Original author: Dora Intern
Abstract: This article analyses Balaji Srinivasans book The Network States and asks the following question: What constitutes an ethical network state? If network states are to replace nation states, they must have some kind of moral or ethical foundation. This article argues that a network state is ethical and legitimate only if it has human autonomy as its primary goal. The first part of the article discusses the historical background of this question, while the rest of the article attempts to answer the core question of what makes a state ethical.
You can also find this article mirrored in the Bitcoin Review column via the Nostr relay network:
Part I
As capitalism emerged as the new economic system, replacing the old feudal guilds and their small-scale, inefficient methods of production, the cultural conditions needed for the rise of nations and national consciousness began to take shape. This argument, elaborated on by Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined Communities, has clear parallels with Marxist theory, which generally assumes that any change in the economic and technological base of society leads to changes in the entire structure of society. As humans altered their environment, controlled its variables, and mitigated the harshness of their conditions, higher, more rational capacities began to develop. Karl Marx wrote, “By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he changes his own nature at the same time.” As technology advanced, as the tools used by humans evolved to become more efficient and productive, so did human consciousness. Starting with primitive forms of productivity such as stone tools, humans organized themselves in ways that were possible with this primitive form of technology. This form of technology, which had little ability to tame and change nature, clouded human understanding and knowledge, greatly hindering their freedom and their ability to gain self-awareness. Thus, as the modes of production advance, more complex forms of social organization become possible. Humans gradually become aware of their autonomy—the ability to live lives guided by reason, rational choices, and principles, rather than by the contingency of external causal factors. In this historical process, old institutions and social structures gradually decay and become obsolete; revolutions occur to update social infrastructure to keep up with the evolving economic base.
In this historical process, old institutions and social structures decay and become obsolete; revolutions occur to update social infrastructure to accommodate the evolving economic base. When technology develops to the point where it can sustain capitalism and a more sophisticated system of labor is needed to support economic needs, people flock to cities, abandoning their feudal rural lives and begin to think of themselves as part of larger collectives, nations. Marx wrote, The separate regions, which had been almost allied to one another, with different interests, different laws, different governments, and different tariffs, have now been united into one nation, with one government, one law, one national class interest, and one tariff. Thus, industrialization and its new tools dramatically changed the mode of production, transformed human consciousness, and created the necessary conditions for societies to become nation-states.
In Imagined Communities, Anderson claims that this process toward industrialization and the nation-state was largely driven by the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1440. He argues that this technology, which began to distribute newspapers, novels, and Bibles to readers in a writing system that evolved into a national common language, created the cultural conditions for national consciousness, a sense of belonging to a larger community that transcended one’s personal surroundings. People who previously did not think of themselves as “French,” “English,” or “American,” speaking regionally discrete dialects, gradually began to think of themselves as part of a nation that was linked together by shared experiences. These new national identities replaced the old religious, preordained order that had provided meaning to humanity, and nationality became one of the primary modes of self-identification.
Another important technology that drove the historical development of the nation-state was the use of ledgers and double-entry bookkeeping. As records of lending and borrowing were kept, greater trade, asset transfers, and general forms of record keeping became possible, which brought with it the need for more uniform, clear, and well-defined borders between territories. The nation-state thus became a means of responding to the demands of social progress. Feudalism, with its notions of the divine right of kings, old religious doctrines, and outdated forms of social institutions were not adaptable to these economic changes. The advent of the Enlightenment (1685-1789) brought with it a new understanding of the state and the legitimacy of its power. Rather than being seen as a beacon of divine order, the state was increasingly seen as a rational compromise of the powers given to it by people in order to preserve their natural rights. The state now became a third-party institution that resolved disputes, enforced the law, and punished lawbreakers. The legitimacy of the state was limited to the rights it protected for individuals who consented to be ruled.
However, over time, a great deal of trust was given to these new institutions, which many people believe led to excessive concentration of power. Banks became holders of financial books; the dissemination of information, reporting of news and events became the responsibility of a few selected companies; and governments gradually went beyond their original legitimacy requirements and assumed responsibilities far beyond simply protecting individual rights and freedoms. Due to the lack of corresponding technology, people still have to trust these institutions as selfless and objective third-party mediators, and human nature often cannot achieve such selflessness and objectivity, resulting in human vices such as self-interest, greed, and jealousy having an important impact on state and government processes, which in turn leads to serious trust issues between citizens and their institutions. Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna wrote in their book The Truth Machine: Trust - especially trust in our institutions - is a vital social resource and the real lubricant of all human interactions. When it works well, we take it for granted - we queue, obey traffic rules, and assume that everyone will do so... But when trust is missing, things really fall apart.
Today, with the invention of blockchain and cryptocurrency, many believe that these existing institutions are obsolete and that new forms of social organization are needed. In his book The Network State, Balaji Srinivasan argues this point diligently: he argues that the Internet and its ability to allow individuals to organize digital, landless communities can replace the old nation-states that have held back social development. In particular, he argues that blockchain and its ability to support trustless systems can replace old institutions by automating the tasks they were once entrusted to perform; cryptocurrency can automate the functions performed by central banks and the Federal Reserve; news and event information can be loaded onto blockchains and remain immutable, preventing selfish parties from tampering with and manipulating information for their own benefit; an individual’s private information can be protected by encryption and controlled by the individual, rather than by centralized private tech companies like Google; and more broadly, the Internet can transcend the nation-state and eliminate countless wars and conflicts that have long been caused by land disputes. But despite the optimism brought about by these new technologies, problems remain. The rest of this article will explore what it means to be an “ethical” cyberstate, using Srinivasan’s terminology. Some nation-states are seen as unethical because they provide degrading conditions for human survival. The next section will propose a method for judging the validity of this and similar judgments, and consider what standards a cyberstate must meet to be considered “ethical.” I will argue that this can only be achieved by making human autonomy the principal end of the state.
Part 2
To understand this, we can think of state-building as a complex activity, and, like most activities, it has a specific purpose. Just as playing sports, gardening, or driving a car are all activities, so is state-building—albeit a far more complex one. But unlike some activities, where the purpose may be for pleasure or recreation, the purpose of a state always has a moral and ethical dimension. It is moral because whenever one engages in state-making, the purpose of that activity is always aimed at developing principles that will establish cooperative social practices and institutions, guide and govern the behavior of the members of the state, and lay the groundwork for the pursuit of individual and collective happiness. In other words, the goal of state-making is to create practices that are performed by individuals in a collective who live together and live according to certain moral goals that influence and shape the lives of the members of the state. Therefore, all behavior that occurs in this activity cannot be morally neutral, but is inseparable from moral and ethical life. Therefore, this nation-building activity should not be seen as inferior to the pursuit of moral and ethical goals, and conflating this activity with other goals (such as the pursuit of financial gain, technological innovation, market expansion, or the satisfaction of personal interests) will lead to a modal confusion that immediately makes one engage in an activity that is different from nation-building.
By confusion of pattern I mean the pursuit of a particular activity with the wrong goal in mind. For example, a person who paints pictures would be deeply confused if he declared himself an artist but his primary goal was financial gain. The pursuit of such a goal would be more properly called manufacturing than artistic creation. Perhaps a more representative goal of an artist is (for example) the creation of beauty, or self-expression, rather than profit. Profit is only a means to further artistic ends, a necessary means determined by the social conditions in which the artist works.
Or imagine a person who makes friends only to gain some benefit from the other person, such as using the friend to meet someone he or she is interested in, but still believes that they are a genuine friend. This person has a misunderstanding of the type of activity he or she is engaging in. Being a friend means taking on certain goals that are required by the relationship. An obvious goal in a friendship relationship is to treat the other person as an end in itself, that is, someone who is valuable simply because they are a friend and not for any other reason. To think of participating in friendship without having the relevant goals is deeply confused.
Therefore, when building a network state, reducing the confusion in patterns is essential to creating an “ethical” state project. If the founders have extraneous goals in mind, they have the potential to cause great harm to people, which I will argue is achieved by reducing autonomy. By autonomy, I mean the human ability to make conscious, deliberative choices, without being completely dominated by external influences. Philosopher Harry Frankfurt defines it as: “Autonomy consists essentially in whether we are active rather than passive in our motivations and choices—whether…they are motivations and choices that we really want and therefore are not alien to us in any way.” Human autonomy resides in human subjectivity, which can be understood as a person’s conscious experience. This is the center of all one’s experiences of thoughts, desires, perceptions, worries, fears, anxieties, etc., as they manifest in experience. Subjectivity can be divided into at least two parts: a quantitative dimension and a qualitative dimension. The first dimension involves the stream of experience, that is, the constant alternation of mental states and behaviors. At one moment I feel hungry and take action to satisfy that desire; at another moment I am struck by fear and flee from the object of my fear, and so on. As these examples suggest, this dimension of subjectivity involves a high degree of passivity: events and experiences simply happen to me. The qualitative dimension, on the other hand, is more active and is the space where autonomy exists. This involves assessing ones own mental states, reflecting on them and deciding whether they are worth acting on, whether they are rational, and whether they accurately reflect reality; and autonomous action is based on this qualitative nature, rather than being unthinkingly carried away by the more passive quantitative dimension.
The central point of this article is that the primary purpose of the state is to promote the development and growth of the qualitative nature of the subjectivity of its members. It is a paradigmatic confusion to view this human capacity as secondary or incidental rather than a fundamental need. This is not to say that the state is the primary institution that promotes or even determines the autonomy of its citizens—the existence of some states and the crimes they have committed are enough to disprove this claim—but only that the state plays a role in it. Whatever its exact role is, or in what form it is realized, the primary purpose of the state is to promote the conditions for the development of the subjectivity of its citizens. One can imagine a society as a vast, extended plane divided into different proportions according to the degree to which each part contributes to the realization of this goal. The economy occupies one part, the public and private affairs of the community and individuals occupy another, and the state is assigned to another. Whatever the exact configuration of the plane, each part cooperates and works to meet the full range of human needs. I believe that this can be achieved in many ways; there is not necessarily a single fixed form of the state that specifies the precise roles of each of its parts and that is consistent with some ultimate reality to achieve this goal. However, I think that the state does have a hierarchy of goals.
However, one could argue that this is wrong, and that statehood is not a moral activity, but only a prudential, self-interested activity aimed at protecting the self-interests and preferences of individuals. That is, the state is not concerned with morality, but only with establishing conditions that enable individuals to pursue their self-interests and preferences without interference from others. Since individuals care about their own happiness, survival, and the satisfaction of their desires, it is against their interest to live in a state of nature without an authority to resolve disputes or conflicts over life, liberty, or property. Therefore, it is rational to form a state with a consent-based governing power that can punish those who break the law, adjudicate and resolve disputes, and protect everyones basic freedoms and prevent others from interfering in their lives.
On this understanding, the goals of the state are prudential rather than primarily moral. Individuals are free to choose to join any cyberstate they wish, as long as they make that choice voluntarily and without coercion.
Srinivasan’s view, I think, lies somewhere between the moral and prudential conceptions of state creation. He argues that the legitimacy of a state is based solely on the consent of the governed. If a cyberstate has enough members; if it grows to the point of diplomatic recognition, then this proves the legitimacy of the state. People agree to its smart contracts, giving the founders some authority according to the terms of their consent, so Srinivasan concludes that the state is “ethical.” But the word “ethical” here is vague. Does he mean that the agreement itself means it is ethical? Or does he mean that the primary goal of the state is free choice? The former is prudential because it holds that moral or ethical judgments are made by individuals themselves, and there is no objective fact; individuals calculate based on their own interests, preferences and desires, and whether the contract is fair, just or equal depends entirely on each person’s opinion. The latter is moral because it holds that freedom of choice constitutes the moral goal of the state. What matters is whether individuals freely choose to join the state, not whether the contract is fair or just outside of this independent standard. This is because what is most valuable is the individual’s ability to choose. Since each person must decide for himself or herself whether a contract is fair or just, a state is morally legitimate if people voluntarily agree to its contracts.
Whichever view Srinivasan supports, both interpretations are problematic, and I will present arguments against them, building on the following claims. First, to view the state as concerned only with prudential ends is to confuse means and ends and underestimate the role of the state in the lives of individuals. Second, to take freedom of choice as the primary goal of the state is to confuse “choice” with “free choice.” These confusions can degrade human dignity by ignoring the need for humans to cultivate autonomy. People’s interests lie in living in a society. Being isolated from society, without access to resources, and without institutions to rely on to maintain rights protection, means living in an environment that is less conducive to meeting individual needs. However, creating more favorable conditions does not thereby define the primary goal of the state, and the mere ability to choose does not necessarily respect autonomy. It only provides the appearance of choice, not actual free choice. Before developing these arguments further, two potential ways for Srinivasan to conceptualize the “ethical” state need to be better understood. Let us begin with prudential theory.
Part 3
According to the prudential theory, the goal of the state is to provide the necessary conditions for individuals to pursue their own interests, desires, and preferences, and for individuals to act without interference from others if their actions do not infringe on the rights of others. The paradigmatic philosopher of this view is Thomas Hobbes. In a state of nature, individuals exist outside of an organized group without the constraints of laws and institutions. This state is a state of war, full of eternal conflict, disputes, and competition for self-interest, and individuals constantly pursue power for control and security. Leaving aside the feasibility of this state, it is important to understand individuals in this way that human nature is presented as a calculative behavior, that is, rational pursuit of individual interests. Because there are conflicts of interest, and because each person has an innate right to protect himself and fight for his own survival; and because each person must decide what he needs for survival, life in the state of nature is cruel, brutal, and short.
Therefore, rationally, it is more reasonable to establish a state that eliminates this constant war and conflict for the benefit of oneself and others, by implementing laws and institutions to enforce agreements and contracts between people and maintain conditions of peace so that individuals can pursue their goals without fear of interference. Philosopher Immanuel Kant expressed this as follows: Each person may pursue happiness as he sees fit, provided he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue the same goals, which must be reconciled with the freedom of all within the framework of a feasible general law.
The state is thus established not out of morality but out of rational calculation, to look after ones own interests. The state is established not because it enables people to respect each other or because everyone deserves some kind of inviolable respect, but because it is in everyones best interest. Kant said that establishing the state means discovering how the mechanism of nature can be applied to human beings so that the antagonism of their hostile attitudes will force them to submit to compulsory laws, thereby producing a state of peace in which the laws can be enforced. This is a prudent theory of state building.
However, there is a fundamental problem with this account. The first thing to note is the concept of human subjectivity it contains. In simple terms, the Hobbesian view of human nature holds that subjectivity consists of calculations whose purpose is to satisfy the subjects desires and preferences. The goal of the state is therefore to discipline the subject so that it can coexist with others under conditions of peace. The task of the state is not to prescribe certain definite moral goals, not to guide individuals around some concept of the good, nor to define what their desires should or should not be; but to maintain the necessary conditions so that individuals can pursue their own interests without interfering with the rights of others to pursue their own interests.
The problem is that this understanding of human subjectivity is one-dimensional. Humans are born with certain natural desires and preferences, such as survival and meeting basic needs, and the state should not interfere with these, but rather protect each persons impulse to maintain these desires and shape their lives as they wish. Everyone can do whatever they want as long as they dont harm others. But this view is too simplistic. It is equivalent to thinking that human desires and preferences only occupy a single, quantitative plane, and that everyone maximizes these desires while avoiding infringing on the ability of others to do the same. But if we step back and ask whether a desire is worth pursuing in itself, then we are no longer asking questions on this quantitative plane, but start to ask about the qualitative nature of desire. Is this desire more valuable than another? This is a question about second-order desires.
First-order desires happen to us naturally, they arise naturally, and they direct us toward the object of desire. My desire to eat is not generated by my will. After a period of not eating, the desire will arise again. Second-order desires involve will, what one wants to want, or whether a desire is a motivation for one’s will. Harry Frankfurt writes: “Creatures like us are not limited to the desires that drive their actions. Moreover, they have the reflective capacity to form desires about their desires—that is, about what they want to want, or what they do not want to want.” Focusing on the quantitative dimension of subjectivity does not explain this distinction. If someone is trying to maximize their well-being by satisfying their immediate desires, then some of those desires that they do not act on, those desires that exist without driving them to act, are competing first-order desires, and these desires do not involve an assessment of whether one desire is more valuable than another; one desire simply triumphs over the other.
Now, with this distinction in mind, the point can be made as follows: This qualitative, evaluative dimension is first shaped by the social environment in which one finds oneself, or, as philosopher Martin Heidegger puts it, is “thrown into.” In the process of being with others, through communication, language, and interaction, humans begin to form and make sense of what is going on in their inner and outer lives. In their book Existential Phenomenology, William A. Luijpen and Henry J. Koren write: “In the course of my interactions with others, a process similar to sedimentation takes place, the result of which is called ‘social facticity’ or my ‘social body.’ The way I greet, speak to, or think about others is, at least initially, primarily a quasi-effect of my having grown up in the West rather than in China.” Social facticity is therefore a set of social conditions under which humans are familiar with the world, making things understandable, meaningful, ordered, and rational. Philosopher Charles Taylor writes: “I can learn what anger, love, anxiety, the quest for wholeness, and so on, are only through my own and others’ experience of these emotions in some shared space.”
Growing up in a social environment, the qualitative dimension of subjectivity is first shaped by the situation in which the individual finds himself, which provides a framework for helping them to tell who they are, what is valuable, what is good, how to act in a given situation, and so on. Underpinning all this is the assumed picture of qualitative assessment. If this did not exist, the individual would not be able to live. Therefore, when a state is established to govern society, it is concerned not only with prudential goals, but also with moral goals. Self-interests, preferences, desires, fears, obstacles to action, in short, the entire inner and outer life of the individual, are first understood in a social environment.
In his book To Have or To Be, psychologist Erich Fromm argued that living under social conditions that emphasize only the quantitative nature of human beings is dehumanizing. It is highly implausible to assume that a society and a state that encourages the fulfillment of desires and preferences, self-interest, will somehow actualize human higher capacities. How can character traits such as selfishness, greed, and egoism generate the social cooperation, connection, and harmony that are necessary for happiness? Most of the great thinkers in history have been concerned with this question. Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, the Epicureans all distinguished between our qualitative and quantitative capacities. “The central element of their thought,” Fromm writes, “is the distinction between those needs (i.e., desires)… whose satisfaction brings only momentary pleasure, and those needs which are so deeply rooted in human nature that their fulfillment contributes to human growth and produces eudaimonia, or happiness.” If the qualitative dimension of subjectivity includes needs that are essential to happiness, such as the ability to interact actively and critically with oneself and the world, then steps must be taken to target these qualities in humans, or they will feel empty and unsatisfied.
As I mentioned earlier, this does not mean that the state must therefore bear primary responsibility for this. But it does mean that the state has a role to play in this process. Whatever its precise role, the first objective of the state is to identify and realize its role in this process.
Part 4
So far, we have discussed Srinivasans conception of an ethical state, that is, a state that establishes the prudential goals of rational, self-interested individuals. What about the second way of understanding this view, that the state is ethical because freedom of choice is the only thing that matters, the fundamental purpose that the state needs to preserve and exercise through it? The argument I will offer against this understanding concerns how we should understand the word freedom in this context.
If freedom of choice is the primary goal of the state, and if “ethical” means not interfering with individuals’ decisions to pursue their own goals, then it is important to clarify what constitutes a free choice. According to the prudential theory of state creation, a state is ethical because it creates conditions for individuals to pursue their desires and private notions of happiness. This is not a question of morality but a process of calculating rationality, that is, finding rational means, and the state is a way for individuals to coexist and pursue their own interests.
As has been shown, however, the state is much more than that. By playing a central role in organizing society, and by developing and enforcing the laws and policies that citizens must abide by, the state substantially influences the framework by which individuals frame their self-understanding. It is not the only factor, of course; the family is more important than the state in influencing individual development. But the state organizes these other influences through law, and thus also plays a role in how other factors influence society. This collection of factors shapes the concepts needed for moral deliberation, determines which goals are worth pursuing, and provides the resources for distinguishing between good and bad, right and wrong.
The suggestion is that the word ethical implies that the state is a moral activity, not just a prudential one, and that the sole purpose of the state is to allow individuals to choose freely what they think is good or valuable, and that by making uncoerced choices, whatever agreement is reached, it is ethical as long as it is agreed to. Freedom of choice is the primary purpose of all human behavior and affairs.
This raises a twofold problem, depending on how seriously one attaches value to choice. The first is that if choice is seen as renounceable, that is, someone can decide to give up their freedom when agreeing to join the state, then a state can still be seen as ethical simply because people choose to join it, even if it allows some conditions that undermine human dignity. The second is that if choice is seen as the primary purpose of the state and is renounceable, then it may still fail to achieve the true freedom required for free choice, namely autonomy. The first problem is easier to detect, while the second is more subtle. Let us start with the first problem.
There are many reasons why someone might choose to join the state and give up their freedom, but for the purposes of this argument it is best to focus on one issue, which is what happens when an individual feels alienated from society and isolated. In his book Escape From Freedom, Erich Fromm offers a historical perspective on this issue by examining the decline of the churchs influence after the Reformation. In simple terms, the medieval world was seen as a perfectly ordered, eternal structure created by God, which included how humans, both individually and collectively, should live. Individuals did not face deep personal questions about how to live, how to order their lives, and what goals to pursue; the church answered these questions and provided a sense of belonging in the world. Fromm wrote: “By occupying a unique, unchangeable, unquestionable position in the social world from the moment of birth, man is deeply rooted in a structured whole, so that life has meaning and leaves no room for doubt… The social order is seen as the natural order, and being a clear part of it brings a sense of security and belonging.” Historian Marci Shore argues that when God “lost his centrality” and could no longer be relied upon as the norm for human life, and responsibility shifted to humans themselves, a huge gap was left that needed to be filled again; humans could no longer assume that they were the center of everything. They themselves became responsible for how society should be organized, how life should be lived, and what the meaning of life was; the answers to these questions had to be formed by human reason itself, not imposed by some external, non-human standard. However, this emerging form of freedom had its price. Dostoevsky expressed this price in his famous phrase: “If there is no God, then everything is permitted.” That is, without some ultimate, non-human reality to make the world seem orderly, harmonious, reasonable, and good, everything would be unchained. To restore the previous stability, as human life must, the burden can only be borne by humans themselves. In her book The Ethics of Ambiguity, the 20th-century philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote that humans are now “responsible for a world created not by alien forces but by ourselves, a world in which failures and triumphs are the product of our own actions. God can forgive, erase, and compensate, but if God does not exist, human errors are irreparable.”
The alienated experience of modern society can be partly attributed to the inability of modernity to cope with this burden. In Fromm’s words, humans have made great efforts to escape this burden. Historians such as Hannah Arendt have argued that the rise of authority in the 20th century emerged under such conditions, in which individuals gave up this new form of freedom and gave up the responsibility of choosing how to live and determining the ultimate meaning of life by integrating into the group. But doing so completely eliminated choice and thus reduced subjectivity to an unconscious thing, no longer responsible for its own actions and projects, no longer as a subject responsible for what happens in the world. As the history of the 20th century shows, this situation is disastrous. Therefore, any network state that attempts to allow individuals to give up their freedom and autonomy does not deserve to be called ethical. Such a state attempts to avoid moral and ethical choices and does not try to cope with them.
The second part of the problem, that freedom is a principal value and cannot be abandoned, involves understanding choice as a purely passive act. The error is in confusing mere choice with free choice. Just as the deliberative view mistakenly assumes that the goals of an individual are ultimately formed by the individual, so this ethical view presupposes that choice can be simply the pursuit of first-order desires, without regard to whether those desires are worth pursuing; that individuals can be driven entirely by instinct, independent of the capacities required to make real choices. If choice is simply a matter of how to maximize satisfaction, without regard to the nature of the desires themselves, then reflection, deliberation, and thought in general are merely tools for achieving happiness, a means to satisfying desires. But if desires are unconstrained, if they are taken for granted as worthy of our instinctive attention, then no real choice is made. That is, second-order desires are not taken into account. To act solely on first-order desires is to be driven by impulse, instinct, or inclination, rather than determined by reflection. It is through reflection and deliberation, through the considerations formed by the individuals will, that real choices are made. Understanding the philosopher Kant’s distinction between autonomy and heteronomy will clarify this argument.
To act autonomously means to be the initiator and self-determined cause of an action. To act heteronomously means that the action is initiated and driven by influences and forces external to the individuals will. Therefore, to make a free choice, it must be the result of an action of the individuals will, not driven by something external to the will. Philosopher Paul Franco wrote in his book Hegels Philosophy of Freedom: Kant rejected the naturalistic understanding of freedom advocated by Hobbes, which sees freedom as the unhindered pursuit of desires given in individual experience. To surrender to natural desires or inclinations means that the will is determined by something external to itself... From this point, it can be seen that actions based on desires do not constitute free choices. If desires are shaped by external environmental conditions, then the expression of these desires is not initially the choice of the individual, but is influenced by the conditioning that occurs during the individuals growth and upbringing. Therefore, simple choices do not constitute free choices.
But one might ask, why is this a problem? Even if the individual’s choices are not completely free, why should the state care? It is the individual’s business to explore freedom. I do not entirely disagree with this. The state should not interfere or force individuals to make free choices rather than pure choices, but it should be concerned with creating conditions that are conducive to the development of individuals’ autonomy, which lies in the more qualitative dimension of subjectivity. The goal here is not to specify precisely how the state should do this, but to make it clear that individual autonomy is a goal that the state must pursue. To place this goal in a secondary position means to regard human activities as serving some other goal, as if human abilities exist for other purposes. This is wrong. The goal of the state should be to play a role, to treat human beings as ends in themselves, and as the reason for the legitimacy of any authority it has. To do otherwise is to confuse self-interest with morality.
in conclusion
An “ethical” cyber state considers autonomy as its primary purpose. Its goal is to explore how best to contribute to the creation of conditions that will help achieve this goal. What government must look like, what laws are best, and what institutions are necessary must all be understood in these terms. Otherwise, there will be misunderstandings about the activities involved, which can lead to dehumanizing conditions for individuals who choose to join a state that does not meet this standard.
Institution (“Institution” cannot cover all the meanings of Institution in this article)
Autonomy (“自律” is also a common translation, but “自治性” seems more “down-to-earth”, although it will make the literal symmetry of the autonomy-heteronomy dichotomy not reflected in Chinese)
Subjectivity (common translation in academic fields)
Ethical (If translated as moral, it will be indistinguishable from moral, and ethical and moral are usually used together in the text; if translated as ethical, it may cause confusion to native Chinese speakers)
Principal (“primary”/“important” are both ambiguous, “primary” or “principled” can highlight the trump standing of “autonomy” in the order of goals)
Nation (not translated as “国” or other common translations for three reasons: i) the official translation of the cited Marx text is “民族”; ii) Imagined Communities discusses the formation of “national consciousness”, which is often bounded by the state, but not necessarily; iii) the article also uses nation-state or distinguishes between nation and state, the latter of which can be undisputedly translated as “国”. In order to distinguish between the two, the former is translated as “民族”)
Deliberation (careful consideration and thoughtful deliberation are also acceptable, here we choose a common translation)
Prudence/Prudent (The daily meaning in English refers to caution and consideration for the future, similar to the Chinese scheme and prudence. In the technical use of philosophy, it generally refers to considerations based on self-interest. The common translation in Chinese philosophical literature is 慎慎, which cannot reflect the technical meaning of 自利, but I cant think of a better translation for the time being)
Trust (I am not sure if it would be better to translate it as “信托” in some places, so I translate it as “信托”)
Account theory (a more literal meaning might be explanation, description, justification, theoretical framework, but here it is translated as theory for the sake of the translators understanding)
Modal Confusion Modal Confusion (Modal is more literally translated as modal, which is also commonly used in philosophy, such as modal logic, but it looks more abstract. Here, for the convenience of readers, it is changed to modal; Confusion can be translated as confusion/confusion/disorder/etc.)
Marxs texts were translated into the official version of the Bureau of Compilation and Translation of Marxist Works, and the other texts were not checked against the translations in Chinese publications (if any).
