Ethical Liberation as Empowerment in Spinoza

Aurelia Armstrong (University of Queensland)

It is commonly assumed that Spinoza follows the Stoics in conceiving of ethical liberation as a therapeutic enterprise which aims at human freedom, understood as a mode of acting in which a thing is necessitated by its own power rather than by the action of other things on it. Since to be directed by external forces is to be subject to passions, one would expect Spinoza to endorse the Stoic ideal of virtue as intellectual liberation from the bondage of the passions. Spinoza, however, does not endorse this ideal. Instead, he equates virtue and freedom with a thing’s essential power, which is expressed simultaneously as a capacity to act and to be acted on, to affect and to be affected. While the goal of ethical liberation for Spinoza is to maximize the power to act and think as much as possible, this does not mean minimizing our capacity to be affected by external things. On the contrary, a careful reading of Spinoza’s account of mind-body relations in conjunction with his theory of the affects reveals that optimal development of mental power is achieved by expanding a body’s favorable, empowering contacts with its environment. On this basis, I suggest that Spinoza’s vision of ethical liberation is best understood as a strategy of empowerment. Rather than counseling the elimination of the passions, Spinoza recommends building on and optimizing joyful pleasures and desires as a means by which to increase our power, perfection and virtue.

Aurelia Armstrong teaches philosophy at the University of Queensland. She has published essays on Spinoza, Nietzsche, Foucault, Deleuze, and feminism. She is currently working on a book on Agency and Affect in Spinoza and Nietzsche.