Lord, Beth:
Spinoza on Natural Inequality and the Ficton of Moral Equality

In: Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment.  / Ducheyne, Steffen (Hrsg./Ed.). - London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017: [127]-142.

Contains bibliography: 141-142

Literature type: Articles
Language: English
Thematic areas: Anthropology / psychology / doctrine of affections / body and mind, Ethics, Philosophy of politics and law
Subject: E, TP, TTP

Complete bibliographic evaluation: yes
Autopsy: yes
English commentary: "For Spinoza, there is no continuity of 'natural equality' between the state of Nature and the civil state: instead there is a continuity of 'natural rights', which is fundamentally inequal... Similarly, equality is not invariably good on Spinoza's view. The forms of equality that feature the state of Nature are bad for human flourishing: the roughly equal, but universally low, levels of reason and freedom that human beings can attain in a state not designed for their advantage... Crucially, moral equality is an imaginary produced in and by the civil state: the moral equality of persons is not a grounding assumption of a Spinozian democracy... Spinoza is unique among Enlightenment philosophers in rejecting any soul or rational capacity that would render us morally equal and replacing it with natural power that renders us fundamentally unequal. It is this, and not the purported egalitarism that Israel attributes to him, that makes Spinoza truly radical" (pp. 138-139).URL: http://Google Books

Link to this page: http://spinoza.hab.de/detail.php?id=18834&LANG=EN