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80. - Good and Evil

from G

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Steven Nadler
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

Spinoza consistently maintained throughout his philosophical career that the terms “good” (bonum) and “bad” (malum) do not refer to intrinsic (non-relational), absolute features of things in the world. There are no individuals or objects or states of affairs in nature that, in and of themselves and without relationship to anything else, are good or bad. As Spinoza states in the Preface to Part Four of the Ethics, “as far as good and evil are concerned, they also indicate nothing positive in things, considered in themselves” (ii/208).

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Chapter
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The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 211 - 217
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Bennett, J. (1984). A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics. Hackett .Google Scholar
Kisner, M. J. (2010). Perfection and desire: Spinoza on the good. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 91, 97–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattern, R. (1978). Spinoza and ethical subjectivism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 8 (Supplement 1), 59–82.Google Scholar
Nadler, S. (2019). Spinoza’s values: Joy, desire, and good in the Ethics. In Naaman-Zauderer, N. (ed.), Freedom, Action, and Motivation in Spinoza’s Ethics (pp. 174–97). Routledge.Google Scholar
Scribano, E. (2012). La connaissance du bien et du mal: Du court traité à l’Éthique. In Jacquet, C. and Moreau, P.-F. (eds.), Spinoza transalpin: Les interprétations actuelles en Italie (pp. 59–78). Publications de la Sorbonne.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Youpa, A. (2010). Spinoza’s theories of value. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 18, 209–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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