In this chapter, we started by tracing Deleuze’s understanding of morality as judgment and transcendence and ethics as immanent. Even though
immanence is a central concept here, it proves to be difficult to define. Thus, we started with the critique of the image of thought, or the myriad of ways Western philosophy relies on transcendence to ground its epistemology. Rejecting this approach, Deleuze suggests a ground-breaking methodology which is capable of conceptualising pure immanence, by incorporating two seemingly contradictory approaches under the name transcendental
empiricism. However, even if this approach is enough to show that morality as based on the dogmatic image of thought, we have argued that purely immanent ethics cannot be grounded on the same philosophical
presuppositions as the ones it attempts to critique. Thus, the method we suggested was a Deleuzian understanding of problem-Ideas and philosophy as the creation of concepts, as he proposes with Guattari.
The next step of our journey into immanence was to turn to the concept of difference. Deleuze’s starting point in Difference and Repetition is that no philosopher has yet managed to understand difference-in-itself which isn’t derivative of ‘identity’. Through a critique of Aristotle, Hegel, Leibniz and Plato, he rejects various ways of conceptualising difference and argues that, to understand difference, philosophy needs a different starting assumption about the nature of Being. Unlike Plato and the Scholastic equivocity, or Aristotle’s analogy, Deleuze follows Spinoza into the univocity of Being. The concept of univocity not only allows Deleuze to conceptualise pure difference,
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but also gives him a foundation for pure immanence. Having established this, we run into other problems. An ontology based on difference leaves no scope for explaining how, or when, anything happens. Difference-in-itself results in complete chaos, unless coupled with the concept of repetition. Repetition, for Deleuze, is constitutive of time, but also gives us an understanding of reality as virtual/actual. It is also through repetition that the effect of ‘subjectivity’ is created, which we explained with Deleuze’s theory of individuation.
Moreover, having posited univocity of Being at the heart of his metaphysics, Deleuze is compelled to understanding everything as equally ‘real’ and existing independently of mind.
Deleuze’s metaphysics of difference are finally put in relation to his understanding of ethics as an Event. So far, we have discussed repetition, habitual activity and a seemingly deterministic account of reality, but the Event implies transformation. Ethics, in that sense, is when something new appears, rather than the issuing of judgment. Even though we have rejected the notion of ‘agency’, there is still the possibility of ‘making a difference’, which we expanded on in relation to active and reactive forces. Finally, we turned to Deleuze and Guattari’s collaborative works to conceptualise a form of ‘subjectivity’ that allows for action, and argued that an understanding of the unconscious is vital for an immanent ethical theory. In the final section, we explored the productive aspect of desire in Anti-Oedipus. The third and final chapter takes this foundation and presents a form of immanent ethics which can serve to rescue anarchism from transcendence and open up the possibility for new ethical modes of existence.
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CHAPTER THREE
Introduction to Immanent Anarchist Ethics
The primary argument of this thesis, introduced in chapter one, is that an anarchism (and by extension post-anarchism) which is committed to non- oppressive structures, organisation and conduct must be considered incompatible with a transcendent ontological framework. I started by exploring the poststructuralist foundations of the postanarchist critique of representation, essentialism and oppressive morality and agreed with their epistemological position. I then argued that this epistemology alone is insufficient to answer the ethical challenges posed by postanarchists, and what is needed is a strong metaphysical foundation. There are predominantly two types of metaphysics found in contemporary anarchist literature: the ‘strong’ metaphysics of universal normativity suggested by Todd May’s multi-value consequentialism and Benjamin Franks’ virtue ethics, and the ‘weak’ metaphysics of Saul Newman and Simon Critchley, both tending towards a Lacanian/Levinasian ontology with lack at its core. We argued that neither of these responds to the anarchist criteria adequately, as Franks’ and May’s are reliant on universal notions of ‘subjectivity’ and ethical knowledge (which contain a recourse to potentially coercive practices), while ontologies of lack are, on one hand, essentialist and, on the other hand, reliant on a binary thinking that prioritises signification and thus promotes the
representational practices postanarchists reject. Moreover, we argued that a transcendent metaphysics is incompatible with the anarchist project because it requires positing an ‘outside’, something which precludes both a dynamic understanding of the possibilities for change and the practical tools for achieving them.
In chapter two we introduced our methodological tools through an
elucidation of Deleuze’s metaphysics. We began by outlining a distinction between ethics and morality and introduced the notion of immanence and its
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role in Deleuze’s philosophy. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze focused on a critique of transcendence and the ontological categories produced by
transcendent metaphysics. Through the concept of univocity we established the category of difference-in-itself as primary and asserted the role of
repetition in constituting reality. To fully account for immanence, we also introduced the concepts of virtual and actual, as well as a theory of time and individuation. We then moved on to discuss Deleuze’s own reformulation of ethics as immanent through the form of the Event and affirmation of active forces. Finally, I introduced one element from Deleuze’s collaborative work with Guattari which is important for understanding ethical subjectivity and ethical action which does not rely on the primacy of the symbolic, the critique of the psychoanalytic understanding of the unconscious and the subsequent notion of desire at the core of subjectivity.
In this last chapter, I use the Deleuzian metaphysical framework of difference, repetition and the machinic to understand the possibilities for ethical action. The main argument, drawing on Deleuze’s work on Nietzsche and Spinoza, is that ethics based on a transcendent ontology supports existing values, and thus, despite a desire to do the opposite, functions to preserve the status-quo. Whilst other moral theories use transcendence as a way of ‘grounding’ their normative dimension, I side with Deleuze to claim that transcendence prevents ethics from taking place by restricting one’s capacity to act. Daniel W. Smith remarks that “whereas other moral theories see transcendence as a necessary principle – the transcendence of the moral law in Kant, for instance, or the transcendence of the Other in Levinas – for Deleuze transcendence is the fundamental problem of ethics.”453 Establishing a transcendent foundation for morality is fundamentally a rejection of the ability to make ethical decisions as it separates us from our capacity to act and requires us to follow pre- determined rules and courses of action.
In Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism, Todd May identifies the
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main question of moral philosophy as the question of ‘what ought we to do?’, and the question of metaphysics as ‘what is it?’454 The task of political
philosophy, then, is to mediate between the two. Overturning this principle, we start this chapter with the premise ‘given what it is, what can it be?’, thus preserving the relationship of continuum between metaphysics and ethics. The reformulation of this question is important for two reasons: first of all, to break away from the prescriptive and move to the analytical and, secondly, to highlight the materialism at the core of anarchist ethics. This position is
congruent with Nietzsche’s in the recognition that there are things one can only think and do if they are in a particular position.455 Thus, we ask ‘what is the position we find ourselves in as anarchists’ and ‘what are the possible paths that can be taken’.
In pursuit of this goal, the first section outlines what these immanent ethics might look like if they are taken as ‘modes of existence’. The first task, then, is to reformulate the anarchist ethical question outlined in chapter 1. Rather than a question of delineating anarchist values and their specific meanings, or suggesting ways of being an anarchist, the purpose of ethics becomes figuring out ways of working together (more technically, creating a functioning
assemblage). How can we come together, how can we work, enjoy, exist collectively, without limiting or suppressing each other’s power, desire and potential? Not in the future, not in some ideal society, but here and now. Moreover, it becomes a question of the possibilities of being an anarchist, if anarchism is about immanent critique and the problem of creating the
conditions for change. The way the word ‘change’ is used in this chapter may at times be in terms of ‘social change’, but is generally deployed with the more abstract meaning of anything that transgresses norms or breaks
dogmatism, and, in this sense, is related to the practices of ‘experimentation’
454 T. May, Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism, p. 1.
455 This refers to Nietzsche’s famous division between master and slave mentality. It is most notably expressed in the parable of the lamb and birds of prey in F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil/ On
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discussed by postanarchists.456 The main difference between their approach and the one in this chapter is discussed later.
Thus, it hardly comes as a surprise that many of the arguments this chapter brings to bear are precisely about how we can do that better. In following this trajectory, I take two paths simultaneously. Firstly, I identify the dogmatic image of thought in anarchist practices. This takes the form of ethical
presuppositions that are exemplified with contemporary debates in anarchist organising. It is important to start with a critique of the image of thought because it “sustains a complacent conception of thought which is incapable of criticising established values.”457 Moreover, it is important to relay theory back to practices, both to pierce the blockages of theory and contribute to understanding what we do. Secondly, rather than attempting to answer these questions by appealing to an ultimate form of anarchist normativity such as that required by other ‘strong’ ontologies, I join a number of Deleuze-inspired philosophers to claim that his philosophy is conducive to a type of immanent normativity that is built collectively and through a common attribution of significance, only valid within the specific situations it entails. With this, I address the possibilities for change, and the emergence of new configurations. Finally, even though this chapter is concerned with ‘applied’ ethics in the sense that it draws examples from anarchist practices, it might seem that it does not provide satisfying practical answers. Rather than pointing towards anarchist ‘values’ or blueprints for how to act, I focus on ways of breaking the stagnation and boundaries of ethical debates. Having reformulated ethics as immanent, I argue with Karen Houle that “the better view of reality is the one that enables the greatest capacity to respond to reality,”458 rather than the one that gives us the most straightforward answers. In this sense, I claim that we
456 Nathan Jun, for example, draws on Malatesta to claim that for anarchists, “political action is always experimentation,” while Saul Newman regards anarchist prefigurative practices as contingent, uncertain and “having to be experimented with” in order to be reinvented. For more, see N. Jun,
Anarchism and Political Modernity, Continuum, New York, 2012 and S. Newman, Postanarchism,
Cambridge, Polity Press, 2016.
457 P. Patton, Deleuze and the Political, p. 22.
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do not in fact need more answers, we need new ways of responding to the world. Roughly speaking, I have used the following set of reconfigurations as a guideline: transcendent ethics
à
immanent ethics judgment response representation productionunified subject desiring-machine
reason problematic
pre-given given
reactive active
essence assemblage
Beyond presenting an epistemological critique of transcendence, or its incompatibility with anarchist values, in the following pages we explore reformulations of three traditional spheres of engagement in ethics – ethical knowledge (and methods for acquiring it), ethical subjectivity and, finally, ethical situations. In a sense, these three correspond broadly to the three pillars of the postanarchist epistemological critique. The discussion about ethical knowledge relates to the critique of universalism, the rejection of essentialism leads to our reformulation of immanent subjectivity, and the exploration of ethical ‘problems’ is our response to the discussion on representation. In turn, I map these onto immanent metaphysics using the tools given to us by Deleuze and Guattari. All three elements come together in immanent ethics to constitute a type of normativity which does not resort to a transcendent grounding. The purpose of this chapter then, is to suggest possible ways of applying Deleuzian immanent metaphysics to anarchist
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