Darwinowskie ugruntowanie zasady pomocy wzajemnej w etyce Kropotkina
Darwinian grounding of mutual aid principle in Kropotkin’s ethics

Author(s): Jan Grzybowski
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Philosophy
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Kropotkin; Darwin; mutual aid; ethics; anarchism
Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the concept of mutual aid put forward by Peter Kropotkin as a reaction to those interpretations of the biological theory of evolution which emphasised the role of the struggle for existence (bellum omnium contra omnes) in nature and based the postulate of social Darwinism on this. Kropotkin argues that 1. mutual aid is a natural inclination of humans (like other animals), which is suppressed by the development of state institutions, and 2. the effect of the abolition of the state will be not social chaos, but the development of the altruistic instinct and the construction of non-hierarchical institutions. In closing, I discuss the criticisms levelled against the concept under discussion.

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