Left unfinished at his death, Peter Kropotkin’s two-volume work on ethics is a rejection of both divine command and the moral dictates of a ruling class. Kropotkin roots ethical life in something far older and more universal: the mutual aid practices that allow social species to survive.

Origin and Development, the first volume, has been out of print since its original 1924 English translation. In this work, Kropotkin explains why a new approach to thinking about ethics is needed and what the social and natural bases are on which this new ethics can be built. He engages with the long history of ethical theory in Europe, offering critical readings of figures from Plato to Robert Owen.