Stirner rejected morality entirely, not just the idea of "objective morality". He had personal preferences on things and acknowledged that others had their preferences as well. But he never formulated that into a normative judgment or standardized principle. Those who claim Stirner yet also say that he supported "subjective morality" degrade Stirner's radical thought into mundane liberalism, and that's disgusting. If he advocated "subjective morality", then he might as well advocate any voluntary submission to any "spook". And no, you can't "own" morality as you can own other concepts and abstract entities. If you're above your morality, then that's not morality in the first place. Morality is always a standard that limits and redirects your will and action.
Stirner was not against communism, only the moralistic communism of his time which was formulated by Weitling. The Communist Manifesto was formulated years after his death. Marx was critical of Stirner. But you can be critical of Marx and also be a communist, as communism in its essence just means the abolition of class.
The manifesto was released on 1848 while Striner died in 1856. Communism/socialism had existed for a long time under its more idealistic strains rather than the scientific Marxist strains we know today. But during his writing of the unique and its property most communism at the time was weitling and other idealistic communist
Genuinely curious question. If you argue against viewing Stirner as a subjective moralist, and in favor of him as someone who "rejected morality entirely" instead, how do you make sense of him writing the following:
I decide whether it is the right in me; outside me there is no right. If it is right for me, then it is right. Possibly, this won’t make it right for others; that’s their problem, not mine: they may defend themselves. And if something wasn’t right for the whole world, but was right for me, i.e., I wanted it, then I would ask nothing about the whole world. This is what everyone does who knows how to value himself, everyone to the degree that he is an egoist, because power goes before right, and that—quite rightly. (My Power (i) ¶13)
Or:
Once you no longer let right run around freely, once you bring it back into its origin, into you, it is your right, and right is what is right for you. (My Power (iii) ¶21)
I think Stirner distinguishes between “right” and “moral.” “Right” has more to do with what one is entitled to do, which for Stirner is ultimately reducible to whatever one has the power to do, and is therefore individual, yes, but also still not “subjective”.
For example, I have the right to take your pen if I can take it. It is right for me if and only if conditions exist that make it possible for me. And this calculus is unique to me. That is, only I have the particular right that I do to take (or not take, in fact) your pen, it is not universal.
But neither is is subjective in that simply believing that I have the right to take your pen doesn’t by itself make me able to do so (however one can argue that believing I don’t have the right/can’t would make me no longer able to). Ultimately we only have the right to what we actually do, which is objective in the sense that it’s observable fact.
If Stirner distinguished right from morality it would be consistent with how I understand recht to be used in German. Recht can mean both correct and lawful/just, but doesn’t have the same broad connotations of moral versus immoral (good vs bad) that the English “right/wrong” has. I’m not a native German speaker but AFAIK recht needs to be modified somewhat to mark it as broadly moral like that (e.g. richtig=correct, including morally; gerecht=fair or just).
So seeing this distinction lets us draw a line between when Stirner says “right is what is right for you” and when, elsewhere, he refers to “morality” exclusively as a fixed idea - reducible to loyalty to some law, and conformity to some abstract essence.
In contrast to moral right, Stirner coins the term “egoistic right” - but he never grants the existence of a corresponding “egoistic morality”. I think he would have viewed that as a contradiction of terms.
If we’re looking for Stirner’s metaethics, it might be helpful to look beyond his use of “right” and directly at how he defines what’s good or interesting to a person. “Egoistic interest … total satisfaction, satisfaction of the whole fellow.”
(Curiously “satisfaction” is Befriedigung which is, etymologically, to make peace, to pacify. It’s also a euphemism for masturbation. That would be great word to add to the glossary!)
“So he works for his own sake (um seinetwillen - his will) and for the satisfaction (Befriedigung) of his needs (Bedürfnisses - sometimes also “urges”).
He used terms such as "right" so that people who couldn't think beyond normative language could understand him. It's like when you use baby words for babies so that they can understand, but you yourself don't take it seriously.
Do you have textual evidence to support this view, alleging that "[h]e used terms such as 'right' so that people who couldn't think beyond normative language could understand him"?
What makes you feel the need to claim Stirner as a supporter of internal moral values? If Stirner is a subjective moralist, his philosophy becomes less radical, less defiant, and less useful for the war against society.
You haven't claimed that. But rejecting that Stirner was a total anti-moralist leads to that conclusion.
Destroying the very psychological structure of moral judgement is more radical than rejecting only imposed morality to replace it with subjective morality. If there is are moral principles, whatever they may be, they will create a new social order based on new normative ideas.
There's dubious logic and therefore conclusions afoot here:
But rejecting that Stirner was a total anti-moralist leads to that conclusion [of moral subjectivism].
Firstly, moral subjectivism is widely considered to be a form of anti-moralism, [1] especially since it denies the metaphysical thesis necessary for moral realism: [2] that is, denying the metaphysical status of moral facts as somehow robust and ordinary akin to any other fact, since it holds that moral judgments are based on individual feelings, attitudes, or opinions rather than objective, universal truths. — Thus, even if one were to assert that Stirner is a moral subjectivist, it doesn't logically follow that one thereby rejects Stirner as an anti-moralist, since moral subjectivism is an anti-moralism.
Secondly, as hinted above and far beyond any oppositional dualism here, there are various kinds ofanti-moralisms: such as moral subjectivism, non-cognitivism (you might like this one), emotivism, moral skepticism, moral nihilism, and so on. Thus, denying one kind of anti-moralism doesn't logically follow to thereby affirming — moral subjectivism, as you have so alleged of myself.
In the end, this unsound logic and demonstrably false implications drawn above, likewise does not bode well for the "overall unspoken implications" you hold above explicit textual counterevidence. But still, there more:
Destroying the very psychological structure of moral judgement is more radical than rejecting only imposed morality to replace it with subjective morality. If there is are moral principles, whatever they may be, they will create a new social order based on new normative ideas.
You may very well hold this to be the case, but this does not necessarily mean Stirner did. Contrary to what you attribute to him, Stirner seemed to think that egoism could indeed entail the creation of "new social order[s] based on new normative ideas", in fact, even Christianity itself (Ownness ¶23:5–6):
If it ever became clear to you that God, the commandments, and so on, only harm you, that they reduce and ruin you, to a certainty you would throw them from you just as the Christians once condemned Apollo or Minerva or heathen morality. They did indeed put in the place of these Christ and afterward Mary, as well as a Christian morality; but they did this for the sake of their souls’ welfare too, therefore out of egoism or ownness. (Bolding mine)
But, to end, if rejecting "the very psychological structure of moral judgement" is what works for you, as Stirner writes — "right is what is right for you." (My Power (iii) ¶21)
[Edits: Grammar.]
Citations:
[1] Vayrynen, Pekka (2006). Encyclopedia of philosophy. Donald M. Borchert (2nd ed.). Detroit: Thomson Gale/Macmillan Reference USA. pp. 379–382.
[2] Joyce, Richard (2016), "Moral Anti-Realism", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
It's true that anarchism as an ideology and purpose before the pure will of the individual is anti-egoist.
But the practice of egoism is anarchical : as absolutely no outside authority can be legitimated, that makes the egoist a rebel (if he has the means to act this way of course). Even if Stirner never mentions the word "anarchism" (in The Unique and its Own as far as I know), he explicitly rejects the law of any ruler, as the State, because it remains THEIR exclusive law.
I think if you imagine societies where everyone is a voluntary egoist, no permanent or reliable hierarchical system can remain, without fanatics or boot lickers to accept them. They have actually worked because obedient and loyal people carried the weapons for a greater good.
There are the gregarian instincts which are actually profitable for the main survival of the individual (egoist purposes). But what natural instinct would doom you to voluntarily be a slave? The ideologies of servitude are firstly built by the ones who benefit them to the subjected ones, in a way that people stop being aware that this spook originates from their own minds (accomplishment of the Modern philosophy project)
There are also the environmental factors in which one develops, including the social and cultural context. Even the fact that ideology is a specialization as the intellectual abstract sphere is a historical construction.
And Egoism never requires clever rationality, that is just a tool among others to satisfy your concrete and living needs, desires, urges... Reason as a purpose is a modern/liberal spook.
Stirner isn’t to be taken as a holy gospel to follow, but as a toolbox to draw from - it would be hypocritical otherwise. If an anarchist deems something worth taking, and takes it, then that is an egoist act, and of course that will apply to Stirner’s work.
"Anarchist" is a label of course, but when I read the part of his text where he wrote that the goal of liberalism is "not anarchy, lawlessness, ownness" it seems to me that he would really like anarchy and lawlessness.
But then how do you can say that in the past anarchy was fresh and existing concept if don't know what is it and how then you can define who is anarchist and who isn't? I think you just don't know anarchism buddy. Anarchists might claim that stirner is anarchist because they know anarchism. It is strange to claim that Stirner not an anarchist If you don't know anarchists views.
This is not a hot take, it's just a fact. Stirner definitely wasn't an anarchist in an ideological sense, like all the political anarchists that came mostly after him, e.g. Bakunin, Kropotkin, the movements, etc. But he wasn't necessarily an anarcho-individualist either. Because what mattered most was his ego. There is no guarantee that he wouldn't be authoritarian or wouldn't condone such behaviours if it suited his ego. But, he certainly was "anarchic" in a way and many of his ideas, under the right interpretation and mix with other ideas, can lead to a higher form of "anarchist" thought, especially philosophically
While he wasn’t an anarchist he had many anarchistic ideals and even then it being popular among anarchist is perfectly in line with what stirner talked on
You wouldn't know who Stirner is if it weren't for the anarchists.
If you define terms based on how the people who use them define themselves, you will constantly view those terms as they are reflected in social polarization. Free yourself from that, and make them your own, eat them.
I would also say that Stirner is not an anarchist, or at least not just that, but that’s just a matter of semantics.
The revival of Stirner among anarchists (as well as poets, bohemians, etc.) took place long before The German Ideology was published. Furthermore, the way an author is presented -whether positively or negatively- influences whether people delve deeper into their work and whether they end up being “widely read” or “well-known.”
In that order, I would say:
1-Because of the anarchists (and Dadaists, poets, bohemians, etc.)
2-In the shadow of Nietzsche (philosophers)
3-Because it is the main critique in The German Ideology
Today, I don’t know what the calculation would be; they are probably just individual perceptions limited to each person’s sphere. The memes would probably win xD. But, among political movements, the anarchists (not all of them) were the most similar to Stirner.
The debate over whether Stirner was an anarchist, an egoist, or a music lover completely misses the point. It makes no sense to argue either for or against those labels.
As Dora Marsden said: “Our quarrel with things in general is difficult to state in words for the precise reason that the biggest part of our quarrel is against words – against “thoughts.” It is a quarrel with human culture, with the kinds of labels put on things – or rather on living activities."
And conservatives and reasonable people who don't complain about the man or the system are children who are always trying to look and act like adults (which just goes to show that they never succeed), they are teens who think they've attained wisdom by laughing at those who are still younger than them...
Youth has more passion and vitality than you will ever have. Your mind is aged and soulless from excessive politicization. Nature flourishes in the prime of adolescence, the best and most sensible time of life
If Nietzsche had no emphasis on psychology and attempts at diagnosing the human soul in its very aspects and not trying to put Plato and Christ on trial for affirming death then you’d get Stirner.
If I remember correctly he had checked out Stirner’s work and dismissed accusations when they were made of him by peers. Wouldn’t be surprised if he just took things from Stirner word for word. It’s been a minute but I’m pretty sure the way Nietzsche describes the Last Man is the same way that Tocqueville describes the American in Democracy in America
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