Ethics (Penguin Classics)

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This topic is the subject of ongoing scholarly inquiry—responses to the problem have been proposed by Kisner (2011, 118) and Steinberg (2014)—and it is closely related to the issue (flagged at the outset of this article) that Spinoza’s conception of ethics is in many ways quite different from our own.

If moral qualities were objective, then nothing could have contrary moral qualities at one and the same time.

Spinoza’s argument for ethical egoism in this sense depends upon psychological egoism, and so it may seem reminiscent of Hobbes’ rationale for the similar conclusion that “of the voluntary acts of every man the object is some good to himself” (L I. See: Jonathan Israel, “The Banning of Spinoza's Works in the Dutch Republic (1670–1678)”, in: Wiep van Bunge and Wim Klever (eds.

The fourth part analyzes human passions, which Spinoza sees as aspects of the mind that direct us outwards to seek what gives pleasure and shun what gives pain.

Spinoza’s view, by contrast, is that on account of the force of their passions, people “are often drawn in different directions and are contrary to one another, while they require one another’s aid” (E4p37s2, citations elided), and that these passions can never completely be overcome.

In the long run, Spinoza thinks, irrational affects will be forced to “accommodate themselves” more and more frequently to the rational affects. The prohibition included the owning, reading, distribution, copying, and restating of Spinoza's books, and even the reworking of his fundamental ideas.But by means of carefully arranging the thoughts our passions are associated with in advance, we can ensure that “the wrong, or hate usually arising from [another’s wronging us], will occupy a very small part of the imagination, and will be easily overcome” (ibid).

For this reason, seventeenth-century texts on moral philosophy tend to be more akin to self-help books than to twenty-first century moral philosophy. Man, according to Spinoza, is active or free in so far as any experience is the outcome solely of his own nature; he is passive, or a bondsman, in so far as any experience is due to other causes besides his own nature.Since it often happens that a person wants something and later discovers it really to be undesirable — or even wants something in spite of the fact that he knows it to be undesirable — the distinction is an important one to preserve. In Spinoza’s view, “we always regard [such properties] as present,” and we “always imagine [them] in the same way” (ibid). The author argues that "Schopenhauer's ambivalence toward Spinoza's philosophy is a reflection of an inner tension within his own doctrine of the denial of the will-to-live, and that his criticisms of Spinoza are related to his rejection of the standpoint of affirmation.