Ethics for Humans: Spinoza and Moral Philosophy Donald Rutherford (UCSD) will give the British Society for the History of Philosophy's Rosa Antognazza Lecture

Professor Donald Rutherford (https://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rutherford/) will give the BSHP's Annual Lecture in honour of Maria Rosa Antognazza on the following theme:

Spinoza's Ethics has inspired generations of readers, yet it remains on the periphery of histories of ethics. One explanation is that while the language of the book suggests a view with close ties to classical theories, Spinoza's naturalism undercuts assumptions about the ground of value and rational agency on which such theories rely. I argue that the main project of the Ethics is theoretical: Spinoza conceptualizes the mind's affects and reason as causal powers; he reinterprets ethical propositions as truths about nature; and he restricts normative demands to a practical perspective afforded by the mind's inadequate knowledge of itself. Although the Ethics invites us to consider the attractions of a “rational life,” it precludes the existence of authoritative reasons why any human being should pursue such a life. The greatest achievement of the book is its elaboration of a framework for understanding the basis of normative thought in a world in which every trace of providence, teleology, and value is eliminated from nature.

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