Rationality as the Therapy of Self-Liberation in Spinoza’s Ethics

Abstract

A given statement may be plausible, well founded or true. An individual action may be judged courageous, useful or good. Human beings are judged as well, for statements or actions that invite such evaluations, though the terms used may be different: a person may be described as truthful and virtuous, clever and happy. Epistemology and ethics – the theories that justify theoretical and practical judgements – may address not only the criteria used to assess states of belief, assertions, knowledge and the like, actions, omissions and feelings, but also the people that give rise to them. Nowadays, the issue of when and how a human being becomes clever, truthful, good or happy is less a matter of philosophy and more a question for religion, psychology and pedagogy. This has not always been the case. There has been a perceptible shift in moral philosophy: in antiquity, inquiries as to when a life is to be classified as good or happy were prevalent; in the modern era, the focus is primarily on when an individual action is to be regarded as right or good, wrong or bad.