What is good for volitional beings:
What is good for a volitional being is the flourishing of such a being and what enables a being to flourish– and what is good for some group of volitional beingS is the flourishing of such beingS and what enables such beingS to flourish. And to put it moderately, there are at least some states of affairs that are better than other states of affairs for a particular volitional being or group of volitional beings. And there are objective facts that exist in relation to criteria of what it would mean for a volitional being or a group of volitional beings to flourish. The flourishing of volitional beings is a gestalt that includes multiple dimensions.
What is good for a volitional being (or group of beings) depends upon the relevant variables about such a being (or group of beings) which can include nature/functions, needs, desires, relevant conditions, and potentialities. Human nature is to have desire and volition caused through reasoning and deliberation– collectively and individually. And humans are also dependent upon each other for their individual needs to be met. Humans have specifically social needs for companionship, friendship, and community and collective practices. Humans have social-psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence (Ryan and Deci 2022). The presence of such features is partially definitive of and characteristically leads to flourishing and wellbeing of persons, and the absence of such features characteristically leads to ill-being (Ryan and Deci 2022). Self-management of each and all and the means thereof is necessary for the right kinds of autonomy (including but not limited to the right kinds of rights and duties) AND the right kinds of relatedness (including but not limited to organizational relations) to flourish. Additionally, the self-management of each and all and the means thereof create conditions for people to pursue and attain competence in regards to practices of their choosing. By extension, the self-management of each and all is constitutive of the overall flourishing of persons.
Internal motivation towards helping others, forging good relationships, building community, and positive self-development contributes to such goals as well as well-being in those who have such virtuous internal motivations (Ryan and Deci 2022). Self-determined social relations characteristically develop wellness and virtuous character traits that give people integrated regulation to do that which is good for themselves and for others (Ryan and Deci 2022). “Integrated regulation involves doing activities because they are important for and congruent with one’s goals or values,” (Ryan and Deci 2022). Ryan and Deci, and many others, provide very good philosophical arguments enriched by mountains of scientific research (including several dozen meta analyses) demonstrating the above as well as the conclusion that, “self-determined functioning is associated with greater creativity, superior learning, better performance, enhanced well-being, and higher quality relationships,” (Ryan and Deci 2022). It is important to note the distinction in well-being and happiness as Ryan and Deci use the terms. We agree with their assessment that well-being and happiness are related yet distinct. Even though happiness is good, “Happiness cannot fully define well-being,” (Ryan and Deci 2022). “Wellness is more than merely a subjective issue,” and “In contrast, happiness (e.g., assessed by the presence of positive affect and absence of negative affect) is a subjective issue,” (Ryan and Deci 2022). But “It is not that happiness is unrelated to wellness, nor should happiness be ignored,”; Happiness is a “symptom of wellness,” that ”typically accompanies or follows from eudaimonic living and is associated with basic need satisfaction and growth,” (Ryan and Deci 2022).
Humans are not just volitional animals (nor are humans merely rational dependent animals– as relevant and true as such a notion is); humans are also institutional animals–as well as political, economic, and social animals (Bookchin 2022). Institutional animals exist within and are able to create forms of malleable structured social organization with specific forms and functions (within the bounds of conditions and potentiality). Different qualities of institutions enable and constrain different kinds of behaviors. That which is good for humans includes good kinds of institutional forms, contents, and relations that partially define as well as enable the self-determination of each and all. When it comes to good institutions and what is good for institutional volitional beings, what is good is not a mere quantitative aggregation of hedons, happiness, and the like (as good as hedons, happiness, and the like can be); what is good for such beings includes the wellness that comes with meeting needs (including needs for sustenance and self-determination and good relatedness), a multiplicity of good institutional and relational qualities and the means thereof, qualitative rights and duties in harmony with the self-management of each and all, activities and practices entangled with and flowing from such freedom, and individual virtues. Although institutional beings have the potential to create the most horrific kinds of hierarchical formations, institutional beings also have the potential to create good sets of rights and duties, formal equality of decision making power, deliberative and democratic decision making processes, and a guaranteed minimum in terms of access to means of existence, common means of production, and horizontal politics (Bookchin 2005, 2022). Human nature and history demonstrates that depending on the presence and absence of various conditions, humans have the potential for everything from radically egalitarian relations to radically hierarchical relations (Bookchin 2005).
For political economic beings, “true freedom is to have full self-determination about one’s social economic and cultural development,” (Ervin 2021). The freedom of each and all includes the “freedom to develop as one sees fit… integrated to the fullest extent with social responsibility to others,” (Ervin 2021). The right kind of autonomy for rational, dependent, institutional, volitional, political, economic, social beings consists of: the self-management of each and all, the means thereof, political economic expressions thereof– including rights and duties in harmony with such self-management, as well as a panoply of institutional and relational qualities contributing to the living flourishing of the above. The right kind of relatedness to each other politically, economically, and socially includes and gives rise to the self-management of each and all– which itself requires certain kinds of political, economic, and social qualities and practices.
Freedom and Equality:
Collective and individual freedom refers to the self-management of each and all and the means thereof. Such freedom includes collectives and individuals making decisions about what they do and what affects them which requires freedom from hierarchical rule. “Freedom becomes a desideratum as self-reflexivity, as self-management, and most excitingly, as a creative and active process” with an “ever-expanding horizon,” (Bookchin 2022). Although freedom for political, economic, and social beings has necessary dimensions to it, it is not limited to what is merely necessary for it. The “ever-expanding horizon” of freedom is not fully written and in fact is partially defined and co-authored by volitional beings adapting and elaborating the (objective and subjective) contents of freedom according to needs, desires, contexts, and emergent relevant variables. The virtue of equality is the right kinds of equality, in the right ways, in the right contexts, towards the right ends. It is constituted by the freedom from hierarchy, domination, and exploitation and constituted by the guaranteed freedoms to horizontal power and decision making processes, and equal minimal rights. The virtue of equality, understood as such, is mutually constitutive of the freedom of each and all. Within such bounds of the self-management of each and all, groups and persons can choose what actions and practices they do according to their needs, abilities, and desires– a boundaried yet relatively infinite realm of permissibility constrained only by the freedoms of others, the means thereof, and what is possible given relevant conditions and variables.
***Such a telos of freedom and equality is in relation to the goods for institutional volitional beings but is NOT inherently motivating– one requires various dispositions to be moved by various moral facts for the right reasons. But there are objective facts in relation to such a telos. And given the goal of developing such a telos, we get various oughts in relation to such criteria. This is further elaborated in the section after the conclusion.
The flourishing of volitional beings as a telos requires certain kinds of means–and also benefits from a wider array of means than those that are required. The freedom/equality ethic of the self-management of each and all is both a process and a goal to be endlessly developed and recreated by collectives and individuals. It is an overall developmental telos; a process and goal orientation not reducible to either mere means NOR mere ends. For such self-management and right kind of relatedness to flourish, such ends require various processes and means that are constituted by self-managed form and content of political, economic, and social life. For freedom and equality to exist as consequences, libertarian and egalitarian forms/contents/practices need to sufficiently develop and multiply. To the extent hierarchical forms/contents/practices develop and reproduce themselves, self-determination and equality are necessarily constrained. It is only through the strategic development of libertarian and egalitarian processes, practices, forms, and contents that libertarian and egalitarian ends actually thrive; it is not enough for forms/contents/practices to merely be libertarian and egalitarian if they are not sufficiently strategic towards the flourishing of such goals out of unfolding conditions.
Some permissible, good enough, and good means and processes are merely instrumental towards some permissible, good enough, or good goal(s). Other good processes themselves are good ends to develop and recreate. Processes are ethically relevant for volitional beings that experience such processes and have goods for them that can be developed or diminished within as well as through such processes. And good ends themselves, and nature as such, is processual. For such good ends to be continuously developed and recreated, there must at least be the development of means and processes that are constitutive of such ends (which are further enriched by means and processes contributing to such goods but less necessary to them).
Libertarian and egalitarian institutions and relations, to the extent they are able to develop, characteristically give rise to libertarian/egalitarian practices, virtuous character traits, virtuous persons, and virtuous actions– which in turn help nourish institutional and relational qualities which in turn help nourish the flourishing of institutional and relational virtues. If such a “positive causal spiral” does not yet exist, it can be developed through grassroots actions and institutions. Institutions can be changed, created, and destroyed. Collective actions and organizations can develop and utilize self-managed power which can be especially effective in terms of arriving at liberatory social change through the qualitative arrangement of such power, the strategic and ethical content of collective practices, as well as the sheer quantitative capacity of masses of people in motion organized through decentralized and federated collectives (FARJ 2008).
Institutional and relational virtues:
The flourishing of institutional and volitional beings requires the means thereof which includes good kinds of institutional qualities and practices that, among other things, give rise to and are infused with self-management. For political economic volitional beings, freedom includes and requires political economic and institutional self-determination– which is constituted and enriched by certain kinds of institutional and relational qualities as well as certain kinds of collective practices. Institutional and relational virtues are qualities of institutions and relations that at least characteristically contribute to the overall flourishing of volitional beings (without violating what should be guaranteed minimum freedoms of persons to self-management and from hierarchy). Some of such institutional and relational virtues are in fact necessary for the freedom of each and all and the overall flourishing of volitional beings. Other institutional and relational virtues are less necessary but still beneficial towards that which is good for such beings. Institutional and relational virtues have universal features to them, but can be instantiated in a plurality of ways tailored to particular contexts, relevant variables, needs, and desires.
Volition exists on a continuum in the ecological world (Bookchin 2022). Robust self-management of each and all has specific requisite qualities when it comes to political economic beings and political economic institutions. The political, economic, and social virtues of freedom and equality require each other as well as a gestalt of other institutional and relational virtues to flourish. For some examples: 1. There needs to be direct democracy so that collectives can make direct collective decisions through deliberation. 2. There needs to be both a form and content of horizontality so that collectives and individuals are free from hierarchy, domination, exploitation, and oppression and by extension able to self-determine their lives. 3. There needs to be free association so that persons and collectives choose their associations and activities. 4. There needs to be rights and duties in relation to self-management so that there are guaranteed freedoms for collectives and persons and duties towards such freedoms. 5. Self-management on every political economic scale entails communal and inter-communal self-management and the means thereof (Usufruct Collective 2022). The above qualities can be adapted and elaborated according to relevant variables while retaining their essential features. *** The above is a non-exhaustive account of political economic virtues (such political economic virtues being subsets of institutional virtues more broadly), a non-exhaustive account of what they consist of and entail, and a non-exhaustive account of reasons justifying them as such.
Institutional virtues include but are by no means limited to the political, economic, and social virtues of direct democracy, horizontality, free association, communality, and intercommunality/federalism. Institutional virtues also include qualities such as mutual-aid distributive justice, justice more broadly (justice as related to the criteria of freedom and equality), practical reasoning (phronesis on an organizational and collective level), wise development and use of technics (techne), deliberative/communicative virtues, the virtue of unity in diversity, etc. Various virtues that Aristotle described–such as phronesis, techne, episteme, and justice– are not reducible to being mere properties of persons; they can also be properties of collectives.
Institutional and relational qualities can shape one another and can round one another out. For some examples: direct democracy with a form and content of horizontality is distinct from direct democracy that is entangled with hierarchy, domination, exploitation, and oppression. Direct democracy without deliberative/communicative virtues will negatively impact decision making and decisions made. Communal self-management without federalism and intercommunal mutual-aid can lead to and/or be caused by vices of parochialism and xenophobia. Self-managed production without distribution according to needs leads to distributive injustice. Horizontality without free association would inhibit the kinds of options people should have about what groups they join and what activities they do. The right kind of equality in the right ways is distinct from equality of squalor or equal rights to compete within an unjust/hierarchical system. Institutional virtues are the right kinds of specific qualities, in the right ways, in the right contexts, for the right ends. Some good institutional qualities can develop lopsidedly, yet only be made sufficiently virtuous through the mutual flourishing of multiple institutional virtues as a gestalt. Sometimes an institutional quality may merely approximate the virtue thereof rather than be sufficiently virtuous– and sometimes this happens because it is not rounded out by other institutional and/or relational virtues and gradations thereof. And even when an institutional quality is sufficiently good enough to be virtuous, it does not make it perfectly/ideally virtuous; virtuous qualities can be further rounded out and are in need of being developed overtime and recreated in differentiated and emerging contexts. And even in a good-enough society, there are additional good institutional and relational virtues that can be developed.
Given what human needs are and what human wellness consists of, flourishing virtuous institutional and relational qualities entail, include, contribute to, and are in harmony with non-hierarchical rights and duties and an expansive realm of permissibility. In contrast to statist and liberal notions of good rights so in vogue within social contract theory, good rights would at least include rights to the means of production, rights to the means of existence, rights to the means of horizontal politics and economics, rights to participatory activity and free association (and the means thereof), as well as freedom from hierarchy, domination, and exploitation. Good duties at least include the duties towards the above rights for persons and groups. Good rights and duties by themselves are not sufficient for their actuation– they require sufficient means thereof. And good rights and duties far from exhaustively encompass what is good; merely acting within such minimal bounds is not enough for a person or group to act wisely. Good rights and duties benefit from and contribute to a wider array of institutional and relational virtues. Sets of good rights and duties are institutional virtues themselves (as properties of institutions that contribute to the flourishing of volitional beings), are related to other institutional and relational virtues (in terms of cause and effect AND in terms of containing some dimensions of other institutional and relational virtues within such good rights and duties), and can be evaluated in relation to coherence and correspondence to webs of institutional and relational virtues.
In regards to politics and economics, institutional virtues correspond to and scale into socialism (as common means of production are needed for economic democracy, horizontality, and means of free association and participatory action), communism (for distribution according to needs and the development of a post-scarcity economy is an extension of justice and distributive justice and the flourishing of volitional beings), and communalism (since communal and inter-communal self-management are extensions of self-management on every scale). Given an ethic and telos that includes institutional virtues as means and ends, we ought to develop socialism, communism, and communalism through self-managed means. Libertarian and egalitarian ends require libertarian and egalitarian means and processes as the ends determine the means (Malatesta 2021). Without robust freedom/equality infused within processes/forms/contents of institutions, good ends become sacrificed to vicious means and ends. Hierarchical political economic forms, to the extent they develop and reproduce themselves, inhibit the right kinds of freedom for and equality of persons and by extension are detrimental to what is good for persons (as hierarchical political economic forms are defined by obstructing basic needs required for wellbeing). This points towards libertarian socialism/communism/communalism.
“Well-being for all” requires objective needs to be met. Objective needs of persons do not just consist of psychological-social needs but also economic needs. Libertarian communism is best able to satisfy such basic needs compared to any other economic system because libertarian communism distributes means of production and what is produced according to needs through self-management. Post scarcity iterations of such a libertarian communist economy would be most ideal when it comes to the well-being for all. Such a post-scarcity economy would meet needs of each and all, ecologize the economy, provide people with a high quality of life and high material standard of living, minimize unwanted and unnecessary labor and work, and transform labor and work into self-managed processes done according to needs, desires, and abilities of groups and persons (Kropotkin 1892, Bookchin 2018, Usufruct Collective 2022). Such an economy is socially and technically possible– and possible to approximate (Kropotkin 1892, Bookchin 2018, Usufruct Collective 2022).
Although the major focus of this paper are institutional virtues and specifically political and economic forms thereof, broader relational virtues are also indispensable for the flourishing of the good life for institutional volitional beings. Whereas all institutions are in some sense relational, not all relations are reducible to institutions and institutional qualities. In this sense, relational virtues are not reducible to nor exhaustively accounted for by institutional virtues. For example, the virtue of mutual aid can be instantiated and developed within and through a specific institution, but mutual aid can also exist extra-institutionally as a pattern within social relationships more broadly. Mutual aid can exist as an institutional virtue but also as an extra-institutional relational virtue. Similarly, justice can exist in specifically institutional forms, but can also exist as a way of people treating each other justly outside of formal organizations. And beneficence is a virtue that can be cultivated within an individual and can also be cultivated within webs of social relationships (within and beyond specific institutional arrangements). Solidarity is also such a relational virtue that can exist within a living institutional group but can also exist extra-institutionally within social relations more broadly. Good institutional qualities characteristically contribute to good extra-institutional relational qualities and vice versa. All institutional virtues are in some sense relational, but not all relational virtues are specifically virtues of institutions. Extra-institutional yet relational virtues are essential for the overall flourishing of volitional beings and contribute to flourishing of institutional virtues.
Inversely to institutional and relational virtues, there are institutional and relational vices of hierarchy, domination, exploitation, oppression, injustice, competitive self-maximization at the expense of others, mass indifference to the wellbeing of others, xenophobia, etc. And the above are of course internally differentiated as there are multiple kinds of each of the above vicious institutional and relational qualities. Institutional vices and relational vices characteristically develop vicious practices and character traits in people. Vicious institutions and relations tend to inculcate an array of vicious behaviors reflecting, obeying, and reproducing the norms of a vicious society. On top of hierarchical relations necessarily inhibiting self-determination and the right kinds of relatedness required for flourishing, structural violence (absolute and relative deprivation of needs) via hierarchical political economic relations characteristically leads to: increased abuse and unmet needs (decreased wellness), decreased happiness, decreased social participation, increased addiction rates, increased mortality rates, increased violence, and decreased social trust (Wilkinson and Pickett 2011).
It is important to note that people can develop virtues in spite of living in a vicious society and can also develop vices despite living in a vicious society. However, the macro political, economic, and social dynamics help cause the overall flourishing and diminishing of persons and various kinds of character traits. To break such causal spirals of vicious practices and vicious institutions and relations feeding one another, people can co-author their own positive causal spirals that consist of virtuous practices and virtuous institutions and relations feeding one another. Absent sufficient organization and popular power, people are left to their own individual and small scale devices and can only make individual or otherwise small scale changes within the dominant order.
The notion of the right kind of institutional and relational qualities, in the right ways, in the right contexts, for the right ends, etc. invites inquiry and dialogue as to what such right qualities are and how those qualities should be instantiated within particular contexts and how those qualities should be qualified by other qualities for them to be sufficiently virtuous. In relation to the telos put forward in this essay, we can evaluate institutional and relational qualities to see if they are permissible or impermissible according to such criteria, if they are virtuous, approximately virtuous, virtuous in some respects, vicious, approximately vicious, vicious in some respects, essential to the flourishing of volitional beings, contingent to the flourishing of volitional beings, diminishing the flourishing of volitional beings etc. There are plenty of qualitative, magnitudinal, processual, and relational dimensions to consider– especially given the notion that institutional and relational qualities are themselves qualified by other qualities. And as complex as a web of good institutional and relational qualities can be (in general and in particular contexts): there are more basic and essential dimensions of such a web that are preconditions for institutional and relational virtues flourishing, that do a lot lifting (by themselves and as a gestalt of the more essential qualities altogether), that are cause and effect wise related to various other institutional and relational virtues (and gradations thereof), that share some lower common denominators with some other institutional and relational virtues, and that are more easily digestible and comprehensible than the most granular and coherent descriptions. If one wants others to flourish, then all else equal, a more holistic notion of what is good for volitional beings and the means thereof contributes to good practice. Yet, an incomplete yet sufficiently holistic map of what enables volitional beings to flourish can still lead to good-enough criteria for many and even most all practical purposes at hand. For example, one does not need to have knowledge about all nor most every institutional and relational virtue to have propositional and practical knowledge in regards to some of the important ones. What is good for institutional volitional beings is complex, has a partially undefined horizon, and can be answered in more and less coherent and granular ways.
***It is of course possible to talk about such good institutional and relational qualities without the specific language of institutional and relational virtues. The language we are using is rather idiosyncratic. People talk about particular good institutional and relational qualities all the time without a notion of the meta-categories “institutional virtues” and “relational virtues”. But the contents of institutional virtues and relational virtues are essential to ethical praxis. And such phrasing, while not useful for communication in many contexts, CAN help to delineate specific kinds of qualities in a way that enables clear and swift communication (given the terms are sufficiently understood and agreed to by interlocutors). Institutional and relational virtues are constitutive of “the good place” (or more accurately good-enough places) which is constitutive of the overall flourishing of “the good life” for persons and the ecological world they are part of and dependent upon. Good institutional and relational qualities are far too important to be left unnamed or worse treated as merely instrumental and/or tangential to ethics.
Some additional implications in regards to normative ethics if the above is true:
What is good for institutional and volitional beings (in tandem with sufficient care to develop such goods) points towards an overall process and goal orientation that satisfies and contributes to: 1. Good rights and duties 2. Good consequences/good goals/good ends of various kinds including well being/happiness/pleasure 3. The development of virtuous persons and actions. And yet, our approach to normative ethics simultaneously critiques the major schools of normative ethics as being overly one-sided and failing to sufficiently encompass good criteria. That is, we see each of the major factions of normative ethics as significantly insufficient. And more important and radical than the notion that a sublation of normative ethics is in order: freedom and equality as processes and goals to aim towards point to self-managed politics and economics developed through self-managed means– and that such a development done well necessarily consists of the development of requisite and contributing institutional and relational virtues. The extension of such a position is the notion that hierarchical politics and economics are unjust and that nothing less than social revolution is in order.
One-sided normative criteria are reduced from a more holistic notion of a fuller gestalt of what is good for volitional beings. One problem with many approaches to normative ethics has been a tendency towards absurdist levels of reductionism– such as taking one dimension of a more holistic gestalt of the good as the only consideration. And yet, there are counteracting tendencies against such reductionism. The more holistic versions of major theories of normative ethics include significant features from other major theories; This can be found in threshold deontology, rule consequentialism, and virtue theory. The major approaches to normative ethics can be partially retained as they are transcended through a notion that: there are many goods in relation to flourishing of persons AND that good rights/duties, good processes, good consequences, good actions, good experiences, good practices, good character traits, and good institutional and relational qualities (including but not limited to political and economic qualities), etc. are all different dimensions to the flourishing of volitional and institutional beings.
The self-management of each and all (and the means thereof) as a telos includes necessary and contributing institutional and relational virtues AND requires the development of both good processes and good ends. Such a telos must be developed out of unfolding conditions– as well as elaborated, recreated, and further enriched if and when the qualities such a telos points to already exist within specific organizations and social relations. A notion of that which is good for people that excludes webs of institutional and relational qualities constitutive of and/or contributing to the flourishing of that which is good for people is fetishized: abstracted from relevant political, economic, and social means that can allow people to flourish– some of such means being means that must be continuously developed overtime in such a way that they are constitutive of the flourishing of a good telos (and partially definitive of a good telos by extension). In the context of existing in a fundamentally vicious political, economic, and social order, accepting business as usual as an unchangeable given or as good-enough often leads to prescriptions for mere better lifestyle choices and mere advocacy for policy changes within a fundamentally unfree society. Fetishized ethical rudders, especially when accepted actively or passively by people en masse, are detrimental to positive social change and in fact can function as legitimizing myths for the greatest evils in the world. It is a tragedy of sorts when radically one-sided notions of the good life are prescribed or aimed towards without either due consideration for the requisite means for such goods to truly flourish nor due considerations for some of the most important ethically relevant dimensions.
If it is good to develop some good rights, duties, and rules as actually existing consequences in the world then any approach to good rights, duties, and rules must at least be consequence sensitive and take consequences into account. If there are rights, duties, and rules that lead to various good consequences compared to others (in general or in particular contexts) then a good consequentialist position must include the very rights, duties, and rules that “pure consequentialism” does not sufficiently take into account. And virtuous persons will characteristically have internal motivation to be in harmony with good rights, duties, rules, and ends– making virtues relevant for the development of good duties and consequences. The notion that the development of virtues is constitutive of the overall flourishing of good rights, duties, and consequences is an even more strong reason for virtue theory as at least complementary to any holistic version of deontology and consequentialism. Virtuous persons characteristically do virtuous acts, harmonize with virtuous rules, and try to develop virtuous ends (Hursthouse 2010). Similarly but distinctly to virtues of persons, the development of good relational and institutional virtues is constitutive of the overall flourishing of good rights/duties, good consequences, and virtuous character traits and persons. And similarly but distinctly to Hursthouse’s articulation of V-Acts, V-Rules, and V-Ends, the flourishing of institutional and relational virtues characteristically develop good collective actions, rules, and consequences.
It is possible for many (if not most all) of the major arguments we give in this paper to be compatible with some modified version of the major normative theories. The notion that “the flourishing of institutional volitional beings requires the self-management of each and all and requires webs of institutional and relational virtues” could technically augment any of the major normative theories. However, if that were to happen, then such theories would arguably be sufficiently distinct from themselves by including significant features from each other and beyond. It is possible to use the major arguments we give in this essay to augment one of the major normative theories or to critique them all as in some important respects falling flat. It is important to note that the self-management of each and all (as processes and ends to develop) and requisite and contributing webs of institutional and relational virtues are not meant to exhaustively encompass that which is good for institutional volitional beings– merely sketch out some of the most necessary and contributing factors for the overall flourishing of such beings. The gestalt of the good is far more multi-sided than some of its necessary and contributing qualities (as important as they are).
In Conclusion:
That which is good for volitional beings has criteria: Flourishing of political economic institutional volitional beings entails the self-management of such beings, which entails the means thereof and the right kind of relations and institutions, which entails and is enriched by a gestalt of specific kinds of institutional and relational qualities as processes and developmental goals to be recreated. That which is good for such beings is living in a free political economic social realm of equals where freedom and equality are structurally built into political economic institutional forms and contents. Self-management on political economic scales includes and requires the institutional qualities of horizontality, direct democracy, free association, federalism, non-hierarchical rights and duties. And political, economic, and social organizations and relations must be continuously nourished by a living, caring, and rational content. Political-economic and social life (and organizations) are further enriched by broader webs of extra-institutional relational virtues. Such institutional and relational virtues are constitutive of the overall flourishing of eudaimonia and individual virtues.
The overall flourishing of “the good life” for persons requires the flourishing of “the good place” (or more accurate good-enough places). The flourishing of such goods for persons includes: meeting of needs required for wellness leading to the wellbeing for all, the self-management of each and all as one of such needs, good institutions and good institutional qualities (including good politics, good economics, good social relations, good rights and duties), good relational qualities more broadly, good social-ecological relations, the development of self-determined activities and practices (on individual and collective levels), the forging of competence in regards to various desired practices, the development of good character traits, the flourishing of good experiences, the striving towards and development of good ends, the flourishing of prudent happiness (and the pursuit thereof), and many worlds and activities fitting within and enriching the above. The above can flourish as a many sided gestalt of the good.
***“The “good enough place” is not the end of history; it includes new conflicts, a radical plurality, new emergent social issues, and a partially undefined horizon.
Additional Notes and clarifying comments:
Some Notes on Ecologizing Ethics:
That which is good for volitional beings has an ecological history prior to the good for such beings being labeled as such and prior to human existence; Qualities such as unity in diversity, mutual-aid, volition, pleasure, play, etc. have an ecological history AND are lower common denominators between what is good for humans, other animals, and ecological flourishing (Bookchin 2022). However, it is important to note that when such features are instantiated in political economic and institutional contexts that such features both retain their essential lower-common denominators that define them as such while being qualitatively transformed in new modes of existence (Bookchin 2005, 2022).
Not everything in nature is good, but everything that is good for volitional beings that can happen is natural (social dimensions and potentialities being part of nature). From that which is happening, we get that which could be happening, and should be happening in relation to what is good for volitional beings given the social-ecological conditions and possibilities (Bookchin 2022).
The flourishing of the good life for volitional beings requires eliminating the root causes of ecological problems– namely hierarchy (Bookchin 2007). And the flourishing of institutional volitional beings requires and additionally enables mutual aid within institutions, between institutions, extra-institutionally within culture more broadly, and between and within social and ecological relations (Bookchin 2022, Kropotkin 1904). The prudent flourishing of volitional beings requires the prudent flourishing of the ecological world such beings are part of and dependent upon; ecological flourishing is constitutive of the overall flourishing of volitional beings. The very kinds of economic commons that are constitutive of overall human flourishing are also ecologically sustainable when managed well (Ostrom 2021). In fact, Ostrom’s eight rules for governing the commons require sufficient institutional and relational virtues to flourish as a living form and content. In the current conjuncture: An ecological society is a necessity for ecological flourishing (and averting, minimizing, and responding well to ecological crises), the development of the commons are a necessity for an ecological society, and institutional and relational virtues are necessary for the flourishing of such a commons. By extension, institutional and relational virtues are crucial for ecological flourishing. It is precisely through a social order that meets human needs, including the need for self-management, that we are able to overcome social and ecological crises. Additionally, virtuous persons will characteristically treat each other and the broader ecological world with reason and care.
Some clarifying comments in regards to naturalist meta-ethics:
Although that which is real or perceived as good for volitional beings is not inherently motivating in someone who merely recognizes real or perceived goods for such beings, there are objective facts in relation to the criteria of the flourishing of volitional beings. A person who lacks any care for any other volitional beings would not be motivated to help others by moral facts in relation to other volitional beings (unless there was an ulterior motive or a radical change in disposition). But such a person who lacks any care for others and the goods for others could still think that there are some goods for others (even if they are partially or fully wrong about what those goods are)– they just simply won’t be motivated by such real or perceived knowledge to help other people flourish. But given sufficient care for others and sufficient desire to make the ends of others one’s own ends (in some sense), then one will be at least in part motivated/moved by/concerned with moral statements they believe to be true that are in relation to others.
If all such relevant variables (which consist of natural facts– including social facts) are sufficiently equivalent in the relevant ethical respects, then that which is good or permissible must also be sufficiently equivalent in the relevant ethical respects. But universalism by itself lacks a proper content; Merely not having an unjust double standard does not mean the standard that one is using is itself just. Universalism is necessary but not sufficient, and good universalism must be the virtue thereof.
Rather than such an ethical universalism being merely rooted in abstract universalizability, the universalism we are putting forward is in relation to a telos of flourishing of volitional beings and the ecological world they are a part of– a telos constituted by objective needs related to wellbeing, including the need for self-determination that flows from such needs, and by extension the requisite and contributing webs of institutional and relational virtues (which on a political economic level correspond to common means of production and horizontally-governed politics).
Self-management of each and all can be instantiated in differentiated particular groups and contexts and is compatible with and enables a giant realm of permissibility for subjectively chosen activities– and can adapt to different and emerging relevant variables and conditions. Universal self-management and universal freedom from hierarchy can only exist through instantiation and elaboration in particular contexts– and through collective and individual decisions within such bounds. And the right kinds of universalism and unity, enable the right kinds of differentiation and decisions within such bounds. The virtue of plurality is thus fulfilled through the virtue of universality. Like the right kinds of equality and freedom, the right kinds of universalism and the right kind of plurality can only be actuated through each other.
That which is good for volitional beings is both objective and subject-sensitive; different needs and desires of volitional beings are relevant to what is good for them. The relatively infinite varied preferences and desires and interests people have are relevant for the goods for them and the pursuits thereof. The above is not in contradiction with the notion of objective needs of volitional beings and objective goods for volitional beings. Subjective desires objectively exist and are objectively relevant to what is good for beings with subjectivity. But given the goal of the flourishing of volitional beings, some subjective preferences should NOT be permissible to act upon– for example a subjective preference to inflict hierarchical relations upon people is not permissible to act upon given the telos of the flourishing for volitional beings and the means thereof. As a telos, self-management of each and all requires objective conditions for it to flourish and enables collective and individual subjective action to flourish while at the same time being an objective metric against that which violates such self-management. The moral realism and meta-ethical motivational externalism we are putting forward–far from ignoring the importance of internal experience, subjectivity, and motivation– claims that internal experience, subjectivity, and motivation are ethically relevant in specific ways regardless of some subjective notion otherwise.
When people ambiguate the concepts of good and ought, they confuse what is distinct about each. When notions of good and ought are disambiguated, we can see the relationship between the two notions more clearly. In regards to a telos that is actually possible, there are ought statements that can be made that can contribute to, approximate, or correspond to such a telos. But such a telos may or may not be a telos that is good for volitional beings. For an example, take something like “Given the goal of telos X we ought to do Y”. Telos X may or may not correspond or approximately correspond to the flourishing of volitional beings and the ecological world they are within and part of. Telos X may indeed be a vicious telos! But there are still ought statements that are true in relation to the goal of telos X (given telos X is possible to correspond to or approximate). We can also say that “in relation to a telos of that which is good for volitional beings then one ought to do Z”. Assuming Z is something that indeed one ought to do to arrive at such a telos: if one does not care at all about developing such a telos/being in harmony with such a telos, one will not be sufficiently motivated to do Z to arrive at such a telos (unless they sufficiently change of course). Such a person may be motivated to do Z for some other reasons besides such a telos, but that is besides the point. Such a distinction between the notions of good and ought does not change the fact that there are still some states of affairs that are better than other states of affairs for volitional beings, facts of the matter about what constitutes and contributes to the flourishing of volitional beings, facts about what should be permissible and impermissible given the self-management of each and all institutional volitional beings as a telos, and facts about what one ought to do to develop such a telos (or otherwise be in harmony with such a telos).
Endnotes:
Bookchin, Murray. The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy. AK Press, 2005.
Bookchin, Murray. Social Ecology and Communalism. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2007.
Bookchin, Murray. Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Chico: AK Press, 2018.
Bookchin, Murray. The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism. AK Press, 2022.
Ervin, Lorenzo Kom’boa. Anarchism and the Black Revolution. London: Pluto Press, 2021.
FARJ. Social Anarchism and Organisation , 2008.
Hursthouse, Rosalind. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010.
Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread. 1892.
Kropotkin, Pyotr. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution: . London: Heinemann, 1904.
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Chicago: Open Court, 1999.
Malatesta, Errico. Ends and Means. marxists.org, 2021.
Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Ryan, Richard M., and Edward L. Deci. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. New York: Guilford Press, 2022.
Wilkinson, Richard G., and Kate Pickett. The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. New York: Bloomsbury, 2011.
Usufruct Collective. Communalism: Form, Content, Means, and Ends, August 25, 2022. https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2021/01/08/communalism-form-content-means-and-ends/.
Usufruct Collective. The Conquest of Sandwiches, February 1, 2022. https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2022/02/01/the-conquest-of-sandwiches/.
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