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Spinoza and Ethical Subjectivism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Ruth Mattern
Ruth Mattern*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

A puzzling feature of Spinoza's discussion of the good is that it takes place on two different levels whose compatibility seems uncertain. He advances a view of the nature of ascriptions of “good” to certain individual things, but he also devotes a large part of the Ethics to recommending a particular conception of the good person. The first theory appears to undermine the force of the second. For Spinoza's view of ascriptions of “good” to any objects apparently leads in the direction of subjectivism; what is good from one person's viewpoint may be bad for another's, and no viewpoint is privileged. Yet a subjectivist view of ascriptions of good would mix poorly with Spinoza's own presentation of a standard for human conduct; he himself voices a view of human good which he takes to be more than just another sound in the chorus of ethical opinions. Professor E.M. Curley expresses concern with such a difficulty in his recent article “Spinoza's Moral Philosophy: “

The greater portion of Spinoza's ethical theory is devoted not to metaethics, but to normative athics. not to the analysis of ethical judgments, but to the making of ethical judgments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 4: New Essays on Rationalism and Empiricism , 1978 , pp. 59 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1978

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Footnotes

*

I have benefited from very helpful comments by Professors E.M. Curley, William B. Frankena, Thomas C. Mark, and Margaret D. Wilson. Margaret Wilson's encouragement and criticism of many previous drafts were invaluable. Many of my ideas evolved considerably in correspondence with Thomas Mark; especially the section “Is Goodness a Matter of Taste?” owes much to his disagreement with my earlier interpretations. I also profited from reading an unpublished paper by John I.G. Campbell.

References

1 Curley, E.M., “Spinoza's Moral Philosophy,” pp. 355-6Google Scholar. This article is found only in Grene, Marjorie (ed.), Spinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press — Doubleday, 1973).Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 366.

3 Ibid., pp. 355-61.

4 Ibid., p. 358.

5 Ibid., p. 359.

6 Ibid., p. 355.

7 Ibid., p. 363.

8 Ibid., p. 363.

9 Ibid., p. 355.

10 Ibid., p. 355.

11 Ibid., p. 361.

12 Spinoza, Ethics, Preface to Part IV. English translation by White in Wild, John (ed.), Spinoza Selections (N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930), p. 285.Google Scholar latin text in Vloten, J. Van and Land, J.P.N. (eds.), Benedicti de Spinoza: Opera Quotquot Reperta Sunt (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, MCMXIII), Vol. I, p. 184.Google Scholar

13 Curley, op. cit., p. 356.

14 Spinoza, Ethics Part III, Scholium to Proposition 9.

15 Curley, op. cit., p. 363.

16 Spinoza, Short Treatise, Chapter X. Wild, op. cit., pp. 82-3.

17 Ibid., p. 82.

18 Spinoza, Ethics, Preface to Part IV. Wild, op. cit., pp. 284-5. Van Vloten and Land, op. cit., pp. 183-4.

19 Spinoza, Short Treatise, Chapter X. Wild, op. cit., p. 82.

20 Ibid., p. 83.

21 Ibid., p. 83.

22 Spinoza, Ethics, Part II Proposition 40, Scholium 1. Wild, op. cit., p. 185. Van Vloten and Land, op. cit., p. 105.

23 For example, see the Preface to Part IV of the Ethics, Wild op. cit., p. 286; Van Vloten and Land, op. cit., p. 184.

24 Spinoza, Ethics, Part II Definition 6.

25 Ibid., Preface to Part IV. Wild. op. cit., p. 286. Van Vloten and Land. op. cit., p. 184.

26 This strand in Spinoza's thought leads to the possibility of applying standards of perfection not only to humans, but also to non-human natural objects. Though Curley does not acknowledge it, his own revised interpretation really leads to such a consequence. Curley explains that Spinoza's non-arbitrary standard for human perfection depends on the claim that Man necessarily endeavors, insofar as he can, to persevere in his being, i.e. that it is absolutely impossible that he should not so endeavor. (Curley, op. cit., p. 376) But such claims, Curley admits, are in the Ethics “stated as very general ones governing all individuals, and are not limited to stating something about men“ (Curley, p. 367). Spinoza claims quite generally that “each thing, insofar as it can, endeavors to persevere in its being” (Ethics Part Ill Prop. 6). The essential feature of humans which is stressed by Curley, the fact that each individual endeavors to persevere in his being, is not a feature of an individual qua human. It is a quality of any individual of any kind whatsoever.

The universality of the endeavor for self-preservation compels one to say that the standard of perfection delineated by this endeavor is not an idea of this species in particular. It is more plausible to identify it with the general idea of being to which Spinoza refers in the Preface to Part IV of the Ethics. Curley himself would protest at this point that Spinoza speaks of the general idea of being as confused, and so no better off than the confused ideas of the ordinary man. (Curley makes this claim on pages 365-6). However, Spinoza does endorse the use of the general idea of being as a standard of perfection in the Preface to Part IV of the Ethics. Also, as Thomas Mark has pointed out to me, Spinoza's apparent attack on the confused concept of being at Ethics Part II, Scholium to Proposition 40, is only an attack on universal ideas derived from images.

The fact that the endeavor to preserve one's being is not a feature peculiar to humans should lead Curley to take more seriously the suggestion that the general idea of being is for Spinoza an important non-arbitrary standard of perfection. But taking this aspect of Spinoza's thought seriously requires a further modification of Curley's initial characterization of the metaethics. For Curley assumes that the general ideas involved in judgments of perfection must be ideas of specific kinds (Curley, pp. 357-9). Though the ordinary man might use such ideas in his value judgments, an account of Spinoza's metaethics should not build in this requirement but should allow for the use of the general idea of being in judgments of perfection.

27 Spinoza, Ethics, Part I Appendix, Wild, op. cit., p. 142. Van Vloten and Land, op. cit., pp. 71-2.

28 Spinoza, Ethics, Preface to Part IV. Wild, op. cit., p. 285. Van Vloten and land, op. cit., p. 184.

29 Spinoza, Ibid., p. 285. Van Vloten and land, op. cit., p. 184.

30 Spinoza, Ethics, Part IV, Proof of Proposition 59.

31 Spinoza, Short Treatise, Chapter X. Wild, op. cit., pp. 82-3.

32 Curley, op. cit., p. 371.

33 Spinoza, Ethics, Part IV, Proposition 21.

34 Ibid., Part IV, Corollary to Proposition 22.

35 Ibid., Part IV, Appendix Proposition 5.

36 Ibid., Part IV, Appendix Proposition 4.

37 Ibid., Part IV, Scholium to Proposition 20.

38 Ibid., Part IV, Scholium to Proposition 20.

39 See Spinoza, Ethics Part II, Proposition 11.

40 Ibid., Part V, Proposition 31.

41 Ibid., Part V, Proposition 20.

42 Ibid., Part IV, Proposition 26.

43 Ibid., Part IV, Proof of Proposition 26.

44 Curley, op. cit., p. 369.

45 Spinoza, Ethics Part IV, Proposition 26.

46 Ibid., Part IV, Proof of Proposition 25.

47 See Spinoza, Ethics, Part IV, Proposition 4.

48 Ibid., Part Ill, Scholium to Proposition 11; Part Ill, The Affects Proposition 2.

49 Curley, op. cit., p. 368 n. 17.

50 Spinoza, Ethics Part V, Proof of Proposition 38.

51 Ibid., Part V, Scholium to Proposition 38.

52 Ibid., Part V, Proposition 42.

53 Ibid., Part V, Scholium to Proposition 29.

54 Ibid., Part IV, Proof of Proposition 26.

55 See Spinoza, Ethics Part Ill, Proposition 1, and Part Ill, Proposition 3.

56 Curley, op. cit., p. 356.

57 Spinoza, Ethics Part IV, Definition 1; emphasis added.

58 Ibid., Preface to Part IV. Wild, op. cit., p. 285. Van Vloten and Land, op. cit., p. 184.

59 Spinoza, Ethics Part Ill, Scholium to Proposition 9.

60 William B. Frankena, “Spinoza's ‘New Morality,'” in Maurice Mandelbaum and Eugene Freeman, Spinoza: Essays in Interpretation (Open Court, 1975), p. 99 n. 12.

61 Spinoza, Ethics Part IV, Proposition 8.

62 Ibid., Part III, Scholium to Proposition 11.

63 Ibid., Part IV, Proof of Proposition 35.

64 Ibid., Part IV, Proposition 8.

65 Ibid., Part IV, Appendix Proposition 5, and Appendix Proposition 8.