Fascinating. It is starting to sound like the Luther-Erasmus debate, with Spinoza playing the role of Luther.
This point by Spinoza gets at the heart of his view: "In my Ethics, which I still haven't managed to publish, I show that this longing for virtue in the righteous springs with necessity from the clear knowledge they have of themselves and God."
Good action is the result of knowledge, and follows necessarily from it. In this way good action and necessity are compatible.
A consequence seems to be that all bad action is involuntary or the result of ignorance. If evil is equated with blameworthy action, and ignorance mitigates blame, one could say that moral evil is illusory, explicable if we knew more about the agent's situation, motives, and history.
Or perhaps it could be reframed to say that there is no such thing as real ignorance, only less knowledge. The less knowledge they have the less likely their actions are good, except accidentally, since good action “springs from clear knowledge of themselves and God”.
Ignorance then is all the blank spaces, all the imperfection or holes in knowledge within people. Think of a window that is caked in dirt; on one side is the sun (representing knowledge) but its light is blocked in whole or part by the dirt on the window; on the other side is the “ignorant” person who is in the shadow of the window.
When a spot on the window is cleaned, that opens the way to some knowledge. As more of the window is cleaned, knowledge and understanding increases.
So is a person blameworthy if they refuse to clean even a spot on the window, or they may even prefer to cover up a clean spot to block light since knowing brings discomfort or unwanted responsibility. Does ignorance still mitigate blame? Where does the will to act fit in, or does even that depend on knowledge or its absence?
Fascinating. It is starting to sound like the Luther-Erasmus debate, with Spinoza playing the role of Luther.
This point by Spinoza gets at the heart of his view: "In my Ethics, which I still haven't managed to publish, I show that this longing for virtue in the righteous springs with necessity from the clear knowledge they have of themselves and God."
Good action is the result of knowledge, and follows necessarily from it. In this way good action and necessity are compatible.
A consequence seems to be that all bad action is involuntary or the result of ignorance. If evil is equated with blameworthy action, and ignorance mitigates blame, one could say that moral evil is illusory, explicable if we knew more about the agent's situation, motives, and history.
Or perhaps it could be reframed to say that there is no such thing as real ignorance, only less knowledge. The less knowledge they have the less likely their actions are good, except accidentally, since good action “springs from clear knowledge of themselves and God”.
Ignorance then is all the blank spaces, all the imperfection or holes in knowledge within people. Think of a window that is caked in dirt; on one side is the sun (representing knowledge) but its light is blocked in whole or part by the dirt on the window; on the other side is the “ignorant” person who is in the shadow of the window.
When a spot on the window is cleaned, that opens the way to some knowledge. As more of the window is cleaned, knowledge and understanding increases.
So is a person blameworthy if they refuse to clean even a spot on the window, or they may even prefer to cover up a clean spot to block light since knowing brings discomfort or unwanted responsibility. Does ignorance still mitigate blame? Where does the will to act fit in, or does even that depend on knowledge or its absence?