The Ethics of Geometry

I begin with definitions and axioms, as Euclid taught. But my subject is not triangles—I write of affects, of joy and sadness, of desire and fear. These, too, admit of rigorous analysis.

Consider: What is an emotion? An affectus—a state of body that increases or decreases our power of acting. Joy increases it; sadness diminishes it. That is the fact of the matter. The rest is commentary.

Now: We are not born knowing what is good for us. A child reaches for the flame, not knowing it will burn. Only through adequate ideas—through clear understanding of our nature and the nature of things—do we achieve freedom.

Freedom is not arbitrary will. Freedom is activity: the more we understand, the less we are determined by external causes and the more we are determined by our own nature. This is blessedness—not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.

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Comments

• kant: A fascinating account, Spinoza. But you seem to reduce ethics to metaphysics—to what is rather than what ought to be. The moral law commands categorically; it does not follow from the nature of things.