Today's Topics:
1. alas barricadas: [Vallcarca - Barcelona] The struggle bears
fruit by Gavroche (ca, it) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. [Spain] Commemorative Acts of the CNT Fraga Centenary -
September 29 By ANA (ca, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. wsm.ie: Moral philosophy and abortion by Emmanuel
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
ALB News.- We reproduce the statement of the Assembly of Vallcarca in which a victory
obtained through the collective struggle is celebrated. The neighborhood movement, thanks
to the impulse of the Assembly of Vallcarca (where also participate and collaborate a good
number of comrades and colleagues of the libertarian movement), has signed a victory that
consists of the approval of the MPGM of Vallcarca by pulling back a urban plan. As the
communiqué says, this is not the work of the Commons, nor of the Colau (as the opposition
will try to sell or transmit the press) if not of the collective struggle. ---- Assembly
of Vallcarca ---- In Vallcarca we are celebrating. We can only congratulate ourselves for
the approval, today, of the modification of the MPGM of Vallcarca. An approval that undoes
a historical grievance and that culminates, in part, a long and continuous neighborhood
struggle for a better future in the neighborhood.
This MPGM is the fruit of the perseverance in the struggle of the neighborhood to reverse
the devastating effects that the previous urban plan had caused in the neighborhood. We
come from a constant struggle to stop the demolitions, to recover the framework of the
neighborhood-town, to fight against elitization, to demand neighborhood participation to
endorse any proposal. After years of proposals, of consultations at street level, of
turning over the plans, of presenting a popular plan, we obtain the fruit of our effort.
This is not the MPGM of the Commons. It is not the MPGM of the Colau. It is the fruit of
the broader consensus obtained in the neighborhood in decades, away from any partisan
acronym. It is the persistent and stubborn fruit of the neighborhood, of its struggle, of
putting pressure on the entire government team. All an effort to reverse the grievance of
years and years of abandonment and bad practices and to rebuild a neighborhood for its
people. It has not been easy for us to get here. Nobody has made it easy for us. But the
struggle pays off.
But this celebration is not total. It can not be. The MPGM that is approved today does not
include the entire neighborhood affected by the 2002 plan and, therefore, we still have a
lot of neighborhood to fight for. We also regret that there was not the courage to approve
the plan as agreed by the neighborhood and that the demolition of the triangle may still
be on the table for some. We will not tire of saying that in the neighborhood we do not
want more demolitions. On the table we have to resolve the issue of private, where we
demand that promoters such as Nuñez and Navarro or Fité SL, who were mysteriously
benefited by that plan, apply the regulated rent to their future promotions . And it will
be necessary to guarantee in the future PMU foreseen for the housing area of the
"triangle", that they serve torehabilitate and not knock down any other building .
It will be necessary to see how to complete a plan of uses that fosters the circular,
social and cooperative economy, before the economy of tourism and services that provides
low quality work.
It will have to give the last push to the construction of the Vallcarca Institute .
That is why the battle continues and that every day we have to be more to build the
neighborhood we want.
However today, to celebrate!
Vallcarca, September 28, 2018
http://alasbarricadas.org/noticias/node/40760
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Message: 2
The celebrations of the Centenary of the CNT de Fraga continue. For the next Saturday
September 29, at eleven in the morning, we organized a tour guided by Fraga anarchist of
the thirties. Under the title Cartografia da Memória Libertária , we will visit the most
important historical places, accompanied by members of the Fraga Union who will be the
guides and answer all questions. We will start the visit from the Tourist Office in
Cegonyer (Pº Barrón). ---- At 6 pm in the Montcada Palace, we will present the book: "
Libertarians of Aragon, Chronology around Joaquín Ascaso, the Council of Aragon and the
anarchists of our land, " Doce Robles editorial. We will have the presence and
participation of Agustín Martín Soriano, author of the book.
CNT from Fraga ---- Center for Libertarian Studies José Alberola
Source:
http://cnt.es/noticias/actos-conmemorativos-del-centenario-de-la-cnt-fraga-29-septiembre
Related Content:
https://noticiasanarquistas.noblogs.org/post/2018/04/20/espanha-centenario-da-cnt-de-fraga/
anarchist-ana news agency
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Message: 3
The debate around abortion is sometimes characterised as an opposition between the morals
of the church and personal morals. But is this an accurate description? Moral philosophy
can broadly be defined as the branch of philosophy that contemplates what is right and
wrong. It explores the nature of morality and examines how people should live their lives
in relation to others. But a closer look at what characterises moral philosophy leads to
the conclusion that while the expression "relying on personal morals" may come across as a
useful shortcut to describe what the pro-choice stance is about, it is also a misuse of
moral terminology which has the effect of casting a positive light on moral philosophy,
rather than helping us come to terms with the deeply problematic nature of this field. As
I hope to make clear, arguments in favour of abortion rights are rooted in
anti-authoritarianism whereas moral philosophy can only exist as a rhetorical tool of
authoritarianism (even when it is used with good intentions).
The ultimate goal of moral philosophies is to define the moral duties of human beings,
that is how human beings "ought" to behave in order to minimise overall harm and maximise
overall happiness. This "prescriptive" dimension is a key characteristic of moral
philosophy, one that distinguishes it from fields of scientific research which are
descriptive in nature.* At first it is of course hard to see what could go wrong with a
field whose alleged purpose is to help people determine the best course of actions. To
avoid any misunderstanding, I must say outright that the point of this article is not to
claim that any behavior ever prescribed as a moral duty serves conservative purposes. The
point is to show that the structure and underlying assumptions of moral philosophy produce
a kind of rhetoric that is perfectly suited for conservative agendas, and that as such
moral philosophy can never be the driver of left-wing social movements, it can merely
align with them and try to co-opt their intellectual and societal achievements.
So what is a moral duty?
A duty is a behavior you are expected to carry out regardless of the particular
circumstances you find yourself in. If you can decide to not comply with a moral duty
because of the specificities of the situation you find yourself in, then the notion of
"duty" loses its purpose. Even if the duty is flexible (for example you have the duty to
do A but not if this or that circumstance arises) the very concept of duty implies that
you are likely to find yourself in a situation where what you can, need or simply want to
do doesn't match what you supposedly ‘ought' to do. If this wasn't the case, there would
be no need for the notion of moral duty because no one needs to be told they "ought" to do
what they already want to do. This is also why the notion of a self-imposed moral duty
defeats the purpose of moral duties altogether.
In other words, the basic structure of this field reveals that its purpose can never be to
fully acknowledge the specificity of an individual's lived experience but on the contrary
to always keep a certain degree of homogeneity when defining what behaviors are expected
from people. This makes it a very adequate rhetorical tool for institutions that
centralise power and seek control over a population (the state, the Catholic
church...).The fact that moral duties are often misaligned with what individuals consider
to be best for themselves is not a characteristic of bad moral philosophy, but a necessary
feature of moral philosophy.
In other words, criticizing the morals of the church for not acknowledging that every
pregnant person's situation is unique and that the same moral duty (keeping the pregnancy)
cannot apply to everyone, would be to misunderstand the function of moral philosophy.
How is this relevant to the debate around abortion?
The main argument of the pro-choice campaign was an anti-authoritarian one: It consisted
in saying that every pregnancy is different and that pregnant people are the most familiar
with their own situation, which makes them the most suited to decide what to do with their
pregnancy. By any meaningful definition, this is an amoral argument. If a pregnant person
decides what to do with a pregnancy by adapting their decision to the unique
characteristics of their own situation, then this decision isn't the acknowledgment of a
moral duty. Another way to state the asymmetry between the pro-life position an the
pro-choice position is to say that the former is prescriptive (it prescribes a duty for
everyone to follow regardless of circumstances) whereas the latter isn't (it states it
should be possible for people to adapt their decisions to their own situation). To say
that being pro-choice is about letting people "follow their own moral compass" is
therefore to use the fundamentally prescriptive conceptual framework of moral philosophy
to express a non-prescriptive stance.
Once this is understood it becomes clear that the pro-choice movement is more accurately
described as a rejection of the framework of moral philosophy and as an embracing of
anti-authoritarianism (I believe this move is also the defining characteristic of any
radical social movement).
Now, assuming that everyone is generally motivated to reduce overall harm and increase
overall happiness (a conversation in and of itself) some people may say that wanting to do
good is not a guarantee that one will do good, and then claim that the purpose of moral
philosophy is to act as a guide to help determine the best course of action for any given
situation. This is simply not the case.
Moral philosophy relies on thought experiments which do not and can never come close to
the multifactorial complexity of real-life situations. If moral philosophy did look at
specific situations in all of their complexity it would run into a paradox: it would have
to accept that the only behavior that can be expected in each situation is the
deterministic outcome of all the factors involved. Moral philosophy would then become a
merely descriptive field incapable of coming up with prescriptions. But what if moral
philosophy is about giving people intellectual tools relevant to the reduction of overall
harm and maximisation of overall happiness before running into a moral conundrum (that is,
before running into a situation where one would otherwise make harmful decisions)?
The problem with this argument is that whenever a branch of moral philosophy computes the
best behavior to adopt in a particular situation it relies entirely on scientific
knowledge produced by other fields. So if moral philosophy's main purpose were to help
people define the best course of action in any circumstance, this would suggest moral
philosophy's main purpose is to act as a substitute for a well informed population making
their own informed decisions. (This again suggests that moral philosophy as a rhetorical
framework is adapted to class society, with a small elite defining moral duties for
everyone else to comply with, thus guaranteeing that moral prescriptions will not be
adapted to individual's specific circumstances). But wait, moral philosophies are plural,
they aren't empty shells, don't they operate on distinct frameworks when processing the
knowledge produced by other fields?
The issue here becomes clear when looking at the divide between the two main branches of
moral philosophy: consequentialism (according to which the morality of an action is
determined by its consequences) and deontology (according to which the morality of an
action depends on its conformity to a number of moral rules). Indeed this divide is one
that only occurs if the question one is trying to answer is "what makes an action moral or
immoral", rather than the question "how to reduce harm?". This suggests moral philosophy
is concerned primarily with casting moral judgments rather than reducing harm. Debates
within the field which give rise to variants of consequentialism and deontology have to do
with the realisation that the criterions defined to cast moral judgement can result either
in the prescription of behaviors that are clearly detrimental to society, or in ridiculous
expectations that are very unlikely to be met.
So what is moral philosophy for? Let's say a moral philosopher has helped you determine
the best behavior for you to adopt in a specific, real life situation. By moral
philosophy's own basic definitions, you now have the moral duty to perform this action. If
you don't follow that duty then it means you didn't want to do good in the first place,
and therefore moral philosophy is useless as a guide and the real question becomes "why
were you not motivated to do good?" (in other words the task becomes descriptive, it's
about understanding which factors lead to this behavioral tendency). If you do follow the
duty, then it shows your intention already was to do good, and therefore there was no need
for the extra step of declaring this action a "moral duty". This paradox uncovers a very
misunderstood fact: moral philosophy doesn't formulate duties to orient human actions, it
formulates duties because it is understood that they will not consistently be complied
with. This indicates a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that our current socio-economic
model inherently produces antisocial behaviors (as well as behaviors which, as in the case
of abortion, are perceived as a threat by established institutions) but at the same time a
deliberate focus on blaming individuals rather than figuring out why the targeted
behaviors occur in the first place. It follows that the purpose of moral philosophy is
first and foremost to legitimise blame and by extension punishment when a duty is not
complied with (more specifically, if moral philosophy is a form of rhetoric that is
adapted to population control in a class society, then the punishment being legitimised is
likely to be enforced by a hierarchical institution like a State). This approach is
adapted to the perpetuation of the status quo because it effectively distracts us from
understanding the causes of behaviors that do occur, that is, it distract us from
understanding the context of human actions. Indeed, when an antisocial behavior occurs,
there are two mutually exclusive ways to deal with it: 1) understand where the behavior
came from and how to prevent it (This is the definition of a "radical" approach, It is
this approach that leads to a critical view of society and a challenging of the status quo
2) Deny that behavior needs to (or even can) be explained because individuals have "free
will". Moral philosophy emphatically chooses the latter stance: beneath the concept of
"moral duty" lies the extraordinary claim that the exact same causes don't necessarily
produce the exact same effects, and that every time an antisocial behavior occurs, another
behavior could have taken place if only the individual had tried harder.**
As these remarks hopefully make clear, anti-authoritarian social movements that seek to
emancipate humanity are not the manifestation of an improvement of moral philosophy, on
the contrary, they are the sign of a rejection of the framework of moral philosophy***.
While moral philosophy is able to co-opt and incorporate the knowledge produced by other
fields and the achievements of social movements (generally perpetuating the myth that
political change happens mainly through rational dialogue and an improvement in moral
theory) it can never be the driver of social change because its underlying premises make
it a perfect tool for the perpetuation of the status quo and the undermining if not
silencing of radical approaches. What is needed is not moral philosophy, but an
anti-authoritarian culture and the democratization of knowledge.
WORDS: Emmanuel
*Criticizing the various "theories" of moral philosophy individually is beyond the scope
of this article, but it must be said that even when moral philosophies (such as
consequentialism) claim to be non-prescriptive, they simply make the fundamental
contradiction of moral philosophy more obvious while remaining very much prescriptive: the
action with the best foreseeable consequences is still a moral duty.
**A common counter argument to this point consists in bringing up the role that randomness
may play in behavior. But this doesn't change the conclusion: if human behavior was
partially (or even completely) random, then it is still the case that for any behavior
that does occur, alternate behaviors couldn't have occured simply out of individuals
"trying harder". By definition, if it is random, then you didn't "decide" to do it.
***which isn't to say that rejecting the rhetorical framework of moral philosophy is
enough to ensure an anti-authoritarian discourse. For example, claims of having a
scientific understanding of history can lead to just as much authoritarianism.
Author: Emmanuel
https://wsm.ie/c/moral-philosophy-abortion
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