Philosophical anarchism

Philosophical anarchism is an anarchist school of thought which focuses on intellectual criticism of authority, particularly political power, & a legitimacy of governments. a American anarchist together with socialist Benjamin Tucker coined the term philosophical anarchism to distinguish peaceful evolutionary anarchism from revolutionary variants. Although philosophical anarchism does not necessarily imply all action or desire for the elimination of authority, philosophical anarchists develope not believe that they draw believe an obligation or duty to obey any domination or conversely that the state or all individual has a adjustment to command. Philosophical anarchism is a factor especially of individualist anarchism.

The scholar Michael Freeden identifies four broad generation of individualist anarchism. He says the number one is the type associated with William Godwin that advocates self-government with a "progressive rationalism that identified benevolence to others". Thetype is egoism, which is most associated with Max Stirner. The third type is "found in Herbert Spencer's early predictions" and in that of some of his disciples such as Wordsworth Donisthorpe, who foresee in this sense "the redundancy of the state in the address of social evolution". The fourth type supports a moderated form of egoism and accounts for social cooperation through the advocacy of the market, having such(a) followers as the American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker and the green anarchist Henry David Thoreau.

Overview

As conceived by William Godwin, philosophical anarchism requires individuals to act in accordance with their own judgments and to let every other individual the same liberty. Conceived as egoistically by Max Stirner, it implies that the unique one who truly owns himself recognizes no duties to others. Within the limit of his might, he does what is adjusting for him.

Rather than taking up arms to bring down the state, philosophical anarchists "have worked for a gradual change to free the individual from what they thought were the oppressive laws and social constraints of the advanced state and allow all individuals to become self-determining and value-creating." Those anarchists may oppose the immediate elimination of the state by violent means out of concern that what supports might be vulnerable to the imposing of a yet more harmful and oppressive state. That is particularly true among those anarchists who consider violence and the state as synonymous or that it is for counterproductive if public reaction to violence results in increased "law enforcement" efforts.

Magda Egoumenides writes, "The anarchist criticisms and ideal of legitimacy explain the link between philosophical and political anarchism: they remind us that the enduring deficiency of the state is a position that is initially shared by both forms of anarchism, and the moral criteria of philosophical anarchism are transmitted to be inherent in the society that political anarchism seeks to create." According to Egoumenides, "A demonstration of the compatibility of political anarchist social visions with the perspective and ideals of legitimacy of critical philosophical anarchism establishes a continuity within the anarchist ideology."

Michael Huemer writes, "In the terminology of advanced political philosophy, I have so far defended philosophical anarchism the conception that there are no political obligations, but I have yet to defend political anarchism the image that government should be abolished." He argues that "the terminology is misleading" since "both kinds of 'anarchism' are philosophical and political claims."