues surrounding humanitarian intervention: the deaths of innocent persons and the Doctrine of Double Effect Governmental legitimacy - The Doctrine of Effective Political Control; UN Charter and evaluation of the Nicaragua ruling; The Morality of not intervening; US-led invasion of Iraq; Humanitarian intervention authorised by the UN Security Council - Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, and Bosnia among others highlight NATO's intervention in Kosovo; The Nicaragua Decision; and The precedents of (...) Panama, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The book's features include: a new framework based on the doctrine of double effect; basic principles of international ethics; outline of the moral argument for humanitarian intervention; explores the morality and legality of military action to end tyranny or anarchy; arguments in a much more detailed and complete fashion than in previous editions; in-depth examination of philosophy of international law; the relationship between custom and moral theory; new discussion of the question of right authority; and a full analysis of recent interventions in Kosovo and Iraq. book addresses a broad interdisciplinary audience of international lawyers, philosophers, and political scientists. In this new edition, the author responds to critics while updating the discussion in the light of the momentous events that took place at the beginning of the new millennium. (shrink)

There are many different kinds of libertarianism. The first is right libertarianism, which received its most powerful expression in Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), a book that still sets the baseline for discussions of libertarianism today. The second, I will call faux libertarianism. For reasons I will explain in this paper, most ‘man-on-the-street’ libertarians and most politicians who claim to be libertarians are actually this kind of libertarian. And third, there is left libertarianism, which is what I (...) shall spend most of this paper explicating. But I will not simply be surveying the views of those who identify as left libertarians and put this forth as if I were engaged in an exegetical exercise. Instead, what I shall set forth is a kind of manifesto, a statement of why I consider myself a left libertarian, one that takes this approach to political morality well beyond where it was left around the end of the last century by the previous generation of left libertarians. My hope is to provide those who find certain left libertarian ideas attractive a guide by which they can explain and harmonise their own views, recognise left libertarianism as a distinct comprehensive political doctrine, and feel more open to identify themselves as left libertarian too. (shrink)

Abstract: Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil -/- This paper starts by sketching Kant’s four ideal legal and political conditions—'anarchy,’ ‘despotism,’ ‘republic,’ and ‘barbarism’—before showing their usefulness for analyzing different political forces that may operate in any given society. Contrary to the common tendency in political philosophy to view our societies as either in the so-called ‘state of nature’ (‘anarchy’) or in ‘civil society’ (‘republic’), I propose that we might find ourselves in societies where aspects or (...) ‘pockets’ of our lives are subject to any one of these (anarchic, despotic, republican, and barbaric) political forces. I then combine Kant’s ideas on barbaric evil with Arendt’s ideas on totalitarian evil, which gives us a four-fold conception of political evil. This fourfold distinction is then used to identify some types and patterns of destructive political forces as they occur in actual, historical societies, such as racist, sexist, or heterosexist violence and oppression. (shrink)

This age is characterized by the increasing humanization of a planet more and more subject to representation, visualization and prediction. The future, however, seems to herald the emergence of forces indifferent to this historical process. Our present is thus the time of this contradiction, as new forces affect all strata of our lives like a diffuse but deep trauma. Giovanbattista Tusa's text calls for a georealism that takes into account this time, a new form of planetary realism that assumes that (...) our time is emptied of all representable content and thus open to its own infinity, open to the encounter with what is not given, either as horizon or as memory. (shrink)

Robert Nozick initiated one of the most inspired and inspiring discussions in political philosophy with his 1974 response in Anarchy, State, and Utopia to John Rawls’s 1971 account of distributive justice in A Theory of Justice. These two works have informed an enormous amount of subsequent, especially liberal, discussions of economic justice, where Nozick’s work typically functions as a resource for those defending more right-wing (libertarian) positions, whereas Rawls’s has been used to defend various left-wing stances. Common to these (...) discussions, as found in politics generally (where similar kinds of arguments frequently are used to defend right and the left-wing policies and conclusions) is that they end in rather stubborn stalemates: the right defending minimal states while the left defends more extensive states. Interesting, too, is that both Nozick and Rawls take themselves to be consistent with, inspired by, and furthering Kant’s freedom project in the development of their own theories of justice. In this paper, I start by outlining the structures of these debates with an emphasis on the original disagreements between Nozick and Rawls. I then show how neither theory actually employed Kant’s own theory of justice, but rather drew on or out (presumed) implications of his ethical theory. In the final sections, I argue that if Nozick and Rawls had instead used Kant’s theory of justice and not his ethics, not only would their individual theories have been stronger, but they could have found ways of overcoming the unproductive stalemates that characterize their own as well as subsequent related discussions of economic justice as we currently find them in much scholarly and contemporary political debate. (shrink)

The special issue you have in your hands arose from a somewhat peculiar premise: we preferred not to be very clear, beforehand, about what it was going to be about. It may seem a risky bet for a “thematic” issue, but the truth is that we only had a set of concerns related to the cultural imperative of monogamy that, on closer inspection, did not even seem to point in the same direction. We knew, for example, that we did not (...) want to focus on polyamorous relationships, open couples or free relationships, nor on ethical or political non-monogamy, consensual or non- consensual. Nor did we want to focus on the relational styles of swinger networks, kink sexualities or BDSM. Neither did we want to focus on the proposals of relationship anarchy. In the same way, we did not want to dedicate this issue to the legal life of monogamy, nor to the intimate relations between state, citizenship and mononormativity. We also decided not to limit our proposal to exploring the intersections - and tensions - that arise between resistance to monogamy and feminist, anti-racist or LGBTQIAPN+ struggles. Similarly, we did not feel it appropriate to devote this issue to something like the study of “non-monogamy” in Brazil, Abya Yala or the multiple souths of the planet, or to the possible coalitions between decolonisation and de-monogamisation of the world. It is true that we wanted to open up a space where we could talk about all of this, and other things. But, above all, we hoped that this issue would serve to raise a question that underlies these topics without ultimately being reduced to any of them. (shrink)

Contemporary versions of natural rights libertarianism trace their locus classicus to Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. But although there have been many criticisms of the version of political libertarianism put forward by Nozick, many of these objections fail to meet basic methodological desiderata. Thus, Nozick’s libertarianism deserves to be re-examined. In this paper I develop a new argument which meets these desiderata. Specifically, I argue that the libertarian conception of self-ownership, the view’s foundation, implies what I call the (...) Asymmetrical Value Claim: a dubious claim about the importance of choice relative to other valuable capacities. I argue that this misunderstands what is really valuable in life, and show how it causes libertarianism to generate counterintuitive public policy recommendations. (shrink)

In recent decades, interest in non-monogamous intimate relationships has grown rapidly. Polyamory, relationship anarchy, consensual or ethical non-monogamy, and more have become popular in academic and public discourse. These practices destabilize the privileging of heterosexual nuclear families and the assumption that romantic coupledom is the ultimate form of love. Non-monogamous approaches flout cultural norms of exclusivity by avowing that intimacy is compatible with multiple dyadic and/or multi-party relationships. This article explores Simone de Beauvoir's theory and practice of non-monogamy in (...) her theoretical writings and diaries. (shrink)

(Early) Modern social contract theories reject the idea that legal and political institutions are grounded in an alleged natural ordering or hierarchy of human beings, and instead argue that only government by a public (and not private) authority can fulfil the idea of justice as freedom and equality for all. To be authoritative and not just powerful, governing institutions must be shared as ours in this irreducible sense. I first outline how Kant’s ideal account of rightful freedom brilliantly transforms this (...) tradition as found in the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, before proposing a way to see Kant’s two-layered non-ideal theory—his accounts of human nature (“moral anthropology”) and historical societies (“the principle of politics”)—as complementing his ideal theory of rightful freedom. This enables us to envision a conception not only of rightful external freedom but of rightful human freedom in particular societies—with their histories—on planet Earth. With these arguments at hand, we can also better appreciate the importance of realizing that the four possible political conditions for Kant—anarchy, barbarism, despotism, and republic—are ideas of reason, which means that they are never perfectly realized. Hence, historical societies we are not either in the state of nature or in civil society. In addition, in historical societies founded on principles of freedom, there are pockets of injustice or pockets that are devoid of justice that can only be captured by means of one of the three political ideas that are not constitutive of the republican legal-political framework. Kant’s four ideas therefore give us more tools with which to capture the nature of different political forces and challenges facing us in our historical societies. (shrink)

Sociology, as conceived by Comte, was to put an end to the anarchy of opinions characteristic of liberal democracy by replacing opinion with the truths of sociology, imposed through indoctrination. Later sociologists backed away from this, making sociology acceptable to liberal democracy by being politically neutral. The critics of this solution asked 'whose side are we on?' Burawoy provides a novel justification for advocacy scholarship in sociology. Public sociology is intended to have political effects, but also to be funded (...) by the politically neutral state. He argues that public sociology is institutionally neutral, but that committing to an organic relation with a social movement is legitimate as a matter of the sociologist's personal value choice. Although this produces side-taking sociology, by improving the case for particular standpoints it serves to improve democratic discussion generally, which is an appropriately neutral public aim. (shrink)

Some philosophers defend legal punishment by appealing to a natural right to punish wrongdoers, a right people would have in a state of nature. Many of these philosophers argue that legal punishment can be justified by transferring this right to the state. I’ll argue that such a right may not be transferrable to the state because such a right may not survive the transition out of anarchy. A compelling reason for the natural right claim – that in a state (...) of nature there are few if any viable non-punitive enforcement options – isn’t obviously true in state contexts. (shrink)

How is it possible to perform more than is required? And yet, isn’t that precisely what is required, in order for an interlocking society of human beings to function, develop and evolve? If human beings only did what we were told to do, we would live in complete monotony and enslavement. If human beings did only what we were permitted to do, nothing interesting would ever happen. Although performance has often been limited to the study of isolated artistic forms of (...) expressions (music, visual arts, etc.), it is equally possible to analyze culture, on the whole, as a behaviour-encoding system of rules and regulations, wherein the individual actor’s performative appropriation and reinterpretation of these said (cultural, political, artistic) rules makes possible the culture’s very survival, against all odds and obstacles, over long periods of time, as a “tradition” upheld by a community of rule-followers / rule-breakers. Rules, in a very real sense, are meant to be broken. Rule-breaking, by the same token, is, as it were, legislated within the very law code itself, as its own guarantee of immortality. After all, what law could function for any period of time without undergoing reinterpretation? This is good news both for culture and for the avant garde (the creative individual or collective), because even the strictest of rules creates its own conditions of transgression, and vice versa. The performance of culture through the creative freedom of the transgressive individual – i.e. any individual qua his or her individuality – is the sine qua non for a democratic society of peers. Creativity depends upon structure, and structure depends upon that which breaks its shackles of normativity, by rebirthing structure transgressively. The whole point of interpreters is to make things alright for the reappearance of the “father” (the law code) again. Ironically, then, anarchy is the only guarantee of the rule of law. (shrink)

This article reconstructs and critically evaluates Robert Nozick’s libertarian theory of justice as articulated in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Focusing on Nozick’s conception of rights as side-constraints and his entitlement theory of justice in holdings, the article examines his critique of patterned and redistributive theories of justice. Nozick’s arguments are presented in their strongest form, emphasizing the moral force of self-ownership, voluntary exchange, and historical legitimacy. The article then critically assesses the limitations of the entitlement theory, particularly its treatment (...) of background injustice, structural inequality, and constrained choice. It argues that while Nozick offers a powerful and necessary constraint on coercive state authority, his framework is insufficient as a comprehensive account of justice. The article concludes by situating Nozick’s theory as an indispensable but incomplete contribution to debates about liberty, redistribution, and moral responsibility. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy, after confronting the plurality and locality of theoretical perspectives, finds itself caught in a dilemma between foundationalist dogmatism and relativist anarchy. This paper systematically argues that a path named "Philosophy of Finitude" is the way out of this predicament. Its core thesis is: the foundation of philosophical validity should shift from pursuing ultimate synthesis to thoroughly acknowledging the fundamental finitude of human understanding and developing a corresponding meta-methodology. This paper first establishes the ontological situation of human understanding—the (...) "Domain of Encounter - Domain of Comprehension - Horizon" Tripartite Matrix of Finitude, revealing that all cognition is constrained by the absolute boundaries of experiential material, conceptual tools, and present attention. Within this matrix, the "Project" as the basic unit of understanding undergoes a constructive process from "Capture-Truncation-Intervention" to "Forgetting-Self-justification". Its successful operation solidifies into a "Domain of Governance", breeding two philosophical vices: "The Totalizing One" and "The Either-Or". To address this, this paper constructs a methodological toolkit: delineating theoretical boundaries through "Demarcation", managing complementary perspectives through "Stellar Coordination", stimulating conceptual innovation through "Rhizomatic Linking", and cultivating "Negative Capability" to face the unspeakable "Domain of Silence". Ultimately, the Philosophy of Finitude transforms the philosopher's role from an "arbiter" of truth to a "gardener" of the ecology of understanding, and philosophical practice from a "war of truth" to "gardening of perspectives". This paper concludes that the Philosophy of Finitude not only provides a systematic method for coping with cognitive complexity but also issues a profound existential invitation: only by soberly accepting our own finitude can we, within these very boundaries, attain genuine cognitive freedom and philosophical wisdom. (shrink)

A compilation of essays and letters written between 2003 and 2009.

Contra critical rationalism, the response begins by referring to “the variety of internalist and externalist versions of foundationalism” (Liberty, December 2002). But it makes no attempt to explain or defend any of them. Hence, no further criticism is due here. The response then argues that, “The critical rationalist method seems to suggest that Lester’s extreme compatibility thesis is probably false” because—quoting Escape from Leviathan (EfL)—“bold universal theories might be false, and probably are” and yet “he doesn’t think the thesis is (...) probably false”. And so this is, by implication, an inconsistent belief. But the Compatibility Thesis (CT) is not one of the “bold universal theories” of science. The review and the response appear, at times, to assume that the CT is a bold universal theory about the perfect compatibility of applying the relevant conceptions, or theories, of rationality, liberty, welfare, and anarchy. Then, at other times, they assert that it is not bold at all but merely about definitions designed to be compatible. In fact, the CT asserts both that there are no theoretical incompatibilities among relevant and plausible versions of the theories, and that there are no actual long-term, systemic, and practical conflicts among applying them. That is still a bold theory (perhaps even most libertarians would disagree with it), but it’s not a universal thesis of perfect compatibility. And if it were good practice to reject a theory just because of its boldness, then all scientific theories would be immediately rejected without even trying to produce a falsification. In any case, as stated in the reply to the review, anyone’s mere beliefs are irrelevant to the truth of objective theories and the soundness of objective arguments. (shrink)

The central classical liberal insight is that private property appears both to protect personal liberty and to promote general productivity. By way of philosophically clarifying this insight, Escape from Leviathan (EfL) posits the extreme classical liberal, or libertarian, Compatibility Thesis: there is no long-term, systemic, practical conflict among economic rationality, interpersonal liberty, human welfare, and private-property anarchy (i.e., four plausible and relevant theories of these that are presupposed, or entailed, by libertarianism and consonant social science). The review (Liberty, November (...) 2002) holds that this extreme version is probably false and suggests that perhaps even EfL’s author would agree. He (still) does not, although he remains open to argument. But what anyone happens to believe at any particular moment is a piece of fleeting biography that is irrelevant to the truth of the thesis or the soundness of the arguments in EfL. (shrink)