Ethics (Penguin Classics)

Product Information

Spinoza, in numerous passages in the Ethics and earlier works, denies that there are any such moral qualities. This should be borne in mind when we turn, in section 3, to considering Spinoza’s account of how to overcome our passions. Likewise, to be virtuous is simply to have and to exercise the power to do what is in our nature, and (as per the conatus doctrine) what is in your nature is to seek your own advantage as far as you are able (E4d8; 4p20). This change of description was not intended to deny that Extension and Thought are substances in the sense of being self-existent, etc.

At the lowest stage of knowledge, that of "opinion", man is under the dominant influence of things outside himself, and so is in the bondage of the passions. It is worth noting that although the view that we should strive to diminish the strength of our emotions has a very Stoic ring to it, he expressly distances himself from the Stoics. Spinoza next links up his ethics with his theory of knowledge, and correlates the moral progress of man with his intellectual progress. The cosmic system is certainly a logical or rational system, according to Spinoza, for Thought is a constitutive part of it; but it is not merely a logical system — it is dynamic as well as logical. Actions of the mind are adequate ideas, which increase its power of acting, while passions of the mind are inadequate, confused ideas, which decrease its power of acting.

At the close of the 18th century, a controversy centering on the Ethics scandalized the German philosophy scene. This definition connects the passions to his theory of ideas, since all passions are confused ideas. Spinoza's contemporary, Simon de Vries, raised the objection that Spinoza fails to prove that substances may possess multiple attributes, but that if substances have only a single attribute, "where there are two different attributes, there are also different substances". Sin, therefore, is nothing but disobedience…” (E4p37s2, G II/238); “A wrong occurs when a citizen or subject is forced to suffer some injury at the hands of another…contrary to the edict of the sovereign power” ( TTP Ch. Since Spinoza holds that to exist is to act, some readers take 'extension' to refer to an activity characteristic of bodies (for example, the active process of taking up space, exercising physical power, or resisting a change of place or shape).

However, Spinoza has a bit more to say about morality beyond his claim that it is constituted by the pursuit of knowledge of God and the desire to do good for others. This view was simpler; it avoided the impossible conception of creation out of nothing; and it was religiously more satisfying by bringing God and man into closer relationship.

Therefore, moral qualities are not objective, in the sense that they “indicate nothing positive in things, considered in themselves” (ibid).

He also endorsed a version of ethical egoism, according to which everyone ought to seek their own advantage; and, just as it did for Thomas Hobbes, this in turn led him to develop a version of contractarianism. He holds the perspective that the conclusion he presents is merely the necessary logical result of combining the provided Definitions and Axioms.This family of concepts, which includes moral and aesthetic concepts along with concepts of sensible qualities, Spinoza holds to be produced by the imagination rather than reason. In his view, these character traits are not really virtues even if they do occasionally cause us to pursue the good, for they are only accidentally connected to the pursuit of the good. His reason for this is their belief “that the emotions depended absolutely on our will, and that we could absolutely govern them” (E5pref), which Spinoza thinks involves a misunderstanding of the structure and powers of the human mind.