Anthropology of Volunteering. Philosophy: The Beginning

Eternal War

Evidently, it is no coincidence that the concept of "volunteer" became widespread with the first systematic attempts of European philosophical thought to comprehend the problems of social relations in the New Age. In this vein, Thomas Hobbes' concept of the "natural state of man" becomes a kind of foundation for the views of non-clerical intellectuals of that era on social relations.

Hobbes understood the natural state of people as the ability of some to hinder others in achieving their goals: a person sets a certain goal and strives to achieve it, which leads to a natural clash with the environment.

In such a composition, there is obviously no place for altruism. However, there is a place for a community based on shared interests and an agreement on general rules that put the natural war between people within certain limits. On the one hand, this limits human freedom, and on the other hand, it increases their chances of survival, which is guarded by the famous Hobbesian "Leviathan" - the state.

Hobbes' treatise on the organization of human society is actually the first sociological manifesto that focused on the material, determined nature of man.

In this model, a volunteer is someone who, at their own discretion, chooses a sovereign, selling their freedom to them for guaranteed security.

What exactly was the radicalism of "Leviathan"?

Man is a predatory animal. Morality is not a given, but a product of fear and interest. The state is not a divine institution, but an artificial mechanism for controlling natural aggression. Will is a movement of the body, not a psychic (spiritual) act. Freedom is the physical absence of obstacles, not an ethical choice.

His concept of "the sovereign as God on earth" was perceived as a direct attack on the church, as it removed transcendence from the social contract. The British Parliament even considered banning "Leviathan," claiming that it "corrupts morals" and opens the way to tyranny through excessive fear of freedom. And his "liberal" contemporaries were saddened by Hobbes's thesis that the people do not think, but fear.

Let us recall that a few years before the publication of the treatise, British volunteers/revolutionaries beheaded their own sovereign by decision of Parliament. That is, on legal grounds. By doing so, by consensus of historians, they paved the way into the modern era, the so-called European "New Age."

The Leviathan-state is not a bearer of truth, but a mechanism of stabilization. It is not "right" because it is true – it is "right" because it stops the war of interpretations. The sovereign is an arbiter, not a prophet. A contractual fiction to whom we transfer the right to interpretation, control, and use of force, because the alternative to this fiction is "the war of all against all."

However, if the terms of the social contract are not observed, the Leviathan risks sinking into the ocean depths so that it can no longer resurface.

But not because of some popular uprising – of course not – but solely due to the destruction of its "organic" structures, as a result of which lawless nature will again prevail. That is, war and chaos.

Then volunteers will be forced to voluntarily pledge allegiance to another terrifying monster.

Eternal Compromise

Directly perpendicular to Hobbes, his Dutch contemporary Benedictus Spinoza answers these questions.

Spinoza believed that man does not "fear and seek security," but strives to preserve vital force, the so-called "conatus."

If for Hobbes the source of unification is a contract based on fear, then for Spinoza the basis for unification is common benefit.

If the former believes that the state is an artificial security construct, the latter understands it as a natural continuation of collective power.

For the former, law is external coercion; for the latter, it is a form of realization of the subject's inner strength.

According to Hobbes, a change of power is catastrophic in its consequences and illegitimate. For Spinoza, it is legitimate if the power contradicts reason or suppresses the vital force of the people.

In Spinoza, compromise is not a forced decision due to fear, but a dynamic equilibrium of forces that changes depending on affects (states of body and mind).

Thus, society is not an order established once and for all, but a fluid form of collective survival that relies on the ability to think together.

This is partly due to the cultural and political atmosphere of the rich and tolerant Netherlands, of which he has been a citizen almost all his life. At the same time, he witnessed the permanent wars that the republic had to wage to fight off the encroachments of neighbouring monarchies. And which eventually destroyed the republican system.

So Spinoza considers compromise not as a concluded act, but as a plural substance that is subordinate to no one, and power that is born from the positive force of the community.

What is substance in his understanding?

"By substance, I understand that which exists in itself and is conceived through itself," says Spinoza. It can only be God/Nature, which has no external cause, is not created, and is not limited. Everything we can observe – bodies, events, ideas, affects – are modifications of this substance, i.e., ways of its manifestation.

What then is the driving force of such a state of affairs, if fear has no place here?

It is conatus – vital force. "Each thing, insofar as it is in itself, endeavors to persevere in its being."

Conatus is not biological survival, but an essential effort to be oneself, vital inertia and a strategy of duration, but unconscious, unwillful, and aimless – automatic like breathing.

So, how is this to be understood?

Substance is that which exists without dependence. Conatus is how this substance is realized in each mode-manifestation. Each mode (stone, human, idea) is not a part of the substance, but is its specific form of self-expression.

Conatus is not an act of will, but a mode of existence. A thing does not choose to "desire" to exist – it already desires, because it exists.

This applies to everything: a stone, a person, an idea, a state. A stone that flies "desires" to fly, not because it intends to, but because it manifests conatus as its dynamic essence.

In humans, this effort to be oneself manifests as affects, desires, reason, will – all these are merely manifestations of conatus, its differentiations.

Conatus is not egoism, but the ethics of the real. A person who strives to preserve themselves should not harm others, because it is irrational.

Thus, conatus is equivalent to rationality, common life, and ultimately freedom. Spinoza's ethics arise from conatus, because understanding one's nature leads to coexistence, not to war.

Substance in Spinoza is not a "thing," but a process that thinks and acts within itself.

And conatus is the rhythm by which every being tries to be itself, being nothing else but the substance in one of its modifications.

From such a view of reality, altruism as a social ideology becomes not only possible, but also the only rational one. The point is not in morality, not in religious precepts, but in the mechanisms of the universe and harmonious coexistence with them.

It is noteworthy that during his short life, Baruch Spinoza gained a dangerous reputation as a heretic and freethinker. His own community in Amsterdam ostracized him and eventually excommunicated him, forbidding him to use his own Jewish name "Baruch" (blessed). Spinoza's main works were published posthumously in Dutch and without the author's name, but even they were banned a few years later.

Next time, we will take a step of more than 150 years and get acquainted with the thoughts of the sages of that time regarding volunteering and the importance of social activism in society.

Artur Vsevolozhskyi