Andrew Youpa

The person of Spinozistic _fortitudo_ takes intelligent care of himself, which is to possess the virtue of tenacity, and he takes intelligent care of others, which is to possess the virtue of nobility. The person of _fortitudo_ is a friend to himself and he is a friend to others. This chapter examines Spinoza’s theory of nobility and the central role of friendship in his conception of the empowered life. The author argues that nobility is a distinct type of love. Nobility is empowered love. Essential to empowered love is the desire to help and befriend others, and he shows that helping others is about empowering others to live joyously and lovingly. The most important way to help others to live in this way is through education. Moreover, education, in Spinoza’s view, is a social project, and the author highlights three ways that it is social. Finally, the chapter shows how Spinozistic friendship and the virtue of courtesy (_modestia_) prepare us for a life of learning.

Everyone at times experiences intense passive emotions and, specifically, experiences intense types of sadness. This is unavoidable. Spinoza’s view is that we need not and should not surrender to a life of passivity and unhappiness. Although invulnerability is impossible, we can achieve a robust level of self-determination and happiness. We can take care of ourselves and have good lives. But taking care of oneself is something to be achieved. This chapter shows that Spinozistic tenacity is the intelligent care of oneself through hardship, setbacks, and misfortune. It is empowered self-love. It is _empowered_ self-love because, as a species of strength of character, it is both a type of intelligence and a form of strength and resilience.

There is a debate among scholars about whether human beings in Spinoza’s view can be free and about the precise conception of freedom that is relevant to human agents, finite modes of God-or-Nature that we are. For Spinoza, something can be said to be free insofar as it is an adequate cause of its existence and operations. A thing is unfree insofar as it is an inadequate cause of its existence and operations. The question is: Is it possible for human beings to be adequate causes of any effects whatsoever? This chapter argues that human beings can be adequate causes and therefore can be free. In addition to a discussion of freedom in section 1, section 2 argues that the free human, the model of human nature, is not an impossibly distant ideal but, rather, a better version of actual human beings that we can attain.

Spinoza maintains that knowledge of God is the mind’s greatest good (4p28). This chapter addresses two questions concerning Spinoza’s account of the _summum mentis bonum_. First, in what way is knowledge of God related to emotions and desires and to the evaluative judgments that result from emotions and desires? The author argues that, for Spinoza, knowledge is, or is invariably accompanied by, an enhancement of power, and that as an enhancement of power knowledge is a type of joy. It is not the case that knowledge, in Spinoza’s view, is motivationally inert. The second question the chapter addresses is whether the goodness of knowledge of God is on a par with the goodness of such things as food, shelter, sporting activities, and theater while differing from these sorts of things only in degree. The author argues that the goodness of knowledge of God qualitatively differs from the goodness of food, shelter (etc.). Unlike the derivative goodness of human deeds and of spatially external objects, the goodness of knowledge of God is underivative.

Having examined the foundation of Spinoza’s moral philosophy in the previous four chapters, in this chapter the author begins to flesh out Spinoza’s moral philosophy. He argues that Spinoza is committed to the underivative goodness of human wellness and the underivative badness of human illness. He shows that such goodness is naturalistic in a sense that makes it a precursor to contemporary sciences that deal with physical and mental health. And he elaborates the specific type of axiological ambiguity and complexity to which Spinoza’s naturalism leads by outlining his hierarchical system of classification of emotions, a hierarchy based on whether a type of emotion is indefeasibly good, defeasibly good, indefeasibly bad, or defeasibly bad. This system of classification, in turn, undergirds the classification of desires as indefeasibly good, defeasibly good, indefeasibly bad, or defeasibly bad.

In addition to the goodness and badness of wellness and illness, Spinoza has things to say about the goodness and badness of types of actions and about such things as food, music, sporting activities, and knowledge of God. This chapter continues to flesh out his moral philosophy. To avoid confusion with “action” in Spinoza’s technical sense of the word (3D2), the author uses “deed” when speaking of actions in our ordinary sense. By “deed” is meant an individual’s voluntary behavior—that is, behavior that results from an individual’s desires, emotions, and beliefs regardless of whether the desires and emotions are active or passive and regardless of whether the beliefs are adequate or inadequate. In contrast with the underivative goodness of wellness and the underivative badness of illness, this chapter shows that Spinoza is committed to the derivative goodness and derivative badness of deeds and of spatially external objects.

It is undeniable that the _Ethics_ contains seemingly incompatible claims about the nature of goodness and badness. The text presents its share of challenges to anyone who sets out to construct a coherent interpretation of Spinoza’s moral philosophy. It is not a surprise that these difficulties have led scholars to interpretations that do not agree on every detail. This chapter focuses on what in the author’s judgment is a major difficulty for a charitable interpretation of Spinoza’s theory of goodness and badness and then he examines Michael LeBuffe’s way of meeting this challenge, a way that constitutes an alternative to the moral realist reading defended in chapter 3.

This chapter shows that Spinoza is committed to a type of moral realism. By “moral realism” is meant a theory of the way of life that is best for us as human beings, a theory based on a view on which good and bad are objective properties. By “objective property” is meant a property whose instance(s) does (do) not directly depend on anyone’s desires, emotions, or beliefs about its existence and nature. The author argues that, for Spinoza, the properties of goodness and badness are objective properties. Instances of goodness do not directly depend on someone’s desires, emotions, and beliefs about the existence and nature of goodness. The same holds for badness. His argument for this reading hinges on the conception of human nature that Spinoza appeals to in his definition of “virtue” (4D8). This conception of human nature serves as the foundation for the objectivity of the properties of goodness and badness, and the author contends that it is this that makes Spinoza a type of moral realist.

This chapter argues that because emotions symptomatically represent changes in power, emotions carry information about the status of an individual’s power. Emotions, in Spinoza’s view, carry axiological information. Emotive information is “axiological” in the sense that it is information about the goodness and badness of the state of an individual’s power of acting. Increases in power and decreases in power are not psychologically and ethically equal. It is not the case that an increase in an individual’s power is psychologically and ethically no better and no worse than a decrease in power. On the contrary, an increase in power in part of an individual is, other things equal, better than a decrease in power, and an increase in power as a whole is invariably better than a decrease in power. The author also argues that, for Spinoza, increases and decreases in power are not psychologically and ethically neutral or indifferent. An increase in an individual’s power as a whole is a genuine enhancement of his nature, whereas a decrease in power as a whole is a genuine impairment of his nature.

This chapter shows that Spinoza believes that an episode of emotion represents a change in the power of the subject’s body in the way that a symptom represents that of which it is symptomatic. On the reading here defended, some emotions symptomatically represent increases in the power of the subject’s body. Others symptomatically represent decreases in power. Regardless of whether it is symptomatic of an increase or a decrease, an episode of an emotion _qua_ mental item is symptomatic of the state of the power of acting of the subject’s body, and an emotion serves as a symptom in virtue of its qualitative character. It represents a change in power by virtue of the way it feels to experience an emotion. While an episode of the qualitative character of joy signals an increase in the body’s power, an episode of the qualitative character of sadness signals a decrease in its power.

Spinoza’s moral philosophy is trending. This is the fourth book written in English in six years devoted to various aspects of it; that may not qualify as viral, but it is progress. The volume’s five essays cover moral responsibility, akrasia, moral realism, and Spinoza’s model of human nature: the free man. Hence its subtitle is misleading. There is nothing uniquely contemporary about the issues discussed, as is evident from the essays themselves. Also, the moral problems are not the type one might expect. You will not find an analysis of Spinoza’s position on the moral status of non-human animals, for example. What you will find is an effort to bring Spinoza into contemporary debates. In their introduction...

The official definitions that appear at the beginning of four of the five parts of the "Ethics" do not include an account of "existence." However Spinoza does provide a definition of “existence” in the scholium to proposition 45 of Part 2. This is an odd place for such an important doctrine, and all the more so given that the account there differs from anything resembling commonsense. In this paper I show that, for Spinoza, to exist is to be eternal. Existence in the strict sense is eternal existence.

Andrew Youpa - Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.1 125-126 Franklin Perkins. Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 224. Cloth, $65.00. In his Leibniz and China, Franklin Perkins undertakes two main tasks. The first is historical: to illuminate Leibniz's nearly lifelong interest in China within the context of early modern Europe as well as within Leibniz's own moral, scientific, and religious concerns. The second task is philosophical: to show that Leibniz's interest is not accidental—that his "openness to China is not an accident of his experience or personality but flows naturally from his philosophy". Specifically, Perkins aims to show that, unlike the philosophies of some of his prominent predecessors and contemporaries (viz.,..

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.

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

On the basis of 3p9s and 3p39s of the Ethics, it might seem that, for Spinoza, a judgment about something's goodness or badness is motivationally inert and, moreover, that value judgments essentially reflect an individual's pre-existing motivational states. However, in this paper I show that Spinoza holds that under certain conditions a motivational state results from a value judgment. Spinoza's theory of motivation consists of two accounts of the psychological order of value judgments and motivational states: an account of their order in those in bondage as well as an account of their order in those who are free.

What is the function of Cartesian virtue within the motivational and cognitive economy of the soul? In this paper I show that Cartesian virtue is a higher-order motivational disposition. Central to the interpretation I defend is Descartes’s view that the will can govern an individual’s attention. An exercise of this capacity, I argue, is a higher-order operation. Because Cartesian virtue is a resolution to focus attention on what reason deems worthy of consideration, it should therefore be understood as a higher-order disposition. To lay the groundwork for this interpretation, I examine Descartes’s theory of motivation. An examination of the sources of Cartesian motivation yields two important points for my reading: (1) that the will is not completely unconstrained in its operations and (2) that there are three sources of motivation: intellectual clarity, the will, and the passions. I show that virtue strengthens the will’s natural disposition toward intellectual clarity, thereby enabling the will to withstand the occasionally harmful sway of the passions. By strengthening the will’s disposition toward clarity, virtue at the same time safeguards the will’s freedom, enables an individual to will what seems best, and, as a result, ensures the individual’s happiness. It carries this out, I contend, insofar as it is a higher-order motivational disposition, a disposition exercised by the person of generosity.