Ethics: Origin and Development

by Pyotr Kropotkin

Kropotkin’s “ Origin and Development,” is, in a sense, a continuation of his well-known work, “Mutual Aid as a Factor of Evolution.” The basic ideas of the two books are closely connected, almost inseparable, in — the origin and progress of human relations in society. Only, in the “Ethics” Kropotkin approaches his theme through a study of the ideology of these relations. The Russian writer removes ethics from the sphere of the speculative and metaphysical, and brings human conduct and ethical teaching back to its natural the ethical practices of men in their everyday concerns — from the time of primitive societies to our modern highly organized States. Thus conceived, ethics becomes a subject of universal interest; under the kindly eyes and able pen of the great Russian scholar, a subject of special and academic study becomes closely linked to whatever is significant in the life and thought of all men.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Theory, Nonfiction, Classics

303 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Pyotr Alekseyevich Kropotkin, prince, Russian anarchist, and political philosopher, greatly influenced movements throughout the world and maintained that cooperation, not competition, the means, bettered the human condition.

Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (Пётр Алексеевич Кропоткин, other spelling: Pëtr Kropotkin, Pierre Kropotkine), who described him as "a man with a soul of that beautiful white Christ, which seems coming." He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, the most prominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops , and his principal scientific offering, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution . He also contributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition .

Reviews

[Παναγιώτης Δεληγιάννης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ελευθερία είναι να είσαι το αβουλο (προι)ον, που κάνει χωρις δευτερη σκεψη ότι του λέει το κράτος και η θρησκεία
Δημοκρατία είναι να εισαι υποδουλος σε ένα καθαρά ολοκληρωτικο σύστημα για ολόκληρη τη ζωή σου
Παιδεία είναι να μαθαίνεις αυτά που θέλουν να σου μάθουν
Υγεία είναι αυτό που πρέπει να σταυροκοπιεσαι από το πρωί μέχρι το βράδυ στον καλό θεουλη για να μην το χάσεις
Αγάπη είναι το συναίσθημα που δε θα γνωρίσεις ποτέ στο μεγαλείο του, γιατί σε έχουν διδάξει με κάθε τρόπο να το ξεχάσεις
Αλληλεγγύη είναι να κάνεις κλικ συμπαραστασης από ασφαλή απόσταση, χωρίς να έχεις έρθει σε επαφή με τον πόνο του άλλου
Πόλεμος και διαστρεβλωση είναι η καθημερινότητα σου

[Cole Diment · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wish he would have lived long enough to write the follow up 😭 Bless Pyotr

[John Workman · Rating 4 out of 5]

He was truly a man ahead of his time. The book was a thorough trip through western philosophy on the topic of ethics and although it took me longer than I expected to get through I am looking forward to rereading and taking notes on it. His insight and academic approach to analyzing ethical statements and structures within western society and its comparison to the established ethical philosophies throughout time is well understood and well written. I had to take a star simply for the reductive understanding of non-western societies and their "development" compared to western society and maybe if he was around today he'd think differently as the more I read this book the more I think about contemporary works that seek to better understand non-western philosophy and how most of them would benefit from the critical developments Kropotkin made over 100 years ago.

[Molsa Roja(s) · Rating 5 out of 5]

No puc fer més que donar cinc estrelles a Kropotkin, un científic social revolucionari d'incalculable valor. Aquesta obra, potser per inconclusa, no està a l'alçada de El apoyo mútuo. Si l'anterior era un relat fascinant de les xarxes de suport aparentment invisibles per a l'home de la natura, i també totes les que hem construït al llarg de les diferents etapes civilitzatòries, aquest llibre se centra en un estudi històric de les principals corrents de l'ètica humana, des de Plató, Aristòtil, Epicur i els estoics fins a les revolucionàries i utòpiques socialistes del s. XIX. Així, aquest és un relat completíssim de com la moral i el bé ha passat -molt lentament- de ser un ideal diví a una propietat purament humana - i entenent humana, també, com animal. Penso, però, que l'ètica podia prendre difícilment altre caràcter que el diví, abans del desenvolupament de les ciències socials i de la vida, donat el profund desconeixement de l'home i la història: com concebre que la moral prové del modus vivendi animal, en un entorn creacionista? La màxima independència que es pot aconseguir és la kantiana racionalista, que tot i l'esforç admet ser incapaç de justificar-ne l'origen. T'estimo Kropotkin.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is mostly a survey of the history and development of ethical philosophy from the ancient Greeks through the beginning of the twentieth century. Kropotkin writes in a clear style, and although the book is not presented as an explication of his own ethical philosophy, his point of view is clear throughout. The fundamental basis of Kropotkin’s thinking is that morality derives from the nature of humans as social animals and that there is a scientific basis for morality in the theory of evolution. He firmly rejects the idea of a religious basis of morality, seeing religion as the invention of priests and shamans as a method of social control infected by superstition and oppression. He also rejects the idea that morality can be derived from self interest — individuals striving for their own happiness and thereby producing a general social harmony. At this basic level, I am in complete agreement with Kropotkin, so I am able to forgive him when he seems a bit naive to me or when his science is a bit off or when his attitudes are a bit too Victorian for my tastes. He is a good man who meant well and whose basic ideas seem kind and correct. What more can any of us hope for?

[Eduardo Moraes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não é Nietzsche, mas é dinamite!

"Man no longer needs to clothe his ideals of moral beauty, and of a society based on justice, with the garb of superstition: he does not have to wait for the Supreme Wisdom to remodel society. He can derive his ideals from Nature and he can draw the necessary strength from the study of its life.

One of the greatest achievements of modern science was that it proved the indestructibility of energy through all the ceaseless transformations which undergoes in the universe. For the physicist and the mathematician this idea became a most fruitful source of discovery. It inspires, in fact, all modern research. But its philosophical import is equally great. It accustoms man to conceive the life of the universe as a never-ending series of transformations of energy: mechanical energy may become converted into sound, light, electricity; and conversely, each of these forms of energy may be converted into others. And among all these transformations, the birth of our planet, its evolution, and its final, unavoidable destruction and reabsorption in the great Cosmos are but an infinitesimally small episode – a mere moment in the life of the stellar words.” (pg. 3)

* * * *

"Having originated in the East, Christianity was influenced by Eastern beliefs in one very important direction. The religions of Egypt, Persia, and India were not content with simple humanization of the forces of Nature, as was conceived by the Greek and the Roman heathendom. They saw in the universe a struggle of two equally powerful essences – the Good and the Evil, Light and Darkness, - and they transferred this struggle to the heart of man.

This conception of two antagonistic forces battling for supremacy in the world gradually penetrated Christianity and became its fundamental principle. And then, for many centuries, the Christian Church, in order to annihilate with unspeakable cruelty all those who dared to criticize its henchmen, utilized to the full this conception of the powerful devil who obtains possession of the human soul.

Thus the Church directly rejected the kindness and all-forgivingness which were advocated by the founder of Christianity... And more than that: is its persecution of its antagonists it knew no limit of cruelty. But worst of all was the fact that on becoming transformed into the State Church, official Christianity forgot the fundamental difference distinguishing it from all the preceding religions except Buddhism. It forgot the forgiveness of injuries, and it avenged every injury in the spirit of Eastern despotism." (pg. 121)

* * * *

“The Christian priests soon became the supporters of the emperors. Property inequality and political oppression remained the same as before, and the mental development of society was considerably lower. (...) In guarding what it considered the purity of faith, and in persecuting what it considered perversion and criminal heresy, the Church soon reached the limit of cruelty in its persecutions of the 'apostates'. And for the sake of success in this struggle, it first sought and then demanded support from the secular powers, which in turn demanded from the Church a benevolent attitude toward them and a support by religion of their tyrannical power over the people. (...) The movement which began as a protest against the abominations of the ruling power, now became a tool of that power. The blessing of the Church not only forgave the rulers their crimes – it actually even represented these crimes as the fulfilment of God's will.” (130-31)

* * * *

Later, on the 15th and 16th centuries, when the centralized power of kings and the tsars began to extend over the states that were then forming, the Church never failed to help with its influence and its wealth the creation and expansion of this power, and shielded with its cross such beast-like rulers as Louis XI, Phillip II, and Ivan the Terrible. The Church punished any show of opposition to its power with purely Eastern cruelty – with torture and fire, and the Western Church even created for this purpose a special institution – the 'Holy' Inquisition.” (pgs. 121 – 122)

* * * *

“Various people whom the Church included among the saints approved slavery, and St. Augustine even vindicated it, asserting that sinners became slaves in punishment for their sins. Thomas Aquinas asserted that slavery is a 'divine law'. Only with the beginning of the Crusades could the slaves be liberated from their masters by sewing a cross to their sleeves and going to the East for the conquest of Jerusalem. The Church was followed openly or tacitly by most philosophers. Only in the 18th century, on the eve of the French Revolution, were voices of the freethinkers raised against slavery. It was the Revolution and not the Church that abolished slavery in the French colonies and serfdom in France itself. (...) In 1863 the abolition of slavery took place in the 'deeply religious' United States. After a bloody struggle with the slave-owners, the slaves were proclaimed free; they were given for their subsistence, however, not even an inch of the soil that they had cultivated.” (p. 127)

* * * * *

P. KROPOTKIN (1842-1921). "Ethics: Origin and Development". Black Rose Books. Montréal, Canadá, 1992.

[Alessandro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un saggio interessante, ma fondamentale Kropotkin è un dotto che propone un compendio di storia dell'etica per cassare le sue tesi... se volete un testo più diretto, consigliatissimo "La Morale Anarchica". È incredibile che un filosofo così importante come Kropotkin sia introvabile.

[Daniel Marin Conesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,4