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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Liberalism (Spinoza)
Message-ID: <366@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 20:52:20 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.366
Posted: Fri Mar 14 20:52:20 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Mar-86 22:28:45 EST
References: <361@gargoyle.UUCP><1395@mtuxo.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 98

Adam Reed writes:

>Of the other two names on the list - Hobbes and Spinoza - neither
>qualifies as a Liberal.... Spinoza held that individual will, and thus
>individual freedom, was an illusion. His pantheistic metaphysics led
>to an ethics based on the premise that "Whatever exists is God". The
>political corrolary of this view is acquiescence in whatever exists.
>The Panglossian secularization of the above ("All is for the best in
>the best of all possible worlds") was the intellectual foundation of
>early conservatism, and was mercilessly ridiculed, from an
>uncompromising classical Liberal perspective, by Voltaire.  While
>Spinoza's refusal of a royal pension from Louis XIV tells us a great
>deal about his personal integrity, the fact that the pension was
>offered tells us even more about the political uses and implications
>of his philosophy.

I think it is fair to call Spinoza a liberal; but it depends on where
you draw the line, and I don't want to argue about that.  Spinoza
founded his political philosophy on the natural rights and rational
self-interest of individuals; individuals are led by reason to form
the state by contract.  Spinoza was also a stout defender of freedom
of thought and speech.

I was not aware that Louis XIV offered Spinoza a pension, but it's
questionable how much can be read into this.  Spinoza was a champion
of democracy, and Louis XIV was hardly a democrat, however much he
may have approved of Spinoza's philosophy in other respects.

I am sure I would distort Spinoza's political philosophy if I tried
to summarize it, so I will let him speak for himself.  Perhaps a good
point of entry into his political philosophy is Chapter 16 of *A
Theologico-Political Treatise*.  It's only 12 pages and not
difficult.  If this arouses your interest or if you disagree with or
are puzzled by anything in this chapter, then read the first two or
three chapters of *A Political Treatise*, in which Spinoza explains
his views in greater detail.  The former work contains this passage:
______________

Such being the ends in view for the sovereign power, the duty of
subjects is, as I have said, to obey its commands, and to recognize
no right save that which it sanctions.

It will, perhaps, be thought that we are turning subjects into
slaves:  for slaves obey commands and free men live as they like; but
this idea is based on a misconception, for the true slave is he who
is led away by his pleasures and can neither see what is good for him
nor act accordingly:  he alone is free who lives with free consent
under the entire guidance of reason.

Action in obedience to orders does take away freedom in a certain
sense, but it does not, therefore, make a man a slave, all depends on
the object of the action.  If the object of the action be the good of
the state, and not the good of the agent, the latter is a slave and
does himself no good:  but in a state or kingdom where the weal of
the whole people, and not that of the ruler, is the supreme law,
obedience to the sovereign power does not make a man a slave, of no
use to himself, but a subject.  Therefore, that state is the freest
whose laws are founded on sound reason, so that every member of it
may, if he will, be free; that is, live with full consent under the
entire guidance of reason.  [Spinoza inserts a footnote here:]

  "Every member of it may, if he will, be free."  Whatever be the
  social state a man finds himself in, he may be free.  For certainly a
  man is free, in so far as he is led by reason.  Now reason (though
  Hobbes thinks otherwise) is always on the side of peace, which cannot
  be attained unless the general laws of the state be respected.
  Therefore the more a man is led by reason -- in other words, the more
  he is free, the more constantly will he respect the laws of his
  country, and obey the commands of the sovereign power to which he is
  subject. 

Children, though they are bound to obey all the commands of their
parents, are yet not slaves:  for the commands of parents look
generally to the children's benefit.

We must, therefore, acknowledge a great difference between a slave, a
son, and a subject; their positions may be thus defined.  A slave is
one who is bound to obey his master's orders, though they are given
solely in the master's interest; a son is one who obeys his father's
orders, given in his own interest; a subject obeys the orders of the
sovereign power, given for the common interest, wherein he is
included.  

I think I have now shown sufficiently clearly the basis of a
democracy:  I have especially desired to do so, for I believe it to
be of all forms of government the most natural, and the most
consonant with individual liberty.  In it no one transfers his
natural right so absolutely that he has no further voice in affairs,
he only hands it over to the majority of a society, whereof he is a
unit.  Thus all men remain, as they were in the state of nature,
equals.

This is the only form of government which I have treated of at
length, for it is the one most akin to my purpose of showing the
benefits of freedom in a state.
________________
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes