An Ethics for Marxism: Spinoza on Fortitude

Abstract

The radical implication of Spinoza's well-known formula, “The natural right of each person extends as far as his or her desire and power,” is that we always have the right to resist oppression so long as we have the power and desire to do so. But what underlies such resistance? Perhaps even more important, what best sustains resistance over the long run? Spinoza argued that both indignation and the pursuit of glory, which are “affects of resistance,” have disadvantages: indignation is a sad passion, and glory fluctuates between a joyous passion and an active affect. They are unstable and unreliable affective means to the end of liberation. How then to reorient and stabilize resistance to oppression in terms of what Spinoza called the joyous “active affects” of fortitude, courage, and generosity? This essay outlines conceptual resources for a Marxist theory of ethical strength to persevere in social and political struggles.

Key Words:

• Baruch de Spinoza
• Ethics
• Fortitude
• Karl Marx
• Emancipation

Acknowledgments

This article is dedicated to Janet and Bob. My deepest appreciation goes to the two reviewers for Rethinking Marxism, Antonio Callari and Peter Tamas, who provided exceptionally detailed and insightful critical comments on an earlier draft of this article. Thanks also go to Warren Montag, who early on challenged me to tone down the “neo-Stoicism.” Finally, during five years as president of my AFT local, I was fortunate to work with a wonderful group of colleagues and union sisters and brothers, from whom I learned numerous practical lessons in fortitude

Notes

1. For a persuasive account of Spinoza's defense of ethical objectivity in propositions 29–38 of the fourth part of the Ethics, see Collin (2011, 261–8).

2. This is not the place to address the vexed problem of how best to theorize moral subjectivity and political agency. An excellent point of departure for an empirically well-supported Spinozist perspective, however, would be Ravven (2013). Also valuable are Read's (2012) framing of Spinoza, Hegel, and Marx as philosophers of “transindividuality” and Williams's (2012) discussion of Spinoza, Hegel, and the “space of subjectivity.”

3. On the distinction between moralism and authentic moral inquiry, see Taylor (2011).

4. Boer (2013, 50) does not embrace an “amoral position, beyond ethics” but instead insists that ethics always involves a “taking of sides.” I agree with him that Marxists should embrace “what is disruptive, unwelcome, what shakes up the customary and comfortable social order.” Yet it does not follow that this disruption requires “an act of subverting the very discourse of ethics and its class associations,” let alone an “unethical and unmoral politics.” Following Althusser (1976, 142–50), Macherey (1999), and Montag (2013), we should instead conceive of moral philosophy as an interminable “struggle of tendencies.”

5. For outstanding Kantian approaches, see van der Linden (1988) and Quiniou (2010). For Marxist engagements with Rawls, see Peffer (1990) and Cohen (2008).

6. Comte-Sponville (1997) criticizes Deleuze's excessively “Nietzschean” reading of Spinoza, which would unjustifiably implicate Spinoza in the rejection of all forms of moral evaluation. For more on the distinction between ethics and morality, with stress on the political urgency for Marxists of the latter's universal orientation, see Collin (2003) and Quiniou (2010).

7. For a compelling reaffirmation of why the Marxist understanding of human alienation remains crucial for developing a theory of collective emancipation, see Sève (2012). For a stirring defense of socialism as the realization of human capacities and capabilities, see Lebowitz (2010).

8. On the moral foundations and implications of Marxism, see Lukes (1985), Martin (2008), Blackledge (2012), and Dussel (2013).

9. Fortitude is not the only ethical concept to which socialists should attend. Strong cases could equally be made for the significance of such political virtues as engaging in fearless and frank truth-telling (see Foucault 2010, 2011) or maintaining pledges of loyalty to causes, movements, and groups (see Sartre 2004, 417–28).

10. There are Marxists, of course, who continue to prefer “communism” to “socialism” as a way of identifying their political project (see Douzinas and Žižek 2010 and Žižek 2013). Yet I have been persuaded by Lebowitz (2010), who contends that twentieth-century Stalinist authoritarianism has largely discredited communism in the popular imagination—or at least for the time being in North America. Lebowitz admits that, in the twenty-first century, even “socialism” as a socioeconomic system must be reinvented in order to name “the vision of a society in which the alienation of human beings from their activity, their lives, other human beings and nature has come to an end” (110).

11. For an admirably clear example, see Maass (2010).

12. See Reed (2005) and Duncombe (2007) on the political power of artistic imagination.

13. Not only is this Spinoza's considered philosophical judgment, but Tavris (1989) offers substantial empirical support for it from the perspective of social psychology.

14. Scott builds on such previous research as Moore (1978).

15. Again, for empirical support, see Tavris (1989).

16. On the revolutionary possibilities inherent within the romantic tradition, see Blechman (1999) and Löwy and Sayre (2001).

17. Hobsbawm here echoes E. P. Thompson's view that the education of utopian desire is one of the highest aims of socialist theory and practice. See Thompson (2011, 791).

18. The original slogan, of course, “Keep Calm and Carry On,” appeared on a 1939 poster produced by the British government at the beginning of World War II. The poster was intended for public display in case of a German invasion, but it was never distributed. See Rall (2013).

19. Spinoza presents his argument leading to this conclusion in chapter 16 of his Theological-Political Treatise and in chapter 2 of his Political Treatise. See Spinoza (2007) and Spinoza (2000). On Spinoza's conception of right, see Matheron (1985) and Lazzeri (1998). In a strict sense, then, as Lordon (2013, 123–68) has compellingly argued, for Spinoza the classical problem of political legitimacy simply does not arise.

20. Bove himself, though, identifies as “affects of resistance” only indignation and “benevolence” (benevolentia), which Spinoza defined as “the desire to benefit one whom we pity” (def. aff. 35; “def. aff.” indicates the definitions of the affects to be found at the end of part three of Spinoza's Ethics). Interestingly, van der Linden (1988, 53–65) likewise identifies the “negative” moral feeling of indignation and two “positive” moral feelings, enthusiasm and solidarity, in his Kantian account of resistance to oppression.

21. For detailed treatments of Spinoza's concept of indignation, see Matheron (1994), Bove (1996, 291–5), and Del Lucchese (2009). On Spinoza's concept of glory, see Stolze (2007) and Illuminati (2009).

22. See E3p59s. All references to Spinoza's Ethics are based on Spinoza (1996), but I have generally retranslated from Spinoza's Latin text, the standard edition of which may be found in Spinoza (1925). To more clearly direct the reader to the appropriate text, I have adopted the following conventional abbreviations: “E” and the number following indicates which part of the Ethics to consult, “p” indicates a proposition, “c” indicates a corollary, “d” indicates a definition, and “s” indicates a scholium or note (e.g., E3p59s refers to the Ethics part 3, proposition 59, scholium). For an exacting commentary on Spinoza's analysis of the virtues of fortitude, courage, and generosity, see Jaquet (2005).

23. See E4p47s.

24. See E4p69c.

25. See E4p37s1. Here Spinoza calls this affect “honesty” (honestas).

26. Spinoza also refers to this form of generosity as “humanity” (humanitas), which he defines as “the desire to do what pleases other persons and to abstain from what displeases them” (def. aff. 43).

27. In E5p41 Spinoza explicitly links morality and religion to courage and generosity. Indeed, Negri (1991, 165–6) has proposed that Spinoza lays out a materialist “morality of generosity.”

28. E4p46.

29. E4p50c.

30. E4p73s.

31. E4p73.

32. E4p17s.

33. In Metamorphoses (book 7, lines 20–1), Medea, the niece of the goddess Circe and granddaughter of the sun god Helios, cannot decide between obedience to her father, King Aeëtes of Colchis, and her love for the hero Jason (whom she will eventually marry).

34. See the Discourses (book 2, chapter 26, paragraph 4).

35. See the Nicomachean Ethics (book 7). For Spinoza's critical relationship to Aristotle, see Manzini (2009).

36. Arguably, Spinoza also had in mind the following line in the apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans: “For I do not do the good that I want, but the bad that I do not want—this I practice” (Rom. 7:19).

37. Whether or not akrasia and weakness of will designate the same experience is a matter of a significant contemporary philosophical debate on which I take no position here. For introductions to the debate, however, see Holton (2009) and Mele (2012). For Spinoza's position on akrasia, see the following: Gagnon (2002), Lin (2006), Nadler (2006, 223–5), and Manzini (2009, 92–4). For Spinoza's general conception of practical reasoning or prudence, see Matheron (1995) and Jaquet (1997).

38. Notable exceptions are Meyerson (1991) and Žižek (2008).

39. See his famous discussion in E2pp48–49. Steven Nadler (2006, 185–9) provides a helpful commentary on Spinoza's rejection of freedom as understood in terms of volition or will. See also Macherey (1997, 367–407).

40. In his search for “remedies” for excessive or misdirected expression of the affects, Spinoza takes his place in a longstanding tradition of philosophy as a practical pursuit embodying a distinctive way of life. See Hadot (1995).

41. See Pierre Macherey's (1994) masterful account.

42. Although Antonio Negri (1991, 262n8) has been troubled that such talk of “therapeutics” miscasts Spinoza as an individualist under the influence of late-Renaissance, neo-Stoic, or Cartesian ideas, I agree with Vandewalle's (2011, 15n1, 145–66) response that there is a political dimension in Spinoza's philosophy specifically arising from “medical or physiological inspiration.”

43. What follows is a detailed reconstruction of Spinoza's argument in E5p10s. For a commentary on this scholium, see Israel (2001, 177–97).

44. The concept of “rehearsal” is borrowed from Holton's (2009, 123–5) account of how to strengthen one's willpower.

45. See Stolze (2007, 332–8).

46. At most we could speak of what Zourabichvilli (2002) has called Spinoza's “paradoxical conservatism,” for it is crucial to note the political conjuncture in which Spinoza was writing. In 1670 the Dutch Republic was in grave danger. Despite his opposition to the Republic's aristocratic distortions, Spinoza did not want to shrink from its defense in the face of reaction arising from the House of Orange; indeed, he wanted to do his part to help consolidate and reinforce republican rule along more democratic lines. Moreover, he was well aware that the Orangists had no such democratic aspirations; on the contrary, they sought to reestablish monarchy and clamp down on freedom of religion, thought, and speech. With this in mind, it would be more accurate to say that Spinoza primarily feared not a democratic revolution but a monarchical counterrevolution. Unfortunately, though, just such a counterrevolution was to occur in 1672. The moral: even the best practical reasoning may confront a hostile balance of political forces. On the nature and extent of the Orangist partial restoration of the monarchy, see Israel (1995, 807–62).

47. I endorse Matheron's (1988, 613) contention that Spinoza sought a “complete and definitive individual liberation in a community without restriction” as well as Montag's (1999, xxi) thesis that for Spinoza “there can be no liberation of the individual without collective liberation.”

48. The best introduction to the First International and to Marx's (and less so Engels's) leadership role in building it as a democratic institution remains Collins and Abramsky (1965). But see also Nimtz Jr. (2000, 169–251).

49. The idea of a “principle of self-emancipation” is borrowed from Hal Draper's (1977–90; 1992, 243–71) unrivalled studies. On the politics of self-emancipation, see also Löwy (2005).

50. Friedmann's conception of politically engaged “spiritual” practices is dear to Pierre Hadot (1995, 70, 81–2, 108; 2002, 276–7). It is worth noting that Friedmann's (1974) outstanding book on Spinoza and Leibniz was dedicated to the memory of Marc Bloch and Jean Cavaillès, both of whom died in the Resistance.