Anarchism, Experientialism, Revolution

Lightning Reviews, March 2023

Art by Elliot Skow

1. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness, by William Godwin (1st edition, 1793).

In many circles less well-known than his wife Mary Wollstonecraft or his daughter Mary Shelly, Godwin was a proto-anarchist:

It were earnestly to be desired that each man was wise enough to govern himself without the intervention of any compulsory restraint; and, since government even in its best state is an evil, the object principally to be aimed at is, that we should have as little of it as the general peace of human society will permit.

He had a way with words. Some philosophers have argued that, because we do not protest or revolt against them, we implicitly consent to the laws and to government actions. Godwin retorted, “If I walk quietly to the gallows, this does not imply my consent to be hanged.” He thought promising an indefensible practice; what could justify sticking to a promise when an otherwise morally superior option might come along? That would be “to disarm my future wisdom by my past folly.”

On the subject of free speech Godwin was full Enlightenment: for the free exchange of opinions in the marketplace of ideas, and against the government favoring some ideas over others. Different philosophers believe this for different reasons; Godwin, like Milton, held that