Graag wijs ik weer eens op master-thesis over Spinoza – deze van
Ellen
Sandum, Ethics and Freedom within
Spinoza's system of necessary determinism. Master Thesis in Philosophy,
University of Oslo. May 15th 2012 [PDF]
Wel
aardig vond ik dat ze, na het bedanken van haar studiebegeleider en haar
partner, ook Spinoza bedankt.
Om
een indruk te geven hier haar inleiding en daarna haar slotalinea.
Introduction
Benedict
de Spinoza (1632-1672) was a rationalist philosopher which in his main work,
the Ethics, used a geometrical
method to show that we
can arrive at truths about the world following postulated definitions, axioms
and propositions. Spinoza held that from his propositions, substance monism and
parallelism of mind and body would follow as something logical necessary, and
that the implications of that in turn had importance for ethics and practical
philosophy. Spinoza rejected any notion of an anthropomorphic God, and
identified God with Nature: Deus sive Natura. In nature, causes and effects are
necessary, and this is an important cornerstone in Spinoza's universe; since
everything according to Spinoza is part of, or follows from, a necessary causal
chain, everything is in a way necessary.
Necessarianism
is stronger than determinism (even in its strictest form), because a strict
determinist would allow that the causal chains constituting the world could
have been different as
a whole, even though each member of the chain could not have been different,
given its antecedent causes.
Whether
Spinoza is seen as a necessitarian or a determinist will bring about important
implications for how we interpret and understand his ethical project as a
whole. There are reasons to believe that Spinoza is to be seen as a
necessetarian. Understanding Spinoza's modal metaphysics, i.e. his basic ideasand
metaphysical framework regarding necessity and possibility, is crucial to later
on be able to say something about what this means for his ethical project,
morality, agency and prospects of living well.
Given
the rigid framework of ontological necessity and the unquestionable rejection
of free will we are presented with in the Ethics from first part and onwards, several
questions are raised. The text more than just implies that we are not agents in
the traditional sense; given that everything is necessary and nothing is
contingent (EIp29), our common understanding of being free agents are put to
the test. Even if we accept the premise of necessity, does it have to mean the
end for concepts like voluntary actions, responsibility, intentionality and
autonomy, concepts that often define how we understand free agency?
Spinoza
ties the subject of determinism up to mental causality and defends the position
of parallelism. His idea is that the physical is determined, the mental is
determined, and thus he postulates a sort of oneto-one correlation between
mental and physical items. Everything physical has a correlating ''mental idea''.
The mental sphere that is determined parallels the determined physical sphere.
This
master’s thesis will also deal with questions regarding Spinoza’s views on
determinism and mental causality. Mental causality regards the idea that the
mental acts causally upon the physical world and whether it can be cause for
human agency. How we understand ''the mental'' (and also ''the physical'') in this
context is important. Whether it is seen as a set of properties, events or a
vocabulary, it’s associated with intentionality, feelings and qualia, but is
also closely related to how we think of morality. It is many people’s clear
intuition that the moment the notion of mentality is threatened, free will,
responsibility, and thus morality is immediately in a position under pressure.
In many ways it may seem like the old question of free will versus determinism.
I will argue that, following Spinoza, we should and can allow room for
responsibility and morality – concepts often related to freedom – even in our
defending determinism. True Freedom is in fact one of Spinoza’s main goals.
This means I will discuss the compatibilism in Spinoza's thoughts, and show how
he defines true freedom as something compatible with determinism and necessity.
I'll
argue that despite Spinoza’s strict determined
world view, human
agency (which is often
seen as standing in discrepancy to Spinoza’s necessitarianism) is different
from what it would have been when postulating radical freedom
of the will,
but still not at all so restricted (or eliminated) in Spinoza's thought as one
may think. We can rather postulate a sort of self-determinism, and I will consider and conclude
that a natural consequence of this rejection of free will is not any amoral
mayhem, or cancellation of responsibility for ones actions. Rather it
contributes to the formation of a (moral) selfidentity where one understands
that our minds with its thoughts and ideas are causally necessary, and can be
acted upon like any other cause and effect. Several reflections is thus
involved in this. As I will show, we need to be aware of questions like ‘What
is my nature?’, ‘What does my nature strive for’, and this can, in turn, answer
questions of goals in life (or if there are any, given Spinoza’s rejection of teleology),
of the related meaning in life, and of what we ought to do. Spinoza was
influenced by the scholastics and it has an undeniable Aristotelian association
to it. Arête is the virtue of functioning in the best
possible manner in tune with one’s nature; and, likewise, to live at best as
human being can be seen directly connected to the goal of the Ethics.
God's essence is
to be cause of itself, and it is in its nature to be its own nature completely.
The human essence is in a way to strive for the same thing. What are the goal
and the meaning when we strive towards being most fully
our nature?
Are there any oughts, or is it just is?
Tot
slot haar laatste alinea:
I
think like Wolfson that Spinoza has a great deal of important insights to offer
us, and as I have argued, his moderate necessitarianism shows us that there is
still room for ways we might live, that we in fact can steer ourselves in one
direction rather than another, and that when we truly understands something it
becomes a necessary part of what we want to do. In that way we can make free
humans of ourselves, and this is compatible with a necessary determined world.
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