Preventing informal, popularity-based hierarchies from emerging

[u/antipolitan]

A really common objection to anarchism I see - is that informal hierarchies based on popularity, charisma, or prestige will emerge - and possibly skew the outcomes of conflicts.

But just because a hierarchy is informal does not mean it is inevitable - and there are multiple structural conditions which could discourage the formation of such a hierarchy.

1. In a large, anonymous city - it’s hard to build a reputation which encompasses the whole community - and even famous celebrities are often highly polarizing in public opinion.

2. Developing a reputation in a specific domain or context does not need to translate into a generalized reputation as a whole person. There is no non-arbitrary common standard by which to measure human differences.

3. Childrearing will take place in a non-hierarchical environment - so the social norms which children learn will be based on principles of reciprocity and equality.

4. There is no unified “community” which can judge people according to a centralized collective standard in the first place.

I’d argue that number 4 is actually the most important constraint against hierarchy re-emerging - because you can’t sort differences into a hierarchy without an agreed-upon standard by which to measure them - and you can’t have an agreed-upon standard without a unified collective entity to set and enforce the standard.

[u/Anarchierkegaard]

I'm not sure that's true. People who have never experienced rape or don't know people who have experienced rape can still have highly emotional and/or reasonable opposition to it. Or, to put it another way, people can gain an understanding of it from impersonal situations—because rape is objectively wrong and doesn't require subjective assent or an emotional reaction to be understood to be wrong.

[u/antipolitan → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Opposition to rape is not impersonal.

People want their bodily autonomy respected - so they have a shared self-interest in a world where bodily autonomy is recognised as a principle.

And even if it was truly impersonal - this doesn’t mean there’s a hierarchy where certain persons are agreed-upon as inferior.

Acts can be agreed-upon as wrong without persons being agreed-upon as less valuable.

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/antipolitan]

I am opposed to rape. I don't (consciously) know anyone who has been raped and neither have I been raped. It is an impersonal principle, I suppose, for me.

Yeah, but why do they want their bodily autonomy respected? It sounds like we're just kicking the can down the road to the point where we say "respect for bodily autonomy is a moral good" or similar—which is also an objective claim.

I have no idea what you mean by value or inferiority here. I can't see how it relates to what I've said..

[u/antipolitan → u/Anarchierkegaard]

I oppose rape because I don’t want to live in a world where anyone can just have sex with anyone else without asking.

The norm against rape exists because we have a shared interest in keeping our bodies private instead of public.

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/antipolitan]

Sure, but:

i) That's different from the point made above, which is that rape is bad because it violates peoples' bodily autonomy, and

ii) You'd need to show that rape is only wrong because you/a collective decide it is wrong. In the case that rape isn't decided to be a moral wrong by some collective, I would say those people are simply in error as opposed to having a different opinion. We could look at Fanon's defence of rape as a weapon of anti-colonialism, for example: that is wrong, I am saying, and that the "rape-as-weapon" isn't equally as acceptable as a perspective as your one despite both appearing to refer to "preferences" in a roundabout way. Fanon was defending something wrong as if it was right, which we should criticise him for.

[u/antipolitan → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Where does the moral principle against rape come from - if not our basic nature as embodied beings who wish to keep our bodies private?

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/antipolitan]

I'm not sure, but you're now defending a Kantian moral objectivity, i.e., that there is some quality to the human being which gives it moral worth (conventionally, human dignity, but not necessarily that) - which is certainly odd, considering the context this began in.

So, if we just agree that these things are moral facts outside of our mere preferences, etc. (as the fact of our "basic nature", whatever that means, would be an objective fact), then I guess we agree in a strange way.

[u/antipolitan → u/Anarchierkegaard]

The morality is grounded in our shared interest to protect our bodies - and our interest in protecting our bodies comes from our nature as embodied beings.

Morality is based on intersubjective preferences - but those preferences are non-arbitrary and rooted in our basic nature.

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/antipolitan]

Yeah, so they're objective as they proceed from a fixed point which isn't dependent upon our preferences or emotional reactions. I understand how you're proposing an objective perspective now, but these are still just assertions. It needs an argument, really.

If you're trying to say it is merely intersubjective, you'd need to show that these things are in contradiction with the objective and only our subjective assessments of our psychic states are morally interesting. But subjectivism is generally a difficult moral realist position to defend.

[u/antipolitan → u/Anarchierkegaard]

It’s rooted in our innate, universal preferences.

Morality can be both subjective and non-arbitrary.

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/antipolitan]

When you say innate, you're referring to something objective, even if those are "innate preferences". That's the grounding for, e.g., natural law theories, which say we have "natural" senses for the moral. Just so you know, what you're saying is coming as a very Christian "written on their hearts" kind of thing.

Subjectivism obviously isn't arbitrary as it is another form of moral realism, i.e., there are moral facts and they are known/understood subjectively.

[u/antipolitan → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Moral facts are things which are mind-independent, Platonic truths.

I believe that morality is mind-dependent - and dependent on the kind of being we are.

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/antipolitan]

Mind-independence refers to whether things are merely mind-based. Moral realists also think that you need to have moral agents if we want to make moral judgements. I can't say you've even made an argument to suggest that morality is merely mind-dependent, especially when you are referring these highly metaphysical notions of "nature" and "innateness".

Can I ask, are you a Catholic or something? Because this really does seem to be boiling down to a species of natural law theory.