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+++ date = "2018-12-14T14:07:32Z" title = "My Attempt to Write a

Political Introduction to My Thesis" +++

The purpose of this thesis is to make an intervention into the world

socialist movement. I aim to speak to the socialist movement as a whole,

not just to the centre of imperialism, but also to the oppressed nations

in the periphery of the global imperialist system. This thesis aims to

start a discussion in the left as it begins its effort to rebuild and

orient itself to the masses of working people in the twenty-first

century. I argue that:

A. Humans can have correct beliefs about moral propositions, and that

they can and do act in morally correct ways. In other words, moral

realism is correct.

In this thesis I will be completely agnostic about what kinds of systems

of morality, or what particular moral propositions are correct. In this

thesis I am merely attempting to construct an ontology that proves moral

realism is true in general. The intended purpose of the ontology

developed in this thesis is to then go on to further prove in some later

project that moral absolutism and moral universalism are correct. The

former is the philosophical position that all actions may be evaluated

as right or wrong, and the latter is the ethical view that the morality

of actions is independent of any culture or custom.

I further argue that:

B. All that metaphysically exists is the world pictured by modern

science. This includes the contemporary 'hard sciences', like

physics, biology, chemistry, neuro-cognitive science, etc. It also

includes the 'soft' sciences, such as social sciences like political

science, history, anthropology, and sociology. That is to say, the

correct picture of the world for which I argue is a naturalist one.

I assert strictly that only 'nature' exists.

The ontology which I construct in this thesis I call 'dialectical

naturalism'. Another way of expressing the position I take in this

thesis is 'naturalistic moral realism'. My theory is a metaphysical one,

as well as a political one. I want to contribute to the physical

awakening of the twenty-first century socialist movement by trying to

stimulate (or provoke, or invite...) its philosophical awakening. Murray

Bookchin too called the philosophical component of his theory of

Communalism "Dialectical Naturalism". This thesis presents a philosophy

that is broadly congruent with Bookchin, except that it takes off from a

completely different starting point. I discovered Bookchin's dialectical

naturalism too late in order to incorporate his discoveries and

conclusions. Nevertheless I feel the objective conditions of the

socialist struggle are proving his philosophy of dialectical naturalism

correct---and this is why I developed a very similar system using

completely different tools, and without any knowledge of Bookchin at all

at the time. My theory is metaphysical because I do not wish to simply

argue that the human world takes itself to be a certain way merely

discursively, but that the universe is a certain way whether particular

individual humans believe it or not.

Let me explain why I believe it is necessary to adopt a strongly

metaphysical theory about the nature of human morality.

The late 1970s saw the beginning of the political assault from the

capitalist ruling class, which is called 'neoliberalism'. Then, in the

early 1990s, the Soviet bloc, and the Soviet Union, collapsed. These two

historical events brought about a massive restructuring of the balance

of global class forces. The economic and political power of capital

massively increased, at the expense of the power the global working

class had established since the end of the second world war. This

produced a massive degeneration in the political progressiveness of the

philosophical and political work that was produced in universities. I

believe there is a direct chain of causation between the onset of

neoliberalism, and the emergence of philosophical movements such as

post-modernism, post- structuralism, post-Marxism, and post- and

anti-humanism.

I believe that post-modernist philosophy has a dominant position in the

moral and political philosophy curriculum for political activists going

through university. All of these theories are strongly relativistic, at

best non-naturalist, and strongly anti-metaphysical. These philosophies

argue that the concepts of Truth and Objectivity in the practical world

of politics are strongly associated with totalitarianism,

authoritarianism, and mass genocide. Post-modernism argues that there is

no such thing as objective political economic conditions. It further

holds that broad concepts such as Truth are to be treated in strongly

relativistic ways. In other words, there are no such things which are

'universally good' for humans. Post-modernism rejects the idea that the

meaning of history can be one way or another, or that history

'progresses' anywhere.

Post-modernism also only treats of meaning in human social intercourse

as a 'discourse'---mere verbalisms. By 'verbalism' I mean the same thing

as Alasdair Macintyre when he talks about emotivistic assertions.

Post-modernism easily agrees with emotivism when it claims that human

moral propositions might appear to be entities that establish objective

moral facts, but in fact have the same ontological status as cheering on

or booing at a football team: "Yay! To the privatisation of public

services!", "Boo! To government corruption!" The name for this position

in moral philosophy is 'moral anti-realism'. The political argument that

post-modernism makes for 'discourse' is that moral anti-realism is more

democratic. Post-modernism argues that attempting to establish the

existence of objectively true moral facts leads to totalitarian

political systems. If we do away with all talk of good things which are

objectively correct, then we are able to have a kinder, more

pluralistic, and open society. But I argue that moral anti-realism

collapses into moral nihilism. I suppose post-modernism is attempting to

argue for what Richard Rorty called 'ironism'. Ironism is the idea that

no-one really truly knows if their political convictions are correct,

and that one is constantly going through a process of criticising and

replacing their political convictions with ones that they think might be

better. This is a commonplace in Western society. Supposedly everyone is

'always learning how to be a better activist', and 'is never really

finished learning how to be a good activist'. I argue that this attitude

to political activity is incredibly dangerous.

It leads to the conclusion that nothing is actually really morally

correct, and that we're always bumbling along in political discussions,

and that our political beliefs and arguments are like the way we might

tolerate someone's distaste for capsicum, or delight for certain kinds

of weather.