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Title: Unanimity Author: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Date: 1852 Language: en Topics: consent, Libertarian Labyrinth Source: Retrieved on 25th April 2021 from https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/working-translations/unanimity-universal-consent-c-1852/ Notes: Published in “Economie,” manuscripts at Gallica. Working translation by Shawn P. Wilbur
There are things, in the moral order, about which the human race is
unanimous; there are even many of them.
So isn’t it possible that all the questions of politics, economics and
morals could be simplified or clarified in such a way that the response
to them would be unanimous?
In this way, the direct government of the people would be possible.
It is according to that idea, confirmed by the testimony of the
sciences, that [Pierre-Napoléon] Domenjarie [1852] has written his
pamphlet, La loi morale, loi d’unanimité, which we have read in prison.
That philosophical thesis [reveals] the ignorance of the author, but it
is nonetheless useful to clarify it.
The things about which there can be unanimity (it is not a question of
facts/deeds) are all definite abstractions, whatever order of ideas they
may belong to.
Thus, is it not permitted to kill a man: Non occides.
But the disagreements begin when it is a question of practical cases:
Is it permitted to kill in legitimate defense?
Is it permitted to kill in war?
Is it permitted to kill judicially?
Is it permitted to kill deserters?
Is it permitted to kill a man or woman caught in flagrante delicto in
the act of adultery?
Is it permitted to kill a tyrant?
Is it permitted to kill the abductor of a minor child? etc.
Now, on the practical cases, there is necessary flexibility, and as the
circumstances alone make the law or non-law, it follows that one cannot
posit an absolute principle, and that unanimity is impossible.
Thus, on a principle of abstract mathematics, there will be
unanimity.—But if it is a question of assessing the results of a
business, of an enterprise, of an experiment, etc., opinions can vary
infinitely.
Similarly, in the moral realm, there is unanimity on principles, because
the principle expresses an ideality, an abstraction. Only do to others
what you would like others to do to you: everyone is unanimous on this
precept, which we find expressed spontaneously everywhere.
It is an abstract, ideal formula.
But what should I want for myself? What can I demand? What is my right?
That is where unanimity ceases to exist, and it is necessarily replaced
by free debate, which ends in the transaction or the Contract.
The value of a product is a common example: it summarizes all cases.
—–
Now, Reason asks itself:
Is there a science for undefinable things, on which unanimity will never
practically exist, as there is one for definite things?…
It is this question to which the economic science responds.
—–
From this previous explanation, it is easy to deduce and a priori
judgment that declares void the so-called science of Fourier, which
aspires to [resolve] everything, mathematically, that is to say
abstractly, and by means of definitions.
From this as well, the elimination of the Communist thought, which,
supposing unanimity, suppresses debate, competition, contract; the very
principle of conventional right!….
It is time to open the eyes of the public in that regard and especially
to repress the [ ] presumption of these poor Devils who believe they
have found the secret of the world when they have produced a [ ] gross
naïveté.
What then is the science of indefinable things, of things on which there
remains unnecessary doubt, and where unanimity is impossible?
It is the science that teaches us to know the [causes], the reason, the
laws that rule this very variability: and how bye judicious and
equitable convention, we arrest that variability, and convert into
something definite a thing that is not of that nature.
Sic Notion of dead weight [poids mort];—variable.
Notion of maximum load [poids utile];—variable.
Relation between one and the other;—variable.
What are the causes of these variations?—How do they come about?—What is
their mode, their character?—What utility [can we] draw from them for
the conduct of life? etc., etc. How to behave with them? etc.