Pierre Kropotkine
Mutual aid, as much as struggle, is a factor of evolution: sociability lies at the root of morality.
Life
Russian prince turned geographer and anarchist thinker (Moscow 1842 - Dmitrov 1921). After expeditions in Siberia, he was imprisoned and went into exile. In Mutual Aid (1902) he answered social Darwinism by showing that cooperation is as important a factor in evolution as struggle. He saw in it the animal origin of our moral feelings.
Main works
Shows that cooperation plays a major role in the evolution of animals and human societies.
Describes a stateless society in which goods would be held in common.
Collection of anarchist articles written in exile.
In his own words
« Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle. »
« In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe builds morality on nature and solidarity, without God or religion; he was an atheist.
Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality (1890)
He wants every field, ethics and society included, to be studied by the inductive-deductive method of the natural sciences.
Kropotkin, Modern Science and Anarchism (1901)
Morality grows out of the natural sociability and mutual aid found in animals and humans, not out of religion or commands.
Kropotkin, Ethics: Origin and Development (1922, posthumous)
He holds that humans have a strong instinct for cooperation, which counts for more in survival than competition.
Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902)