Philosophical anarchism and political anarchism

Abstract

In this paper I study, first, the relationship between philosophical and political anarchism and particularly the classification of the various anarchists positions offered by John Simmon in his “Philosophical Anarchism”. While political anarchism considers that it is morally obligatory to work towards the elimination of the state, philosophical anarchism only states that there is no obligation to obey the law. From here on it is possible to mistakenly infer that political anarchism is practical while philosophical anarchism is merely theoretical. Hence my second goal in this work is to explicit the practical commitments involved by taking philosophical anarchism as the correct thesis regarding the legitimacy of the state. Finally, I will show that just as there are good reasons for considering philosophical anarchism as a prima facie sound, worthy of attention theory, there are good reasons to reject political anarchism.