Ethics: Origin and Development
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Left unfinished at his death, Peter Kropotkin’s two-volume work on ethics is a rejection of both divine command and the moral dictates of a ruling class. Kropotkin roots ethical life in something far older and more universal: the mutual aid practices that allow social species to survive.
Origin and Development, the first volume, has been out of print since its original 1924 English translation. In this work, Kropotkin explains why a new approach to thinking about ethics is needed and what the social and natural bases are on which this new ethics can be built. He engages with the long history of ethical theory in Europe, offering critical readings of figures from Plato to Robert Owen.
About the Contributors
Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) was the foremost theorist of the anarchist movement and was imprisoned for his activism in Russia and France. Born a Russian prince, he rejected his title to become a revolutionary, seeking a society based on freedom, equality, and solidarity. His writings include The Conquest of Bread; Fields, Factories, and Workshops; Anarchism, Anarchist-Communism, and the State; Memoirs of a Revolutionist; and Modern Science and Anarchism. New editions of his classic works Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution; Words of a Rebel; and The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793 were published by PM Press to commemorate his life and work on the centennial of his death.
Joey Aloi is an environmental philosopher who lives and works in Central Appalachia.
Chris Coquard is a Canadian English professor and world traveler currently living in San Francisco. In his free time he is busy with many projects pertaining to Peter Kropotkin and Kropotkin’s lifelong friend and amazing scientist Marie Goldsmith.
Marie Isidorovna Goldsmith (1871–1933) was a scientific luminary and anarchist militant whose work united biology and revolutionary thought. Born to socialist revolutionaries exiled by the Tsarist regime, she grew up in an environment that fused political commitment with intellectual rigor. Goldsmith pursued a successful scientific career, collaborating with evolutionary biologist Yves Delage and coauthoring influential studies on evolution, heredity, and animal behavior. Alongside her scientific work, she was also deeply engaged in anarchist activism, writing, editing, and corresponding with leading figures such as Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman, and advocating anarchist communism and revolutionary syndicalism. Check out the Marie Goldsmith Project at https://mariegoldsmith.uk/ for more information.
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