Andrew Youpa

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.

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.,..