Essay #123: Michael Grooff, ‘Sympathy as the Engine of Mutual Aid’

In this essay, Michael Grooff argues for a bipartite reading of Kropotkin’s account of sympathy, the mechanism behind the evolutionary mutual aid principle. Incorporating both simulation as well as perception in our analysis solves the problem of animal sympathy and provides a better account of sympathy as the basis of anarchist morality. Michael Grooff is a PhD researcher in fundamental and practical philosophy at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany. Grooff's most recent publications are Sympathy as the Engine of Mutual Aid: Reading Kropotkin's Bipartite Account of Sympathy and Freedom of Recreation: A Critique of the Prohibition, Decriminalization, and Legal Regulation of Psychedelics for Recreational Use. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.