Spinoza: Virtue

"The ultimate end goal of the finite I and the not-I, i.e., the end goal of the world," writes Schelling in Of the I as the Principle of Philosophy (1795), "is its annihilation as a world, i.e., as the exemplification of finitude." In this paper, I explicate this statement and its theoretical stakes through a comprehensive re-reading of Schelling's 1795 writings: Of the I and Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism, written later in the same year, in relation to what (...) Schelling proclaims to be the central problem of all philosophy: the existence of the world (Dasein der Welt). To that end, I analyze Schelling's 1795 conceptions of synthesis and morality, and the structure of the I's striving in the world that they serve to create and uphold – a structure in which the I is torn between a paradisal past and a striven-for future that it constitutively cannot reach as long as the world is there. Schelling's 1795 metaphysics is ultimately caught, I argue, in the tension between two poles: justifying the world, this world of negativity, division, and endless striving – and annihilating or dissolving it in the bliss of absolute identity and freedom, in which there is no world, and no possibility of or need for a world. (shrink)

En filosofía es importante conocer las influencias entre los filósofos porque de ello depende tener un conocimiento más completo y preciso de sus propuestas. Ejemplo de esto son las investigaciones sobre los orígenes estoicos de la filosofía spinoziana, que se han incrementado notablemente en las últimas décadas, pero aún hace falta indagar con mayor detalle, autor por autor e idea por idea, qué tipo de estoicismo y qué parte del mismo influyó en el pensador neerlandés. En este artículo examino, a (...) partir sobre todo de las referencias explícitas, la influencia del estoico Séneca en la filosofía de Spinoza, para lo cual reviso, analizo y cotejo diversos pasajes de las obras de ambos pensadores. // Abstract: It is important in philosophy to know the influences between philosophers because of that it depends to have an accurate and more complete knowledge of their proposals. An example of this are the investigations about the stoics origins of Spinoza’s philosophy, which has been increasing in the last decades but it is still necessary to inquire in greater detail, author by author and idea by idea, what kind of stoicism and what part of it influenced the Dutch philosopher. In this paper I examine, particularly from explicit references, the influence of the Stoic Seneca in Spinoza’s philosophy, for which I review, analyze, and compare several passages of both philosophers’ works. (shrink)

Spinoza attributes mentality to all things existing in nature. He claims that each thing has a mind that perceives everything that happens in the body. Against this panpsychist background, it is unclear how consciousness relates to the nature of the mind. This study focuses on Spinoza’s account of the conscious mind and its operations. It builds on the hypothesis that Spinoza’s panpsychism can be interpreted as a self-consistent philosophical position. It aims at providing answers to the following questions: what is (...) consciousness, for Spinoza, and what are the causes that determine its presence in nature? How can human and non-human individuals be distinguished on account of their mentality? How can Spinoza conceive of the human mind as consisting entirely of conscious perceptions? And how, according to Spinoza’s mind-body parallelism, is the content of consciousness determined so that it reflects in thought the order and connection of the actions and passions of the body? To address these questions, I first determine what Spinoza’s notion of “consciousness” is and how he uses it. Then, I investigate whether he has a theory of recognition capable of accounting for specifically human behaviour and mentality. Further, I examine his description of memory and the way in which memory shapes the framework of human conscious thought. Finally, I look for an account of discursive reasoning, capable of explaining the existence of activities of the mind that, by operating on the content provided by memory, preserve themselves through time and change. (shrink)

Generosity is not best understood as an alliance of forces, necessary for mortal beings with limited time and skills. Sociability as generosity exceeds the realm of need and follows directly from our strength of character [fortitudo] because it expresses a positive power to overcome anti-social passions, such as hatred, envy, and the desire for revenge. Spinoza asserts that generous souls resist and overwhelm hostile forces and debilitating affects with wisdom, foresight, and love. The sociability yielded by generosity, then, is not (...) just a form of cooperation we need to survive and produce leisure for study and contemplation. Generosity is not a mere means but a positive expression of freedom, because it is the activity through which a strong soul (and body) transforms enemies into friends. It is not an expression of lack, but of an acquired power that infuses one’s social milieu with empowering love and joy, creating agreements in nature and power where they did not previously exist. Attention to generosity reveals not only that there are social virtues proper to Spinoza’s understanding of freedom but that freedom itself is, by necessity, social. (shrink)

Abstract: In the "Ethics" Spinoza denies that humility is a virtue on the grounds that it arises from a reflection on our lack of power, rather than a rational understanding of our power (Part IV, Proposition 53, Demonstration). He suggests that humility, to the extent that it involves a consideration of our weakness, indicates a lack of self-understanding. However, in a brief remark in the same demonstration he also allows that conceiving our lack of power can be conducive to self-understanding (...) and an increase in power, on the condition that we “conceive [it] because [we] understand (intelligit) something more powerful than [ourselves].” Unfortunately, Spinoza does not flesh out this remark, nor does he specify the name of the affect that arises from thus conceiving our weakness. Commentators have not been of much help in this regard either. What does it mean, in the Spinozistic framework, to conceive our weakness because we understand something more powerful than ourselves? And what exactly is the difference between this instance of conceiving our lack of power and the one that is involved in humility? This paper will examine the nature of this difference by analyzing its metaphysical and epistemological underpinnings, as well as its ethical implications within Spinoza’s Ethics. In doing so, it will highlight the ethical importance and epistemological conditions of recognizing our weakness in the Spinozistic universe. Abraham Wolf takes Spinoza’s denial of humility’s virtue in the Ethics to imply that “the rational man should think of what he can do, not of what he cannot do.” While I agree with Wolf’s remark, my reading in this paper will show that as the rational person thinks of her power and what she can do, she never loses sight of her ineliminable weakness as a finite mode. (shrink)

I argue that Spinoza is more of a moral realist than an anti-realist. More specifically, I argue that Spinoza is more of a realist than Kant, and that his view has deep similarities with Plato's metaethics. Along the way, I identify three approaches to the moral realism/anti-realism distinction. Classifying Spinoza as a moral realist brings out a number of important complexities that have been overlooked by many of Spinoza's readers and by many contemporary metaethicists.

Within Spinoza scholarship of the ethics of the Ethics there are various interpretations of what ethical theory Spinoza was, or may have been, espousing in his work. While that may be debated, what scholars agree upon is the connection between certain types of knowledge and living the good life wherein the ethical exists. The more [adequate] knowledge one develops concerning Nature and one’s emotions, through practice of certain states of character, the more one is apt to act freely and move (...) toward a perfected state based on intuitive knowledge: eternal blessedness. However, it is debatable among scholars whether one can reach Spinoza’s goal. The problem addressed in this work is the problem of one’s ability to become the free person who only (or primarily) lives by intuitive knowledge. I argue that it is impossible to have a perfected intuitive knowledge, thus in advocating ones ability to achieve this ideal Spinoza creates an unachievable model of ethical behavior. Further, due to one’s inability to achieve Spinoza’s perfected model, the good life actually exists in the development of certain states of character. Thus, habituation to certain states of character are of prime importance to the ethics of the Ethics. (shrink)

Through an examination of his remarks on Genesis, chapters 2–3, I will demonstrate that Spinoza’s argument for sexual inequality is not only an aberration,but a symmetrical inversion of a view he propounds, albeit implicitly, in his Ethics. In particular, “the black page” of his Political Treatise ignores, along with the intellectual capacities of women, the immeasurable benefits of affectionate partnership between a man and a woman that he extols in his retelling of the Genesis narrative. If the doctrine of the (...) black page maintains that it is the dependency of wives upon their husbands that explains their weakness and justifies their exclusion from formal roles in politics, his unusual narrative of the Fall illustrates that it is precisely Adam's lack of appreciation of his need for his wife that accounts for his imbecility. (shrink)

This paper outlines Spinoza’s two diametrically opposed views on the question of sexual equality. In the Political Treatise, he contends that women are naturally inferior to men, and that they are unable to practice virtue. Yet, he presents an antithetical portrait of Eve in his retelling of the Fall in the Ethics. There, Eve’s nature accords perfectly with Adam’s, and their relationship might have promoted virtue in each of them. Attention to Spinoza’s version of the Fall reveals the profound importance (...) of the human bond for the enjoyment of freedom, and the possibility that women are not categorically excluded from Spinoza’s vision of virtue. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with Spinoza’s treatment of a problem in early modern moral philosophy: the potential conflict between the pursuit of happiness and virtue. The problem is that people are thought to attain happiness by pursuing their self-interest, whereas virtue requires them to act with benevolence, for the benefit of others. Given the inevitability that people will have different and often competing interests, how can they be both virtuous and happy and, where the two are in conflict, which should (...) they prefer? While there were an array of treatments of the problem, most agreed on the general strategy of arguing that people’s true interests—as revealed through reason—are not in competition; rather, they coincide, such that promoting the interests of others promotes people’s own interests and vice versa. Such a response aims to show that people’s happiness is best served by being virtuous and their virtue is best served by making themselves happy.Spinoza agreed with the general outline of this solution, equating virtue with power, thereby defining virtuous behavior as the pursuit of one’s own interests. Since, for Spinoza, happiness arises from increasing one’s power, happiness and virtue are necessarily connected. Furthermore, he does not equate virtue and happiness at the expense of benevolence. This point may be overlooked since Spinoza’s single comment in the Ethics on benevolentia is denigrating: he defines benevolence as a desire arising from pity and “in a man who lives under the guidance of reason, pity in itself is useless and bad” . 1 However, we should distinguish Spinoza’s benevolentia, a kind of piteous desire, from a common notion of benevolence as acting to the benefit of others, which he defends. (shrink)

La notion d’habitude est-elle amenée à jouer un rôle dans l’éthique spinoziste? Une première réponse à cette question doit être négative, si l’on considère que le concept et les formules servant à l’exprimer ne sont pas théorisées directement dans les textes et servent généralement à désigner les coutumes ou les traits constants entre les hommes, ce qui est un sens différent de celui qui nous intéresse spécifiquement ici. Pourtant, la question mérite assurément d’être posée, et ce dans l’optique d’une interrogation (...) sur le caractère réalisable ou non du projet éthique de Spinoza. Nulle philosophie morale n’échappe en effet à l’épineux problème de l’origine de la vertu, car celle-ci doit bien être possédée, ou du moins être accessible, pour que ce type de philosophie à visée pratique ait du sens. N’est-ce pas à la lumière de cette interrogation sur ce qui permet concrètement de passer à une vie bonne qu’il faut lire la proposition 20 de la quatrième partie de l’Éthique? Celle-ci affirme. (shrink)

In Part 4 of his "Ethics," Spinoza puts forward and defends what might appear to be the controversial Hobbesean thesis that the desire to prolong one’s life is the basis of virtue (i.e., E4p22). Indeed there is a tradition of commentators offering an egoistic, Hobbesean interpretation of Spinoza’s ethical theory. In this paper, however, I argue that we should not understand Spinozistic self-preservation in the commonsense, empiricist sense of prolonging our lives. Instead I argue that, for Spinoza, self-preservation is a (...) matter of perfection-preservation and perfection-enhancement, which does not essentially involve extending the duration of an individual’s existence. (shrink)

Philosophers have devoted a great deal of time and energy to understanding and assessing the metaphysical and epistemological branches of Descartes' and Spinoza's philosophical systems, and deservedly so---they are arguably the most brilliant and innovative metaphysicians and epistemologists of the seventeenth century. The primary aim of this dissertation is to contribute to showing that their brilliance and innovation is also manifested in the ethical branch of their systems. ;Descartes is not known as a moral philosopher, but this reflects the interests (...) of his commentators more than it reflects Descartes' own interests. In his correspondence and in The Passions of the Soul, there is a fully developed theory of virtue. His theory of virtue, I believe, cannot be clearly understood outside the context of his theory of freedom of the will. So, in Chapter One, I present and defend an account of his theory of the will's freedom, and then, in Chapter Two, I examine his theory of virtue within the interpretive framework I develop in Chapter One. An important aim of Chapter Two is to show how his theory of virtue, an ethical doctrine, is connected with his theory of free will, a doctrine belonging to metaphysics. ;Spinoza, unlike Descartes, is known for his work in moral philosophy. But though his ethical views have not suffered the neglect that his predecessor's has, his ethical theory has not been accurately understood. Contrary to the orthodox Hobbesean interpretation, in Chapters Three and Four I construct and defend a rationalist interpretation of Spinoza's ethical theory. Like Plato and Kant and unlike Hobbes and Hume, I argue that, for Spinoza, reason is practical in two important senses: it is a source of motivation and it is a source of ethical prescriptions. (shrink)

This dissertation is a systematic study of Spinoza's ethical system as a virtue ethic. Spinoza's ethical theory has been under-appreciated in this regard and has therefore been virtually ignored by contemporary virtue ethicists who have looked almost exclusively to the ancients as a source of insight regarding the virtues. With my dissertation I aim both to contribute to Spinoza scholarship and to provide an historical resource to contemporary ethicists working in the area of virtue. ;The dissertation can be divided into (...) two parts. The first part, Chapters One thru Four, deals mostly with Spinoza's metaethic and the rudiments of Spinoza's normative ethic. These chapters include a discussion of spinozistic value, the dictates of reason and Spinoza's ethical intellectualism. These chapters lay the foundation for the more explicit discussion of Spinoza's virtue ethic that takes place in Chapters Five thru Seven. In these later chapters I focus on the following questions: To what extent is Spinoza's ethical theory properly a virtue ethic? What is the structure of his virtue ethic? Does it resemble any of the virtue ethics of the ancients? In what sense is, as Spinoza insists, virtue its own reward? Is Spinoza's intellectualist virtue ethic internally cogent? I argue, inter alia, that Spinoza's ethical theory is properly a virtue ethic, that it does differ in interesting ways---particularly methodologically---from most ancient virtue ethics and that Spinoza recognizes three distinct benefits for those who live virtuously. ;In the final chapter I treat what I take to be the central issue regarding the cogency of Spinoza's intellectualist virtue ethic. Does the intellectual state that Spinoza identifies with virtue and advocates cultivating deliver on what it promises in terms of the rewards of virtue? The answer, I argue, is that it does not. However, I further argue that Spinoza's ethical theory is not thereby devastated. There is room for a sympathetic spinozean to remedy this defect. The defect merely reveals that there is significant ethical theorizing, beyond what Spinoza himself provides, that needs to be done. (shrink)

In order to further clarify the meaning of Spinoza’s teachings, I will demonstrate in the following article that, according to the author of the Ethics, God is life, that the conatus, the internal dynamism of all singular things, are the manifestations of the life of God in different degrees, in the infinity of his modes relating to the infinity of his attributes, that virtue, the most perfect form of the conatus in man, is the “true life,” participation in the life (...) of God, accompanied by an adequate consciousness of itself, and finally, that the supreme virtue of the soul which is designated by the theologians’ word “salvation,” the fully joyous consciousness of things, oneself and God, which is accompanied by the idea of God, is the supreme attainment of life tied to the most perfect possible knowledge of the infinite essence of God in its direct relation with the singular essences of things. (shrink)