A striking feature of Spinoza’s analysis of the human emotions (affectiones), which is the subject of the third part of the Ethics, is its thoroughgoing naturalism. We have already seen this naturalism at work in connection with his analysis of the cognitive capacity of the mind, his mechanistic account of imagination and association, and his Hobbes-inspired rejection of the will in E2. He reaffirms it in the preface to E3, claiming that “the way of understanding the nature of anything, of whatever kind, must … be the same, viz. through the universal laws and rules of Nature.”

Spinoza’s Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (Ethics Demonstrated in a Geometrical Manner) is a notoriously difficult and forbidding book. Both its unfamiliar scholastic terminology and the geometrical manner in which its argument is presented provide formidable barriers to even the philosophically trained reader, and undoubtedly help to explain the great diversity of ways in which it has been interpreted. Thus, rather than plunging immediately into the argument of the work, I shall attempt to sketch the historical context in which Spinoza wrote and, in light of this, to introduce the central themes of his philosophy, or at least those dealt with in the Ethics. This will be the task of the present chapter, which is intended to provide the context for the more systematic and detailed analysis contained in the following five chapters.

In the previous chapter we considered the political portion of the TTP, but the main import of the work and the basis of its great influence was its theological component, particularly its views regarding the interpretation of the Bible. The close connection between political and theological considerations is to be understood in light of the political situation in post-Reformation Europe, where political conflicts were closely intertwined with confessional ones and the toleration of those who did not adhere to the established Church in a particular state was a contentious issue. In Protestant states such as the United Provinces of the Netherlands, aka the Dutch Republic, this meant that the interpretation of the Bible played an outsized role, since, in contrast with Roman Catholic states, where supreme religious authority was placed in the teachings of the Church, the Bible was regarded as the sole basis of Christian faith.

Baruch (also called Bento) de Spinoza was born in the city of Amsterdam on November 24, 1632.1 His parents (Michael and Hanna) were members of the community of Jewish immigrants from Portugal, who had been living in the Netherlands since 1593. This community was composed largely of descendants of the Marranos, also called “New Christians” or “crypto-Jews,” which were the names given to the originally Spanish Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity by the Inquisition in the late fifteenth century. After their “conversion,” which was usually, but not always, merely nominal, many of these Jews had risen to positions of great prominence in the intellectual, economic, political, and even ecclesiastical life of Spain. But precisely because of their success they were again persecuted by the Inquisition and expelled from the country. The first stop in this new diaspora was nearby Portugal, where, even from the beginning, life was far from pleasant.

Spinoza’s moral theory, or, as it is sometimes dubbed, “the ethics of the Ethics,”1 is best characterized as a form of “virtue ethic,” since its fundamental category is virtue rather than duty or obligation, which are central to deontological theories such as Kant’s. It is contained in its fourth part, which has the daunting albeit somewhat misleading title, “Of Human Bondage, or the Powers of the Affects.” As one might expect, it is grounded in the naturalist program of the preceding three parts, which culminates in the psychological egoism embedded in the conatus doctrine. Spinoza characterizes the nature of his project in a scholium to E4p18. Having presented his account of human bondage, understood as slavery to the passions in the first eighteen propositions, which explains why the title is only somewhat misleading, Spinoza abruptly shifts gear and turns to a consideration of “what reason prescribes to us, which affects agree with the rules of human reason, and which … are contrary to these rules.

The first part of the Ethics, entitled “Concerning God,” is devoted to an analysis of the nature of God and to the delineation of the main outlines of the relationship between God and the world. It contains Spinoza’s analysis of the basic structure of reality and his criticisms of the Judeo-Christian or, more broadly, theistic conception of God as an omnipotent and omniscient personal being, who freely created the world for the sake of certain ends, which prominently includes the welfare of human beings. The argument, which, like that of every part of the Ethics, is preceded by a set of definitions and axioms, can be broken down into three parts, supplemented by an appendix dealing with final causes, which was discussed in the preceding chapter. Accordingly, the present chapter will be divided into three parts, corresponding to the three parts of Spinoza’s argument.

The fifth and final part of the Ethics is entitled “On the Power of the Intellect, or on Human Freedom.” The title reflects Spinoza’s relativized conception of human freedom, understood as control of the passions by the intellect. As the title suggests, it is intended to complement the fourth part, the full title of which is “On Human Bondage, or the Powers of the Affects.” Like E4, E5 is divided into two radically distinct parts, only the first of which is indicated by the title. The first part (E5p1–p20) provides an account of how and the extent to which human reason is able to control the passions and achieve the kind of freedom of which human beings are capable, insofar as they live according to the guidance of reason, which I have characterized as autocracy, while the second part (E5p21–p40) is concerned with the state of blessedness or beatitude (beatitudo), which, as the term suggests, is for Spinoza at once the condition of victory in the struggle with the passions and his rationalistic-naturalistic counterpart to the traditional religious conception of blessedness.

We have learned from the Ethics that, despite their conatus or fundamental drive for self-preservation, human beings for Spinoza are essentially social animals, and, as such, they can achieve, peace, security, and freedom (as autocracy) only in association with others. We have also learned, however, that these same human beings are, at best, imperfectly rational. Indeed, according to Spinoza, the great majority of them are hardly rational at all, since they are governed by their passions rather than reason, which entails that they cannot live in society with one another unless they are subjected to a common set of laws and a sovereign power to enforce them. Human society, in other words, is possible only in a state. But the problem is that, inasmuch as this subjection presupposes a high degree of socialization, this seems to preclude the possibility of achieving the very freedom that requires socialization.

In his brief preface to the second part of the Ethics, entitled “On the Nature and Origin of the Mind,” Spinoza writes.