Determinismo, relativismo e moralidade na filosofia de Spinoza

Abstract

With this work, I propose a reading about Spinoza's theory of morality, especially from his main work Ethics, in which the author links to his metaphysical and ontological conception a description of a good and truthful life that gives an insight into morality deterministic and relativistic without falling into theoretical contradictions. I propose to demonstrate that, on the one hand, Spinoza offers an immanent, innate and objective conception about the good; and, on the other hand, a relativistic view that allows for moral development within a social context. I defend an interpretation of morality in Spinoza that, related to his conception of power and knowledge, allows a vision of the Spinozist work that can contribute to contemporary dialogues of moral and ethical philosophy, as it goes beyond a dichotomy between determinism and relativism and manages to propose a conception of good life and freedom that can be universal at its most essential core - while related to true ideas that allow us to “remain in our being” - without giving up aspects of morality as a useful, changing social construction and variable. To develop this argument, I describe in the first two chapters the development of Spinoza's epistemology and metaphysics, including his theory of affects and his theory of knowledge. Both concepts are central to the defense of an innate view of the good since, first, it explains how a proper and true knowledge exists in a determined way in nature and how our mind, as part of this whole, can glimpse these eternal truths; and, secondly, how this knowledge occurs through the theory of affects and through Spinoza's concept of the body, therefore, how good and evil relate to them. In the following chapters, I present a discussion of these two aspects of morality, namely, relativism and objectivism. Deterministic ontology, in a sense, refers to an objectivist view of morality that prescribes normatively what we must do in order to have a good life; a guide with which, through reason, we conceive some kind of freedom and eternity in us. However, due to the partial condition with which our intellect conceives the world with which it interacts, a relativistic conception of good and evil is also described in Spinozist morality, the content of which depends on what we consider useful in our life, even if we do not have knowledge. adequate and true of the objective laws that determine us in this ontological system. Then I present Spinoza's defense of obedience and the social contract in this scenario in which the concept of good and evil does not have an immanent content. Finally, my objective is to bring this reading of Spinozism to the contemporary philosophical debate in order to think about its contribution in this sense.