Q&A on Western Philosophy

 Explain the foundation of Spinoza’s teaching on Ethics?

For Spinoza, nature admits of no contingency, caprice, or indeterminateness. In fact, man's very idea of free choice is the illusory result of inadequate knowledge. People believe themselves to be free simply because they are conscious of their actions and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined. Man is limited by the confused perception that characterizes inadequate knowledge and, hence, delusively ascribes the adjective "free" to an alleged phenomenon of "choice." According to Spinoza, humans fail to recognize that acts of choice are caused. Spinoza disagrees with those who assert that human actions depend on the will. Much like the intellect, the will is merely "a particular mode of thinking." Whether the will is conceived as finite or infinite, it too "requires a cause by which it should be conditioned to exist and act". Moreover, the will is related to God because it must be conditioned by God to exist and act in a particular manner. A decision is not free (i.e., a decision cannot be the cause of itself). External causes, then, constrain decisions as well. Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of divine nature. Nothing in nature is indeterminate or uncaused. In conclusion, then, human choices are neither uncaused nor arbitrary rather, causes determine the will and, hence, human behaviour can be considered neither changeable nor accidental. Hence, man could not have acted other than he did; no alternative choice and action were even possible.

Therefore, all the mental & physical processes are determined by prior causes. This results of ethics to be in a naturalist way, which means, by not the independent action with respect to the causes but as a result of the causes. Spinoza defines morality as improving our knowledge that leads to happiness. He claims good and evil are beings in reason, which means, they exist in intellect and not in nature. Spinoza claims that an affect which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it. This appears to be a crucial point of this method – since an affect must be a passion in order for it to be a bit of sadness, fear or hate, changing its status from a passion to an action guarantees that it will cease to be fear, hate or any type of sadness at all.

He then says, good and bad are like perfection and imperfection, are modes of being by which we compare one individual to another. The morality is a relative concept, explains that good and bad exist in the way we think but not in the way things are. He also talks about the highest good that is arriving with the others to the enjoyment of this nature. He calls this good the union of the mind with the whole of nature. He defines good as, the perfect being we conceive in our mind and trying to reach to that perfection, and that hinders the perfection is what we call evil. For him, the greatest good is the knowledge of the God. If you know God, you can have mental tranquillity. He also defines, that which gives pleasure is good and which gives pain is bad. True knowledge arouses in us in intellectual love for God.

Finally, Spinoza makes a distinction between essence and existence. Essence is what a thing is. Without essence a thing would not be what it is. Existence means that a thing is. Something can have essence but not have an existence. With God, essence and existence means the same thing. Relating this to good, we tend that the chief good has to do adequate

ideas or our essence, whereas the good that varies has to do with the inadequate knowledge or the existence of particular finite things. Reason or intellect is the essence of mind. Inadequate ideas give rise to our relative idea of good. The chief good remains in the substance (God) that is unchanging.