Abstract

The current discussion of the place of ethics in human life and of the prospectives of French ethical thinking has been given a new impulse by the tradition rooted in immanence. In this tradition the philosophy of B. Spinoza is taken as its explicit model. The paper focuses on the shift from dominating ontological problematic to ethics and on Misrahi's argumentation, which enables him to render Spinoza's ethics as subversive to the whole tradition of moral philosophy, based on the canon of fear and obedience. Spinozian ethics should be grounded in the examination of human passions and desires; it should be an instrument for understanding people's actions and their highest visions. The author's question is, what consequences this interpretation might have for the contemporary understanding of morals and ethics