AKRASIA IN SPINOZA'S ETHICS by Eugene Marshall A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Philosophy) at the UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
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AKRASIA IN SPINOZA'S ETHICS
by
Eugene Marshall
A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Philosophy)
at the
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
2006
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number: 3245610
Copyright 2006 by
Marshall, Eugene
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A dissertation entitled
Akrasia in Spinoza's Ethics
submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
by
Eugene Marshall
Date of Final Oral Examination: December 6, 2006
Month & Year Degree to be awarded: December 2006 May August
Approval Signatures of Dissertation Committee
ISignature, Dean of Graduate School
4
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AKRASIA IN SPINOZA’S ETHICS
Eugene Marshall
Under the Supervision o f Professor Steven Nadler
At the University o f Wisconsin-Madison
Spinozai has a fascinating account o f akrasia. Locating it is well worth the labor involved,
however. First, his theory is o f historical significance, because it involves certain views normally
thought to originate in Hume. So Spinoza, whom Hume read, should be given some o f the credit
for these novelties. Second, Spinoza’s theory combines several intuitive aspects o f positions
generally thought to be mutually exclusive. In this regard, Spinoza’s theory o f akrasia is conceptually
unique, a coherent hybrid view that may capture the good o f the opposing views while avoiding
their pitfalls. Finally, his theory o f akrasia is plausible and satisfying, capturing those intuitions we
want in a theory o f akrasia. It presents akratic action as it must be understood — as freely and
intentionally performed, irrational action against our better judgment.
The thrust o f this work can be stated as follows: Spinoza has an interesting and viable
account o f akrasia. That account is a weak judgment intemalism that resembles Aristode’s and Alfred
Mele’s, though it also appeals to certain Humean intuitions. Specifically, according to Spinoza,
akrasia occurs for an agent S just when the power o f As irrational desire for j , which involves an
irrational judgment th a tj is a good course o f action, will surpass the power o f S s rational desire for
x , which involves a rational judgment that x is the better course o f action; this account o f akrasia is
plausible and superior to its competitors, in that it better accommodates our intuitions concerning
akratic conduct.
After discussing competing theories o f Socrates, Plato, Aristode, David Hume, Donald
Davidson, and Alfred Mele, I survey Spinoza’s affective psychology and thoughts on human
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bondage. In the final chapter, I evaluate Spinoza’s theory o f akrasia vis-a-vis the competing theories.
I conclude that his account captures the heart o f strict akrasia - that we can affirm contradictory
judgments and feel conflicting desires. And so, strict akrasia is easily explainable. O f course, it is still
irrational, because it involves acting against our better judgment which, for Spinoza, means acting
against our universal principles in favor o f some inadequately known particular.
UWMN GRADUATE SCH OOL
DEC 0 2 0 0 6
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Table of Contents
Introduction0.1. Akrasia and Spinoza0.1.1. A Very Brief History of Akrasia0.1.2. Why Spinoza?0.2. An Outline of the Work 0.3. A Survey of the Literature
Chapter One: Theories of Akrasia1.1. Theories of Akrasia1.1.1. Socrates1.1.2. Plato1.1.3. Aristotle1.1.4. Hume1.1.5. Davidson1.1.6. Alfred Mele1.2. Summary of Views1.2.1. Strong Intemalism1.2.2. Extemalism1.2.3. Weak Intemalism1.2.4. Conclusion
Chapter Two: Spinoza's Affective Psychology2.0. Introduction2.1. Ideas2.1.1. The Three Kinds of Knowledge: An Overview2.1.2. The Account of Adequate Ideas2.1.3. Common Notions2.1.4. The Idea of God's Essence2.2. Affects2.2.1. Introduction2.2.2. On the Nature of Ideas2.2.3. The Affects2.2.4. Affects are Cognitive2.2.5. Spinoza's Janus-Faced Psychology2.3. The Rejection of the Faculties2.3.1. Introduction2.3.2. On Faculties2.3.3. Spinoza's Rejection of the Faculties of Will and Intellect2.3.4. Ideas and Volitions2.3.5. Affects and Ideas2.4. The Conatus2.4.1. The Faculties, Redux
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2.4.2. Conatus and Desire Chapter Three: Spinoza on Akrasia, An Exegesis
3.1. On Human Bondage3.1.1. Introduction3.1.2. Akrasia and Parts of the Soul3.1.3. On Freedom and Bondage3.2. Conatus and Akrasia3.2.1. The Conatus and Egoism3.2.2. Selfless and Self-Destructive Behavior3.3. Akrasia in Spinoza3.3.1. Akrasia in Spinoza: A First Pass3.3.2. How Particular Instances of Akrasia May Occur3.3.3. The Relation Between Bondage and Akrasia3.4. Conclusions
Chapter Four: Spinoza's Theory of Akrasia4.1. Intemalism and Extemalism in Spinoza4.1.1. Spinoza Contra the Strong Internalists4.1.2. Spinoza Is Not an Externalist4.1.3. Spinoza and the Weak Internalists4.1.4. Spinoza and Mele4.1.5. Spinoza's Unique Weak Intemalism4.2. Challenges to the Spinozist Account4.2.1. How are Spinozist akratic actions free and intentional?4.2.2. Intentionality4.2.3. Against Our Better Judgment4.3. An Evaluation of Spinoza's Account of Akrasia
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1
Introduction
0.1. Akrasia and Spinoza
Strictly speaking, 'akrasia' refers to a state of character and 'akratic action' refers
to actions in which an agent exhibits akratic characteristics. Nevertheless, when I speak
of akrasia in what follows, I refer to akratic action, not to a state of character. Akratic
action is free, intentional action performed against our better judgment. It occurs only
when we intentionally do what we know is not best. Some theorists deny this can ever
occur, but most accept that this psychological phenomenon is possible and therefore
attempt to explain it.
Any discussion of akrasia must address two overarching kinds of questions: first,
how is akrasia conceptually possible? How could agents intentionally do something
against their better judgment? Some thinkers find this to be incoherent. Those who
take akrasia to be conceptually possible m ust thereafter answer this second question:
how does akrasia actually occur? This question is answered by reference to psychological
mechanisms, hum an tendencies, and behaviors. A variety of different explanations
have been presented, of course.
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0.1.1. A Very Brief History of Akrasia
Aicpaaia, or akrasia, is a Greek term that means, roughly, a lack of self-rule. In
the history of philosophy, the term 'akrasia' makes its most famous appearances in Plato,
particularly Protagoras, where he rejects it, and the Republic, where he accepts it, and in
Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, where Aristotle offers his famous explanation of it. The
theory has been discussed by a variety of later thinkers; indeed, most of the Ancients
and Medievals had a theory of akrasia. Yet the topic seemed to fall out of favor in the
early m odem period, with many thinkers spending only little time on it, if any at all.
Only in the 20th Century was the topic revived, largely because of the seminal
work by R.M. Hare. According to his prescriptivism, our judgment "I ought to do x"
motivates us to do x. He suggests that when I assent to the statement, "1 ought to do x,"
I am in fact issuing a prescription or imperative to myself, "do x." So, when I judge that
I ought to do x, I will in fact do x, unless I am unable to do so. Hare presents this in the
context of explaining what happens when an agent seems to make a judgment that
something would be best yet fails to do it. According to Hare, whenever an agent
appears to fail to follow through on his practical judgment, knowingly following the
lesser of two available courses of action, either (a) he does not in fact judge that he
ought to do x (perhaps he only recognizes that convention requires it), or (b) he cannot
physically or psychologically do x. Thus, strictly speaking, akrasia is impossible for
Hare. As we shall see, Hare's position is similar in certain ways to Socrates' and Donald
Davidson's. More importantly for us, Hare's way of approaching the problem - as
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turning on the relation between judgment and motivation - will set the stage for the
work done in these pages.
Since Hare, theorists have primarily addressed this question: how can we judge
that one course of action x is better than some other, incompatible course of action y, yet
nevertheless freely and intentionally choose to pursue y against our better judgment?
In fact, akrasia is now more often called weakness of will. And when Aristotle is
translated into English, aKpaoia is often rendered as incontinence. In what follows,
these three phrases will be used interchangeably.
Spinoza uses none of these phrases. In fact, he does not explicitly address the
issue in these terms at all. Instead, he investigates what he calls bondage, a state in
which a person lacks self-rule and is instead passive, a slave to his passions. This state
is related to weakness of will, but is not identical to it. One task I shall undertake,
below, is to clarify the relation between bondage and akrasia.
0.1.2. Why Spinoza?
Despite not discussing it directly, Spinoza does have a theory of akrasia. To locate
it, however, some work is required, since the theory is only implicit in his affective
psychology and his discussion of bondage. Only by a careful investigation of his
thoughts on ideas, affects, and desire, among other things, may we uncover Spinoza's
thoughts on the question of weakness of will.
This excavation will be well worth the labor involved. For Spinoza's account of
akrasia is a marvelously interesting theory. First of all, his theory is of historical
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significance, because it involves certain central and novel views that are normally
thought to originate in Hume. So it seems that Spinoza, whom Hume read, should
perhaps be given some of the credit for these novelties. Second of all, Spinoza's theory
combines several intuitive aspects of positions generally thought to be mutually
exclusive. In this regard, Spinoza's theory of akrasia is conceptually unique, a coherent
hybrid view that may capture the good of the opposing views while avoiding their
pitfalls. Third and finally, his theory of akrasia is plausible and philosophically
satisfying. It captures those intuitions we want a theory of akrasia to capture. It
presents akratic action as it must be understood - as freely and intentionally performed
action against our better judgment. And it explains the irrationality of akrasia. Very few
theories of akrasia manage to do all of these things and, thus, Spinoza's own account
could be seen as a useful contribution to our philosophical understanding of the
phenomenon of weakness of will.
The thrust of this work can be stated, first briefly and then in more detail, as
follows: Spinoza has an interesting and viable account of akrasia. That account is a weak
judgment intemalism that resembles Aristotle's and Alfred Mele's, though it also appeals
to certain Humean intuitions. Specifically, according to Spinoza, akrasia occurs for an
agent S just when the power of S's irrational desire for y, which involves an irrational
judgment that y is a good course of action, will surpass the power of S's rational desire
for x, which involves a rational judgment that x is the better course of action; this
account of akrasia is plausible and superior to its competitors, in that it better
accommodates our intuitions concerning akrasia. The meaning of these terms - "weak
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judgment internalist," "rational desire," "irrational desire," "rational judgment," and
"irrational judgment" - will be explained in what follows.
0.2. An Outline of this Work
In the first chapter, I will introduce six theories of akrasia, those of Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, David Hume, Donald Davidson, and Alfred Mele. I shall then place these six
theorists into classes: strong intemalism, weak intemalism, and extemalism. This
categorization will be made based on how each theory answers the following question:
What is the relation between practical judgments and motivation? Doing so will allow
us to compare Spinoza with these other thinkers in informative ways.
In the second chapter, I shall begin to present Spinoza's own account. Before I
can dive into his account of bondage to find his implicit theory of akrasia, however, I
m ust first establish the fundamental principles of Spinoza's psychology that I shall use
in the subsequent chapter. I begin this preliminary work by exploring his thoughts on
ideas, including the three kinds of knowledge and adequacy. Next, I turn to affect,
which will play an essential role in the account of akrasia. In discussing affects, I must
establish their relation to ideas, if we are to understand Spinoza's theory of akrasia.
Finally, I shall look at Spinoza's doctrine of the conatus, which is often interpreted in
ways that would influence his account of akrasia.
In the third chapter, I turn to Spinoza's account of bondage itself. I begin by
looking into several aspects of Spinoza's system that differentiate him from the other
theorists discussed herein. So, for example, I start with Spinoza's rejection of a parts of
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the soul doctrine, a rejection that distinguishes his theory from Plato's. I also
investigate Spinoza's thought on the conatus and egoism, which should allow us to see
how Spinoza parts ways with Socrates. Most importantly, however, are his thoughts on
bondage and akrasia. As I trace Spinoza's ideas through these sections, a coherent
picture will emerge. As we shall see, Spinoza's theories most resemble Mele's, though
there are aspects of Aristotle and Hume present as well. I finish the chapter with a
discussion of the relation between bondage and akrasia.
Chapter Four brings all that has preceded it together. In that chapter, I take the
Spinozist theory as presented in Chapters Two and Three and compare it to the other
six theorists presented in Chapter One. I then review where Spinoza falls in our three
fold classification. This comparative and classificatory process will subsequently allow
us to investigate Spinoza's theory of akrasia on its own terms. At that point, I will be
able to formulate Spinoza's theory of akrasia more carefully and discover what
fundamental assumptions lie behind it. Once the theory has been formulated, I will
investigate whether akrasia, in Spinoza's theory, meets the criteria any successful
account must meet - that akratic action is freely and intentionally performed against
our better judgment. Finally, I shall issue an evaluation of the worth of Spinoza's
theory of akrasia.
0.3. A Survey of the Literature
Despite the passions' prominent role in the Ethics, they have received relatively
little attention from scholars.1 Spinoza's concern with the threat of akrasia has received
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even less.2 In fact, in the Spinoza secondary literature, akrasia only receives extended
attention in a handful of articles or book chapters.
In his contribution to the Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, Michael Della Rocca
discusses akrasia and several surrounding issues in passing as part of his sweeping
overview of Spinoza's psychology in general.3 Della Rocca's primary concern
throughout most of this hefty chapter is Spinoza's doctrine of the conatus and the
specific terms that Spinoza employs in 3p6 and its demonstration.
One of Della Rocca's aims in this essay is to interpret the conatus as allowing
future-oriented hum an reasoning. This is important because Spinoza is usually
interpreted as denying that any kind of teleological reasoning is possible, which would
preclude an future-directed planning. Yet people clearly perform such reasoning, so we
must reinterpret the conatus to allow it.
I do not find the problem to be as pressing as some, however. Spinoza is
concerned to banish teleological explanation as found in the Scholastic tradition, where
the sleep-inducing nature of opium is explained by reference to "the dormitive virtue."
Spinoza is not saying that hum an beings cannot make plans for the future. All he
wishes to do is to deny final causation and to assert the universality of efficient
causation. Just as a sophisticated behaviorist can easily explain seemingly teleological
behavior by reference to a complex network of stimuli and impulses, so too can Spinoza
explain future-oriented planning by using only efficient causation. In short, Della
Rocca's worry leads him to focus on issues quite distinct from those that interest us here.
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When Della Rocca turns to discuss akrasia, he carries this project of
accommodating future-oriented states with him. He therefore attempts to explain
akrasia by positing a doctrine of anticipation. In fact, this doctrine of anticipation is the
heart and soul of his interpretation of akrasia. According to Della Rocca, when the mind
is in this state of anticipation, the body is in the state that would occur if the state of
affairs anticipated were to obtain. That is, when we anticipate some pleasure or pain,
the body actually feels the anticipated pleasure or pain before the fact.
He then qualifies this and says that the anticipation-state is weaker than the
realization-state. In response, one might ask the following: (a) on what textual basis
does Della Rocca attribute this discussion of anticipation? In fact, Spinoza has a
detailed account of hope and fear, one that seems underutilized here, (b) If I anticipate
my death, in what state is my body?
Della Rocca has not sufficiently motivated his interpretation. He aims at
addressing what he takes to be a standing problem with Spinoza's theory, when in fact
the existence of that problem is questionable. It seems that Della Rocca's attempt to
explain akrasia in Spinoza rests on dubious ground. Why would we need to speak of a
special, forward-looking anticipatory feature to mental states?
Consider the following case. Say that my wife tells me that there will be a
birthday party for me tomorrow, at which time I will eat chocolate cake. My
experiences in the past with chocolate cake have caused me joy; that joy is revived by
the belief that I will soon have chocolate cake again. Here, it is not the pleasure of the
future, but the pleasure of the past that is involved in my anticipation. It is past
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experience that causes the impulses that direct our actions. In other words, past
experiences, memories, and the desires they cause can explain akrasia. We do not need
to posit an additional, anticipatory mental state in which we actually feel in the present
what we expect to feel in the future.
Consider another case. Say now that my wife tells me that we shall eat rhubarb
pie. Since I have never eaten rhubarb pie, I cannot revive an old feeling of pleasure.
How can I feel an anticipatory joy in this case? In fact, I will not feel such a tingle unless
I also believe that rhubarb pie is tasty. Perhaps I ask my wife what rhubarb pie is like
and she says that it is like strawberry, but more tart. Since I have enjoyed strawberries
and tart fruit in the past, I feel those old pleasures again in my anticipation for rhubarb
pie. And if I choose to come home early from work in order to eat the pie, which is
teleological behavior (coming home early is aimed at the future pie eating), the stimuli
of the past will be driving me to do so. No theory of future-oriented anticipation is
necessary.
In his recent article, "Spinoza's Account of Akrasia," Martin Lin attempts to
elaborate on Della Rocca's account.4 In so far as his account simply adopts Della
Rocca's anticipation interpretation, Lin's account also suffers. Beyond Della Rocca, Lin
locates three principles as the basis for how akrasia works in Spinoza. First, stated at
4pl0, Spinoza asserts that the farther an event is believed to be in the future, the weaker
our affects concerning the event. Second, stated in 4pl5, desires based on knowledge of
the good can be overpowered. And third, stated in 4pl6, desires regarding knowledge
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10
of future goods can be easily overcome. The third of these is the intersection of the
previous two, of course.
These principles are aspects of Spinoza's theory of akrasia, to be sure. Yet these
principles are not fundamental, nor is this list exhaustive of relevant Spinozist principles
contributing to akrasia. For example, Lin does not explain why knowledge of good and
evil can be overpowered. As we shall show below, this principle can be explained
through more fundamental psychological principles. And Lin makes no mention of the
essential 4p60, where Spinoza says, "a Desire arising from either a Joy or a Sadness
related to one, or several, but not to all parts of the Body, has no regard for the
advantage of the whole man."5 This principle is certainly relevant to at least some
explanations of akrasia.
On the other hand, Lin rightly understands Spinoza's theory of mind as one of a
spiritual automaton, saying:
By the seventeenth century, the paradigm that encompassed faculty psychology
was widely viewed as regressive, both conceptually and empirically. Spinoza
aspires to what could be described as a mechanistic psychology, parallel under
the attribute of thought to the mechanistic physics he endorses under the
attribute of extension, and which portrays the mind as an "automa spirituale." His
account of akrasia is fully consistent with that goal. (28)
This mechanistic view of Spinoza's theory of mind is one for which I will argue at length
below. Lin is right to accept it and this acceptance could strengthen his argument. On
the next page, however, Lin asserts a problematic claim, saying:
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11
Instead of identifying the rational and governing aspect of an individual with
some subset of its parts, he holds that all innate tendencies are rational. Only
desires that are alien, i.e., those the existence of which is owed in part to an
external cause, are irrational, and require domination. (29)
This claim is false. Lin overlooks 3p9, where Spinoza explicitly includes irrationality in
the hum an essence. This is one of the fundamental psychological principles that Lin -
like most other commentators - does not discuss.
Olli Koistinen presents an interpretation of Spinoza that is an alternative to Della
Rocca's.6 Koistinen presents an interesting discussion, claiming that Spinoza accepts
the principles normally found only in those thinkers who deny that akrasia is possible.
Yet Spinoza accepts akrasia. Thus, Koistinen reasons, Spinoza's thought represents a
uniquely desirable theory - one that begins with the allegedly plausible premises of
Socrates yet ends with the intuitive acceptance of akrasia.
Unfortunately, Koistinen's entire argument turns on his assertion that Spinoza
affirms what he calls a "one-goal theory," a view that has its locus classicus in Plato's
Protagoras. According to the one-goal theory, all hum an desires aim at the same, single
end. In Spinoza's case - as well as Socrates' - that same, single end is increasing our
pleasure. I f Spinoza were in fact to accept this one-goal theory, then Koistinen's
argument would carry weight.
Spinoza does not accept the one-goal theory, however. According to the one goal
theory, all our desires reduce to a single, fundamental desire for the good. This means
that all desires are reducible and thus commensurable. Yet Spinoza follows Plato and
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Aristotle on this point. Plato rejects the Socratic one-goal theory, noting that thirst is not
the desire for good - it is desire for drink. And one desire can oppose and be contrary to
another. If we adopt the one-goal theory, however, it is very difficult to see how desires
could be fundamentally opposed to one another. For if all desires aim at the same goal,
psychological conflict will occur only between competing means to that goal. Thus, the
only psychological conflict we should experience is between relative cause-effect beliefs.
In short, then, if we accept the one-goal theory, we must reject any real affective or
emotional conflict. And this is a view strongly foreign to Spinoza's mechanistic,
affective psychology, as we shall see below.
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Chapter One:
Theories of Akrasia
1.1. Theories of Akrasia
Since the beginning, philosophers have discussed akrasia. Socrates himself took
akrasia very seriously and, since his time, many prominent thinkers have weighed in
with their own views on the topic. In this chapter, six of the most prominent views of
akrasia will be sketched.
We shall begin, appropriately enough, with Socrates' famous denial of the
possibility of akrasia. He believed that no one could willingly and intentionally choose
against one's better judgment. Like all the thinkers discussed here, Socrates' views on
akrasia grow out of his notions of practical reasoning and desire.
In the later Platonic dialogues, especially the Republic, Plato takes a new position
on akrasia. Instead of denying its possibility, he offers a model of the mind that
accommodates the phenomenon. Whereas Socrates' agent was a unified, rational mind
single-mindedly pursuing its own good, Plato's agent is a divided soul, containing
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14
various competing parts. According to Plato, when our passionate soul overpowers our
rational soul, we may suffer akrasia.
Aristotle rejects Plato's account of akrasia, in part because he finds many
problems in Plato's division of the soul. According to Aristotle, the single, unitary
rational soul is responsible for both rational and akratic acts. His account of akrasia is
based in his theory of practical reasoning. When we reason, he argues, we form a
practical syllogism, which involves a major, universal and a minor, particular premise.
Sometimes, however, we feel a strong, bodily passion for the particular involved in the
practical syllogism. This passion leads us to attend solely to the particular in a way that
leads us to act against the conclusion of the practical syllogism. Thus, we have
knowledge of the conclusion of the practical syllogism, but we do not use that
knowledge, instead acting from the passion for the particular.
Many centuries later, David Hume presented a significant challenge to these
views. Before Hume, philosophers generally believed that akrasia involved a seeming
paradox: how could reason dictate that we act one way, but desire direct us to act
another way? This problem gets off the ground only if our practical judgments are
motivating. Hume rejected this fundamental premise, arguing instead that reason is the
slave to the passions. For Hume, judgments concerning what action would be best do
not entail desires to perform that action. Instead, Hume suggested, such judgments are
inert, incapable of moving us to act without the presence of some independent desire.
For Hume, the problem of akrasia is no problem at all.
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15
In the 20th Century, many philosophers have presented versions of historical
these positions.7 Perhaps most renowned among them is Donald Davidson. Davidson
presents the problem of akrasia as he sees it and then argues that it is indeed possible in
his sense and explainable. Davidson accounts for the seeming contradiction by positing
two kinds of judgment. One is a conditional judgment concerning what would be best
for us to do all-things-considered. The other is an unconditional judgment concerning
whether this particular action is good or not. Akratic action occurs, according to
Davidson, just when an agent acts on an unconditional judgment that contravenes a
conditional judgment of the agent. So, when we act on a particular judgment that runs
contrary to some prior all-things-considered judgment we have made, we act akratically.
The final thinker I shall discuss here is Alfred Mele. Mele is perhaps the
preeminent theorist of akrasia writing today. Since his landmark 1987 book Irrationality:
An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception and Self-Control, he has wrestled with the problem of
weakness of will.8 Here, the outlines of his view will be presented. Indeed, Mele's view
is of particular interest, because it is the theory that most resembles Spinoza's own.
After having discussed these six thinkers, I shall begin to explore Spinoza's own theory
of akrasia.
1.1.1. Socrates
Socrates famously denies the possibility of akrasia.9 Perhaps the most prominent
text in which Socrates denies the possibility of akrasia is in the Protagoras, especially 351-
7. There, Socrates and his interlocutors investigate the nature of courage. Along the
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16
way, however, the question of whether pleasure is a good arises. Protagoras protests
that it is not always good, for it sometimes leads us to choose the lesser good over the
greater. According to Socrates' reconstruction of Protagoras' view, pleasure can even
drag around our knowledge of the good and lead us to choose some pleasure that is in
fact not a good at all. Socrates then sets out to investigate whether this can occur; can
pleasure lead us to do what we know to be bad? In other words, can we suffer from
akrasia?
Socrates begins his argument that akrasia is impossible by laying out the two
opposing views, saying,
Most people think this way about it, that [knowledge] is not a powerful thing,
neither a leader nor a ruler...while knowledge is often present in a man, what
rules him is not knowledge but rather anything else - sometimes desire,
sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain...they think of knowledge as being utterly
dragged around by all these other things as if it were a slave...or does it seem to
you that knowledge is a fine thing capable of ruling a person, and if someone
were to know what is good and what is bad, then he would not be forced by
anything to act otherwise than knowledge dictates, and intelligence would be
sufficient to save a person? (352bl-352c5)
According to Socrates, most people believe that we are ruled by desires, perhaps to
pursue pleasure and avoid pain, and that our knowledge of the good does not rule us.
When these ruling desires run counter to our knowledge of the good, so much the
worse for our knowledge, most people believe.
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Socrates describes the alleged weakness of knowledge, saying, "most
people...maintain that most people are unwilling to do what is best, even though they
know what it is and are able to do it. And when I have asked them the reason for this,
they say that those who act that way do so because they are overcome by pleasure or
pain..." (352d2-352el). Pleasure is said to overcome or overpower us, preventing us
from acting on our knowledge.
Opposed to that is Socrates' view that knowledge is capable of ruling us,
according to which, if we have knowledge of the good and the bad, we will necessarily
pursue the good. Socrates begins his argument by first arguing for hedonism, according
to which the good is pleasure and the bad pain. The good is not just immediate pain or
pleasure, however, but overall pain and pleasure. Thus, surgery, though painful in the
short run, is a good in the long run because it brings a net positive amount of pleasure.
Similarly, too much drink may be pleasurable now, but in the long run has a net
negative amount of pleasure. Thus, too much drink is bad. In short, Socrates claims
that we are able to distinguish something that may be temporarily pleasant from the
overall good, which is what is pleasant overall.
Socrates rejects the possibility of akrasia, claiming that if one accepts his
understanding of the good then, he says, "your position will become absurd, when you
say frequently that a man, knowing the bad to be bad, nevertheless does that very thing,
when he is able not to do it, having been driven and overwhelmed by pleasure" (355bl-
255b3). Socrates describes the akratic as one who does the bad knowing it to be bad
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because he is overcome by pleasure. But if pleasure is identical to the good, then this
means the akratic does the bad because he is overcome by the good, which is absurd.
He then reverses the substitution, replacing good and bad with pleasure and
pain. Thus the akratic does painful things, knowing them to be painful, on account of
being overcome by pleasant things that clearly do not outweigh the painful things. If
the pleasure were known to outweigh the pain, then we would not describe this person
as akratic, for he would be employing good judgment. But to say that someone
knowingly chooses the more painful thing because he is overwhelmed by a lesser
pleasant thing is also absurd.
Socrates also rejects the argument from temporal bias. According to this
argument, the akratic agent chooses a lesser present good over a greater good in the
future, usually because he is short-sighted. Socrates replies by saying that the only way
to evaluate relative pleasures and pains is to weigh them against one another. And a
proper weighing will always result in a preference for the one that brings greater
pleasure, regardless of temporal considerations.
Present lesser goods only appear to overshadow future greater goods, in much
the same way that smaller objects that are near appear larger than farther objects that, in
reality, are actually larger. If we judge according to appearances, indeed, we may
mistakenly act as though the nearer building were larger. And if we pass judgment
according to appearances, then perhaps we would choose the lesser present good over
the greater future good. As Socrates says,
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While the power of appearance often makes us wander all over the place in
confusion, often changing our minds about the same things and regretting our
actions and choices with respect to things large and small, the art of
measurement in contrast, would make the appearances lose their power by
showing us the truth, would give us peace of mind firmly rooted in the truth and
would save our life. (356dl-356el)
He then concludes that the results of this measurement are a kind of knowledge. When
we lack such knowledge, our mind is at the mercy of appearance, which causes us to
wander all over the place, changing our minds regularly. In other words, in ignorance,
we may suffer a vacillation of the mind that makes choosing more difficult.10 Note that
in this vacillation of mind, we vacillate between two judgments as to what would be
best overall for us, not between our overall good and some temporary pleasure or desire.
And this vacillation is also not between conflicting desires, but between two judgments
as to which means to happiness is best.
Knowledge guarantees that we evaluate our goods truly, Socrates holds. Now,
Protagoras had originally claimed that akrasia was possible and that it involved even
our knowledge being ruled by pleasure. But, Socrates says,
...those who make mistakes with regard to the choice of pleasure or pain, in
other words, with regard to good and bad, do so because of a lack of
knowledge...so this is what "being overcome by pleasure" is - ignorance in the
highest degree... (357d3-357e3)
In short, then, there can be no akratic actions. When we err, we are simply in ignorance.
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Socrates' denial of akrasia involves three claims, which are as follows:
(1) All hum an action aims at the good, where the good is our maximum possible
pleasure, or happiness, in the long-run;
(2) knowledge is stable, while appearance is fluctuating.
Socrates' denial of akrasia lie in (1). (2) is offered as an alternative explanation for the
phenomenon named akrasia. According to (1), all hum an action has as its motivation
knowledge of belief that the action will bring about our good.11 Thus, whenever we act,
we do so in pursuit of our overall, long-term good. And (2) offers an explanation as to
how we can suffer something that seems to be akrasia. For, when we operate only on
appearances, our mind is liable to vacillation. And when faced with certain choices, our
mind may flip-flop between appearances of the good, giving the impression of conflict.
In sum, Socrates believes that all hum an action is motivated by a singular,
fundamental desire - the desire for our overall, long-term happiness. Since all actions
aim at this one goal, we choose only the means by which to arrive at that goal. Our
choice of means is determined not by desires, for those all aim at the same end, but by
our beliefs. And in our desire for the good, we are all the same, as Socrates elsewhere
says, "Surely wanting the good belongs to everyone, and in this no one person is better
than any other."12
It is not our desire, for Socrates, but our beliefs, that determine whether we
pursue the true good or not. Therefore, we cannot ever be in a situation where our
beliefs or knowledge about our good are overcome by a conflicting desire, for all of our
desires in fact aim at that very good. The only conflict that can arise is between
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competing means toward the same end. When we appear to suffer akrasia, we are in
fact experiencing vacillation of mind between competing means toward the same end.
And when we act based on mere appearance and not knowledge, we are especially
vulnerable to such vacillations.
In Terry Penner's terms, Socrates denies the possibility of synchronic akrasia,
where that is understood as action that is simultaneously represented as both desirable
and not in our best interest. Instead, he interprets Socrates as allowing only diachronic
akrasia, where that is understood as action that occurs during a period of flip-flopping
between representations, one that the action performed is the best means to our
happiness, and the other that the action performed is not the nest means to our
happiness. We feel conflicted because we cannot decide whether this course of action is
or is not best. When we act from appearances, we act in the midst of such vacillation. It
is to be expected, then, that such action may be preceded and followed by judgments
that such an action is not in our best interest. Thus, in retrospect, we mistakenly believe
we suffered synchronic akrasia, when in fact we did not.
Because he believed all hum an motivation reduces to our desire for happiness,
Socrates could not countenance synchronic akrasia. As opposed to Socrates, all of the
theorists I will discuss subsequently accept its possibility. Their challenge is to account
for how a human agent could choose a course of action while representing that course of
action as less desirable than another course of action that the agent judges to be
available. As part of this account, they must explain how these supposedly competing
desires could result in intentional or deliberate action and not compelled behavior or a
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choice made out of ignorance. In other words, if our better judgment really is overcome
by some passion in akratic action, how are we responsible for that action?
1.1.2. Plato
In the later dialogues, especially the Republic, Plato presents a theory of human
action that resembles Socrates' in some respects, but one that departs from his on
certain key points.13 Most importantly, the later Plato denies Socrates' reduction of all
desires to a singular desire for the good, which is expressed in (1), above. For Plato,
desires are distinguished by their objects and, thus, can be directed at a variety of
different and perhaps competing things. Also important is Plato' division of the soul
into three parts, a rational soul, a passionate or spirited soul, and a desiring or sensitive
soul. Though Plato may offer an alternative explanation that allows for something like
synchronic akrasia, his account fails to explain how these actions could count as
deliberate, intentional actions. Further, his account of the agent is in danger of
incoherence.
In the Republic, Plato argues that each of the parts of the soul has its own desires,
which can come into conflict. This conflict of desires can result in akrasia, which occurs
when the desires of the spirited or desirous souls overpower the desires of the rational
soul. Plato argues for his parts of the soul doctrine by pointing to inner psychological
conflict. This is an interesting departure from Socrates, who took it upon himself to
explain away such conflict as being only apparent; such apparent conflict is in fact
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vacillation. As opposed to this approach, Plato just begins with the acceptance of the
reality of this conflict.
Consider what he says in the Republic at 436b, where he says, "It is obvious that
the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same part of itself,
in relation to the same thing, at the same time. So, if we ever find this happening in the
soul, we'll know that we aren't dealing with one thing but many."14 He then argues
that "assent and dissent, wanting to have something and rejecting it" are pairs of
opposites.15 Next, he argues that having an appetite for something, such as hunger for
food and thirst for drink, can also be opposites, for we can want to have food and we
can also want not to have food.
Now, if a single person both wants and does not want the same thing at the same
time, it must be that these desires are not in the same part of him. As an example, Plato
considers a thirsty man who does not want to drink. He says:
Now, would we assert that sometimes there are thirsty people who don't wish to
drink? -Certainly, it happens often to many different people.
What, then, should one say about them? Isn't it that there is something in their
soul, bidding them to drink, and something different, forbidding them to do so,
that overrules the thing that bids? - 1 think so.
Doesn't that which forbids in such cases come into play - if it comes into play at
all - as a result of rational calculation, while what drives and drags them to drink
is a result of feelings and diseases? -Apparently.
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Hence it isn't unreasonable for us to claim that they are two, and different from
one another. We'll call the part of the soul with which it calculates the rational
part and the part with which it lusts, hungers, thirsts, and gets exciting by other
appetites the irrational appetitive part...(439cl-d5; Plato, Complete Works, p. 1071)
Insofar as he is thirsty, he wants drink, but insofar as he wishes not to drink, he wants
not to drink. As Plato has argued, these two wants are opposites and cannot exist in the
same part at the same time. Thus, they m ust exist in the man in different parts of him.
Thus, when a man desires drink and at the same time judges that he should not drink,
he feels the conflict of two parts of his soul.
Plato's account suggests competing desires, one in the rational part of the soul
and the other in the desirous, appetitive part of the soul. According to Plato, these two
desires, the rational and the appetitive, cannot each be reduced to a fundamental desire
for the good, as Socrates had argued. Instead, Plato argues, each desire is conditioned
by its object. Plato says:
Now, insofar as it is thirst, is it an appetite in the soul for more than that for
which we say that it is the appetite? For example, is thirst thirst for hot drink or
cold, or much drink or little, or, in a word, for drink of a certain sort? Or isn't it
rather that, where heat is present as well as thirst, it causes the appetite to be for
something cold as well, and where cold for something hot...But thirst itself will
never be for anything other than what it is in its nature to be for, namely, drink
itself, and hunger for food...(437d3-el)
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So, the objects of our desire condition and define our desires. When we thirst, we desire
drink and this desire must be understood as a desire for drink.
From this conclusion, Plato then argues, "hence the soul of the thirsty person,
insofar as he's thirsty, doesn't wish anything else but to drink...Therefore, if something
draws it back when it is thirsting, w ouldn't that be something different in it from
whatever thirsts and drives it like a beast to drink?" (439a5-b2). This amounts to the
rejection of the Socratic claim that all desires are really just the desire for our own long
term, overall happiness. Plato flatly denies that move here, arguing that each particular
desire is a desire for some particular object and not for anything more than that. Further,
when we experience a seeming conflict of desire, as when we thirst but desire not to
drink, we must be experiencing two distinct desires. For surely, Plato argues, that which
draws us away from drinking must be something different from that which draws us to
drink. Thus these desires cannot at root be the same thing; instead, they must be
different.
In other words, Plato rejects Socrates' theory by positing irreducible and
incommensurable desires that can oppose one another. Like Socrates, however, he does
not allow that an agent could at the same time both pursue a course of action and try to
refrain, so he divides the agent into parts, one of which pursues and the other of which
tries to refrain.
Plato's account has certain advantages and disadvantages compared to Socrates'.
First of all, Plato's account includes synchronic akrasia, because we can simultaneously
both want to drink and want to refrain from drink. On the other hand, Plato's
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explanation comes at a cost, for his account threatens the akratic nature of the act.
Remember, for an act x to be akratic, it must (a) be intentional or deliberate and (b) be
performed by an agent who knows that x is not the best available course of action. If we
take Plato's account seriously, either (a) or (b) may be in jeopardy. When the desire to
drink, which derives from the appetitive part of the soul, overwhelms the desire to
refrain, found in the rational part of the soul, the agent seems to drink either
unintentionally or unknowingly.
Consider the desire causing the drinking behavior. On the one hand, we could
say that the rational agent is overpowered by a foreign desire originating in his body. If
this is the case, then the rational agent does not drink deliberately. Instead, the
drinking behavior comes over him like an irrepressible sneeze, despite his best attempts
to refrain. On the other hand, we could say that the appetitive agent simply follows his
own desire and does not actually want to refrain, the desire to refrain being just as
foreign to this appetitive agent as the desire to drink was to the rational agent. The real
problem lies in explaining how one agent may have both the desire to drink and the
desire to refrain.
Thus, in addition to the vexing metaphysical problems that arise from his theory,
Plato's tripartite nature of the soul also is problematic as a solution to the problem of
akrasia. As we shall see, Plato's student Aristotle addressed this difficulty head on.
1.1.3. Aristotle
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Aristotle presents an account of akrasia seated in a larger theory of practical
reasoning. That account is to be found in Book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics. He begins
in section 2 of that book by introducing and criticizing Socrates' denial of akrasia.
According to Aristotle, Socrates holds that "our action conflicts with what is best only
because we are ignorant."16 Aristotle denies this is the case because, when someone acts
from a false belief, we do not blame them, whereas we do not pardon vices such as
incontinence or akrasia.
Aristotle argues against Socrates by appealing to our moral intuitions. Because
of the way we blame and excuse, Aristotle argues, Socrates' account cannot be correct.
Aristotle says:
Some people concede some of [Socrates' points], but reject some of them. For
they agree that nothing is superior to knowledge, but they deny the claim that no
one's action conflicts with what has seemed better to him. That is why they say
that when the incontinent person is overcome by pleasure he has only belief, no
knowledge.
If however, he has belief, not knowledge, and the supposition that resists is not
strong, but only a weak one, such as people have when they are in doubt, we will
pardon failure to abide by these beliefs against strong appetites. In fact, however,
we do not pardon vice, or any other blameworthy condition [and incontinence is
one of these]. (1145b32-1146a4; bracketed phrases in Irwin's translation; p. 101)
When we are ignorant, we are not held to be blameworthy if we are unable to resist
strong desires. And when we have weak or doubtful belief, we are similarly excused.
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However, when we are incontinent and suffer akrasia, we are not excused, but held
accountable, as we should be. Because of this important moral distinction between
acting against the good from ignorance or weak belief and acting against the good from
incontinence, Aristotle suggests, incontinence cannot be the same as acting from weak
or doubtful belief. Thus, Socrates' explanation of akrasia as being the result of weak or
doubtful belief is false, Aristotle argues.
In the following section, Aristotle takes up the question again and offers his own
account of akrasia. He has suggested in the previous section that Socrates' account, that
akrasia is nothing but ignorance, is false. Thus he must explain in what way the akratic
agent possesses knowledge of the good when he acts akratically. He explains how this
occurs with the help of his theory of practical reason.
Aristotle begins by making an important distinction between incontinence and
intemperance. The intemperate person, Aristotle says, "acts on decision when he is led
on, since he thinks it is right in every case to pursue the pleasant thing at hand; the
incontinent person, however, thinks it wrong to pursue this pleasant thing, yet still
pursues it."17 Thus, incontinent or akratic action involves pursuing, i.e., choosing, the
course of action that one knows or believes to be wrong. And the question of whether
the akratic action contravenes knowledge or mere firm belief is irrelevant, Aristotle says.
In order to account for akrasia, Aristotle introduces a distinction in ways of
knowing. He says,
But we speak of knowing in two ways; we ascribe it both to someone who has it
without using it and to someone who is using it. Hence it will matter whether
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someone has the knowledge that his action is wrong, without attending to his
knowledge, or he both has it and attends to it. For this second case seems
extraordinary, but wrong action where he does not attend to his knowledge does
not seem extraordinary. (1146b31-36; Irwin, 103)
We may have knowledge of some good and act on that knowledge, or we may possess
such knowledge, but act from some other motivation. The account Aristotle is
establishing here is this: when the akratic agent acts, he does not primarily attend to his
knowledge that this action is bad - he does not act from that knowledge, but from
something else.
The details of this account turn on Aristotle's theory of the practical syllogism. A
practical syllogism contains a universal, or major, premise and a particular, or minor,
premise, the conclusion of which issues in an action. Aristotle says,
Further, since there are two types of premises, someone's action may well
conflict with his knowledge if he has both types of premises, but uses only the
universal premise and not the particular premise. For it is particulars that are
achievable in action... (1147al-4)
Imagine a person who believes the following universal premise: 'a dieter ought not to
eat cake.' Then say that this person also affirms the following particular premises: 'I am
a dieter' and 'this is cake.' Now, these premises entail the conclusion, 'I ought not to eat
this.' However, if I do not use or attend to some aspects of this syllogism, then this
conclusion either does not follow or is not in use.
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According to Aristotle, one might fail to attend to this practical syllogism
because the particular in the minor premise may occupy your attention. The particular
being generally sensory, it is perceptual and thus resistant to rationality, according to
Aristotle. He says,
Further, we may also look at the cause [of akrasia] in the following way, referring
to [human] nature. For one belief is universal; the other is about particulars, and
because they are particulars, perception controls them... Suppose, then that
someone has the universal belief hindering him from tasting; he has the second
belief, that everything sweet is pleasant and this is sweet, and this belief is active;
but it turns out that appetite is present in him. The belief, then, tells him to avoid
this, but appetite leads him on... (1147a25-1147a36; Irwin, 1043-4)
We may indeed be aware that we ought not eat this cake. If we also have appetite,
however, this appetite can lead us to reason poorly and act in a different manner. Let
us return to our example. Say that a person forms the following practical syllogism:
Major premise: a dieter ought not to eat sweet things;
Minor premises: I am a dieter; this is cake, which is sweet;
Conclusion: thus, I ought not eat this.
Now say that the person also has this belief:
this cake, being sweet, is pleasant.
The first practical syllogism above should direct the person not eat the cake. But,
Aristotle says, if the person also feels the appetite of hunger, then the person might fail
to follow through and act on this practical syllogism. For when they consider the
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practical syllogism, they have to consider the particular, the cake. And this is when
their appetite causes them to divert their attention from the practical syllogism to the
alternative line of reasoning that focuses simply on the pleasantness of the cake.
Aristotle describes just what is in opposition when akrasia occurs and we choose
to pursue some particular that our judgment has forbidden, saying,
The result, then, is that in a way reason and belief make him act incontinently.
The [second] belief is contrary to the correct reason, but only coincidentally, not
in its own right. For the appetite, not the belief, is contrary [in its own right to the
correct reason]. That is also why beasts are not incontinent, because they have no
universal supposition, but [only] appearance and memory of particulars.
(1147bl-6; Irwin, 104)
If I form the practical syllogism laid out above, I will reason from the universal premise
that a dieter ought to avoid sweet things. Now, when no contrary appetite is present, I
normally form the minor premise as well, that this thing before me, a dieter, is a sweet
cake, which leads me to conclude that I ought not to eat it. However, when I feel the
pull of appetite, I may return to the minor premise and dwell on the particular piece of
cake and its sweetness. I know that the cake, being sweet, would be pleasant to eat.
The appetite then causes me to employ this particular not in the context of the universal
premise and the practical syllogism, but merely to act from the pleasantness of the
particular. Thus I eat the cake, even though my mind contains the knowledge that I
ought not eat the cake. At the very moment of choice, my mind contains the universal
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premise and the particular premise, but my mind does not attend to the universal
premise, only the particular one. Thus I act incontinently, or akratically.
Let me summarize the account. According to Aristotle, our actions normally
stem from deliberation and practical syllogisms that involve a universal and particular
premise. The major premise, being universal, contains an abstract principle, while the
minor premise, being particular, contains a perception. Now, perceptions are
necessarily bodily things, for Aristotle. If the body becomes disturbed by a strong bodily
passion, however, such as hunger or lust, the m ind's conception of that particular can
become skewed or unstable. This instability sometimes leads the mind to focus only on
the particular, attending to its pleasantness or unpleasantness, and not attending to the
universal premise that accompanies it. Thus, under pressure from certain bodily
passions, our practical reasoning may function defectively, so that it issues actions that
run contrary to our judgments, thus resulting in akratic action.
Several further features of Aristotle's account require comment. To begin, the
account just given concerns only in cases of sensual desire, such as lust or hunger.
These cases, which are called weak or passionate akrasia, involve our practical
deliberations being short-circuited, if you will, by the strength of a bodily passion or
appetite. Thus, this account of akrasia does not include cases where an agent acts
akratically as a result of a calm deliberative process, which we may call calm akrasia.
In calm akrasia, the agent performs a rational deliberation, but arrives at
conclusions that seem to rim counter to reason. For example, say that a person has
excessive love of country. This person may reason as follows:
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Major premise: one ought to love one's country and so one ought to do whatever
one can to aid one's country;
Minor premise: I could aid my country by carrying out torture on these terror
suspects;
Conclusion: I will carry out this torture, even though it generally runs against
other principles I may affirm.
This kind of character is one who may calmly and rationally deliberate about what
would be best to do. But sometimes, as in this case, these conclusions may be abhorrent
and rim contrary to his principles. Yet in some cases, he may carry them out anyway.
And he may do so simply because he has an excessive love of country. This passion
colors and skews his practical reasoning, causing him to value some things too highly.
According to Aristotle, this is not a case of akrasia, strictly speaking, because no bodily
appetite has prevented my from acting on universal principles. Instead, I am guilty of faulty
reasoning, Aristotle would say. And this is exactly the same conclusion that Socrates
would reach. In other words, Aristotle's account agrees with Socrates' except in cases
of bodily appetites. Like Plato and unlike Socrates, Aristotle holds that bodily appetites
can overcome reason and cause us to act akratically.
Aristotle's theory is not without problems. This account of akrasia may be
vulnerable to one of the charges leveled against the Platonic account, which is the
charge that akratic action fails to be deliberate or intentional. For, if akratic action is the
result of our reason being blinded or bound by a physical impulse or appetite, how can
we be said to choose that action intentionally, or to perform that action deliberately? It
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is not quite clear how we can say this. Perhaps the Platonic origins of Aristotle's
account lend it this difficulty.
As opposed to Plato, however, the problem of multiple agents does not as readily
arise for Aristotle, because his account of the practical reasoning integrates the
competing motivations into a single practical syllogism. After all, passionate akratic
action occurs when one agent entertains a single practical syllogism, but attends too
carefully to one aspect and disregards the other. This kind of account makes a parts-of-
the-soul doctrine impossible. On the other hand, Aristotle's bodily appetites seem
steadfastly anti-cognitive. They involve only the brute perceptions of particulars, which
is the same kind of cognition that Aristotle ascribes to animals. Thus, for Aristotle,
akratic action occurs when a rational animal allows his bestial appetites to direct his
practical reasoning, so that he disregards the distinctly rational aspects of that reasoning,
namely, the universal principles. Akrasia, then, is the trium ph of the bodily perceived,
corporeal particular over the cognitively apprehended universal, abstract principle.
Thus, Aristotle provides an account of akrasia that is largely Socratic, but one that
accepts the Platonic point that, sometimes, bodily appetites rooted in particulars can
overpower the force of reason. With the exception of an arguably narrow range of cases,
reason will always succeed in directing action. Thus, as long as we can control our
bodily passions, we need only worry about gaining knowledge in order to avoid error
and incontinence.
1.1 A. Hume
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Over the centuries after Aristotle, various philosophers advocated views that
resembled those of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates in various ways. Except for Spinoza
and perhaps the Stoics, however, no one presented a radically distinct theory of akrasia
until David Hume.18 According to Socrates, if one believes a course of action to be best,
then one will be motivated to pursue that course of action and will attempt to do so.
According to Aristotle and Plato, if one believes a course of action to be best, one will
attempt to pursue that course of action only if passion does not overwhelm or misdirect
our reasoning.
All of these ancient views hold judgment and motivation in intimate connection.
Hume famously split judgment from motivation, claiming that our desires to act
develop independently of our judgments. Indeed, for Hume, "Reason is, and ought
only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to
serve and obey them ."19 Let us turn to Hume's argument for this remarkable
conclusion.
Hume begins by stating what he takes to be the received view, a view that is
reminiscent of Aristotle's, when he says,
Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of
the combat of passion and reason, to give the preference to reason, and assert
that men are only so far virtuous as they conform themselves to its dictates.
Every rational creature, it is said, is obliged to regulate his actions by reason; and
if any other motive or principle challenge the direction of his conduct, he ought
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to oppose it, till it be entirely subdued, or at least brought to a conformity with
that superior principle.20
Aristotle explains akrasia, for example, as a case where the power of a passion causes us
to reason poorly. If we are to be continent and thus virtuous, we must subdue those
passions and assert the supremacy of reason, Aristotle holds. And this is the view that
Hume sketches here - the view that he will endeavor to reject.
According to Hume, when considering an object, we have the potential to expect
pain or pleasure. Reason comes into to play here, because it informs us of the causal
relations the possibly painful or pleasurable object bears to us. This realization will lead
us to flee or pursue the object. So reason does play a role in directing our action, but the
motive to act arises not from our knowledge of cause and effect (i.e., our judgments of
these relations among ourselves and objects), but from the emotions related to pain and
pleasure. Hume says:
But it is evident in this case that the impulse arises not from reason, but is only
directed by it. It is from the prospect of pain or pleasure that the aversion or
propensity arises towards any object: And these emotions extend themselves to
the causes and effects of that object, as they are pointed out to us by reason and
experience. It can never in the least concern us to know, that such objects are
causes, and such others effects, if both the causes and effects be indifferent to us.
(414)
So, when we consider an object, we may feel an emotion. This emotion then will lead
us to react. The direction of this impulse to react is determined by our knowledge of
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cause and effect. So, for example, say that we see a spider on the floor. The spider
causes fear in us. Only after this fear has arisen do we use our causal knowledge to
determine how to react. Perhaps, after I feel fear of the spider, I will judge that the
spider is venomous and could bite me and that the best way to avoid being bitten is not
to approach the spider. The impulse from fear is then directed by this knowledge to
move me away from the spider. The bodily motion comes from the fear, while the
direction of motion comes from the causal knowledge.
And no further judgment could directly oppose the impulse of fear itself. For,
Hume famously says,
Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a contrary impulse...
But if reason has no original influence, 'tis impossible it can withstand any
principle, which has such an efficacy, or ever keep the mind in suspence a
moment. Thus it appears, that the principle, which opposes our passion, cannot
be the same with reason, and is only called so in an improper sense. We speak
not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of
reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never
pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. (415)
Only an impulse can oppose and overpower another impulse. But reason is not an
impulse, but a judgment. As such, reason cannot impede an emotional impulse at all.
Thus, if something is to oppose a passion, it cannot be reason, for reason serves the
passions. For reason does nothing but point the impulses in particular directions; it
cannot overpower or impede those impulses.
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These passions are not rational things; they are not judgments or ideas. Instead,
they are brute movement. As Hume says, "A passion is an original existence, or, if you
will, modification of existence, and contains not any representative quality."21 And
these passions cannot be opposed by the ideas of reason, for ideas may oppose only
other ideas. So Hume says,
When I am angry, I am actually possest with the passion, and in that emotion
have no more a reference to any other object, than when I am thirsty, or sick, or
more than five foot high. It is impossible, therefore, that this passion can be
opposed by, or be contradictory to truth and reason; since this contradiction
consists in the disagreement of ideas. (Hume, Treatise, 415)
Whereas an emotion, for Aristotle, is conditioned by and in some sense refers to its
object, Hume's emotions are completely without representational content. For Hume,
emotions simply are brute impulses. Thirst is simply a blind drive and not the
judgment that drink would be good, for example.
This non-cognitive account of the passions also means that the passions cannot
strictly be irrational, in the sense that they cannot conflict with reason. Indeed, Hume
argues, these are the two only ways in which emotions can be called irrational. First, if
the emotion arises only as a result of a false belief about something's existence, then it
can be called irrational. For example, if I feel fear as a result of falsely believing there to
be a burglar in my house, I have an irrational emotion. Second, if I act on an emotion
and choose an insufficient means toward my end, I can be called irrational. So, for
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example, if I fear a burglar and wish to escape him but choose to do so by hiding in a
closet he is likely to search, I have acted irrationally.
From this view of the non-cognitive nature of emotions and their relation to
ideas, Hume rejects the problem of akrasia. That is, he does not find akrasia to be a
problem at all. As he famously says:
T is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the
scratching of my finger. T is not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin,
to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me.
T is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good
to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter. A
trivial good may, from certain circumstances, produce a desire superior to what
arises from the greatest and most valuable enjoyment; nor is there any thing
more extraordinary in this, than in mechanics to see one pound weight raise up a
hundred by the advantage of its situation. In short, a passion must be
accompanied with some false judgment, in order to its being unreasonable; and
even then it is not the passion, properly speaking, which is unreasonable, but the
judgment. (416)
Emotions arise as a result of a blind process. These emotions impel me toward or away
from certain things. The specifics of my actions are determined by my ideas, to be sure,
but the emotions themselves are the motivations. And these emotional motivators are
neither rational nor irrational, strictly speaking. Thus, if I desire the lesser of two goods
more than the greater, this is not irrational, Hume says. Just as a lesser weight may
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raise a greater one in certain circumstances (imagine a lever or pulley system at work),
so too can a lesser good create a greater desire. Only if I choose an insufficient means to
those desired ends, or if I make a mistake concerning the existence of an entity, can I be
said to be irrational in these cases. The emotions themselves afford no such
categorization. Thus, for Hume, akratic action is not irrational.
Motivation to act is completely external to our judgments concerning matters of
fact - even those concerning what would benefit or harm us. We may judge that a
certain course of action is beneficial to us, yet our non-rational desire to follow the lesser
course is greater and, thus, we choose the lesser course.22 As Hume says, "Men often
act knowingly against their interest: For which reason the view of the greatest possible
good does not always influence them."23
Hume rejects the description of akrasia according to which reason and the
passions struggle to determine hum an action. This does not mean that he denies all
psychic struggle, however, for passions may oppose other passions. And that feeling of
inner turmoil, which other thinkers have ascribed to the conflict of reason and passion,
Hume ascribes to the conflict between calm and violent passions. Because one of the
passions involved in calm, the mind may not feel it so strongly and may fail to notice its
presence. When the mind makes this mistake, Hume claims, the mind may mistakenly
ascribe the opposition to the violent passions to reason itself. This is incorrect, however.
So Hume says,
...there are certain calm desires and tendencies, which, though they be real
passions, produce little emotion in the mind, and are more known by their effects
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than by the immediate feeling or sensation... When any of these passions are
calm, and cause no disorder in the soul, they are very readily taken for the
determinations of reason... Beside these calm passions, which often determine
the will, there are certain violent emotions of the same kind, which have likewise
a great influence on that faculty... What we call strength of mind, implies the
prevalence of the calm passions above the violent. (417-8)
Strictly speaking, Hume denies the possibility of akrasia, if akrasia is taken to be
irrational. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which Hume offers an account of akrasia
here. Akrasia occurs just when a violent passion overwhelms one of our calm passions.
And strength of will occurs when the calm passions overpower the violent ones. The
calm passions, Hume says, are normally those associated with the determinations of
reason, while the violent passions are normally those associated with our lusts, hungers,
angers, and so on.
For Hume, judgments as to what would be the most beneficial course of action
do not entail a desire to carry out that course of action - practical judgments are
independent of motivation. Moral judgments are even further removed from reason,
since they rely on feelings of sympathy in the imagination. In general, then, non-
cognitive desires motivate hum an action, not judgments. And the faculty of reason,
which includes these judgments, cannot oppose or resist these motivations. Any
resistance to a passion must be carried out by another passion. When we say that
someone is weak willed, we really mean that he is ruled by one kind of passion over
another. The strong-willed person is he who is ruled by the calm passions, not the
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violent ones.24 Indeed, Hume's theory is a bold rejection of the Aristotelian, Socratic,
and Platonic accounts. Despite common opinion, however, Hume was not the first to
carry out so great a revision of moral psychology. For many of the revolutionary
features of Hume's moral psychology were already present in Spinoza.
1.1.5. Donald Davidson
Perhaps the preeminent theorist of akrasia in the 20th Century was Donald
Davidson. In a seminal essay, "How is Weakness of Will Possible?", he presents the
problem of akrasia and proposes to explain how this seemingly paradoxical
phenomenon occurs. I will argue, however, that it is in fact very similar to theories I
have already discussed, especially those of Socrates and Aristotle.
Davidson begins by offering his definition of weakness of will, or incontinence,
saying:
D. In doing x an agent acts incontinently if and only if: (a) the agent does x
intentionally; (b) the agent believes there is an alternative action y open to him;
and (c) the agent believes that, all things considered, it would be better to do y
than to do x.25
Akratic action occurs when an agent intentionally pursues a course of action that he has
judged, all things considered, to be inferior to another course of action available to him.
In short, we act akratically when we intentionally act counter to our best judgment.
After some discussion, Davidson presents the paradox of akrasia as consisting in
the following inconsistent set of three propositions:
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PI. If an agent wants to do x more than he wants to do y and he believes himself
free to do either x or y, then he will intentionally do x if he does either x or y
intentionally.
P2. If an agent judges that it would be better to do x than to do y, then he wants
to do x more than he wants to do y.
P3. There are incontinent actions. (Davidson, 23)
Like Aristotle, Davidson begins with accepting the reality of incontinent actions. Given
that we do in fact sometimes intentionally act contrary to our all-things-considered
judgments, P1-P3 present a paradox. According to P2, if I judge a course of action to be
superior to the others, I will want to do that action more than the others. And PI holds
that I will do whatever action I want to do more, assuming I do anything at all. PI and
P2 come together to form a kind of Socratic conclusion that I will necessarily do what I
judge to be best. Yet P3 shows that the picture is not so clear, because I sometimes seem
to fail to do what I judge to be best.
As Davidson himself notes, P2 is the principle that is most often amended or
rejected. This principle involves a view called internalism, according to which
judgments of value entail wants or desires. Now, most thinkers do not reject
internalism per se, but wish to re-interpret P2 to allow for seeming cases of akrasia. For
example, perhaps those judgments about what would be best in P2 actually concern a
judgment about what is expected of us by our community. If so, then I find no
difficulty in rejecting P2, for people often do not most want to do what they judge their
community to condone. If we follow this line, however, then we do not really consider
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truly incontinent acts, which involve doing what we judge to be the worse course, not
what our community judges to be the worse course. That is not an incontinent act,
though it may be an unlawful one.
Another way people attempt to dodge this account is by attacking PI. For we
may most want to do some course of action, but we may be overwhelmed by some
other passion. This quasi-Platonic reply is also unsatisfying, however, for it also
involves the denial of true akrasia. In this case, the agent performing the akratic action
does not do so intentionally, for they are at the mercy of this foreign force. So the
paradox remains.
Davidson then turns to Aristotle's own account. Aristotle attempts to solve the
paradox by claiming we can know in two ways: we may know something but fail to use
such knowledge and we may know and use knowledge. When we act akratically,
Aristotle holds, we know that we ought to do otherwise, but do not use that knowledge.
As Davidson points out, Aristotle claims that the man who has but does not use
knowledge is like the drunk or the sleeping man. Davidson criticizes this view, because
it seems to conflate weakness of will with loss of control. In other words, Aristotle's
account of akrasia seems only to apply to cases where we lose control and wildly
succumb to temptation. His account does not allow for calmly succumbing and subtly
and deliberately carrying out our weak willed acts. In short, according to Davidson's
Aristotle, the akratic agent does not employ reasons that lead him to the akratic act;
instead, his passions prevent him from using reason. This appears to render akratic
action unintentional.
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Davidson continues to criticize Aristotle from another angle. If an akratic act
results from a very strong desire, Davidson reasons, this desire m ust have involved a
judgment that the action was desirable. In this line of argument, Davidson seems to
employ the converse of P2, above, for he reasons that, if an agent wants very much to
perform an action, then he must have judged that action to be very desirable. And if the
agent judged the akratic act to be desirable, he must not have fully appreciated how
much that act was undesirable. Thus, the akratic agent who acts from a strong desire
likely did not realize the undesirability of his action. Yet this is exactly the opposite of
the alleged akratic agent, who performs an action knowing its undesirability.
In other words, if we wish to call the akratic action intentional, then the akratic
agent must have had reasons for his action. Plausibly, a person has a reason to perform
an act just when they judge it to be a good act to perform. Yet this is exactly not what
the akratic agent does. Therefore, the akratic agent seems not to have a reason for his
action. According to Davidson, if an agent does not act for a reason, then the agent
cannot be said to have acted intentionally. Yet this seems just to be what Aristotle
requires, so Davidson rejects the Aristotelian account.
Davidson then offers his own account. Davidson's solution is to make a
distinction between two kinds of judgments. On the one hand, we sometimes make
prima facie, all-things-considered judgments, which does not involve a commitment to the
superiority of the better option. These judgments do not tell us which is better
simpliciter, but only tell us which is better in light of some reason r. They are more like a
hypothesis than a decision. These judgments employ a kind of prima facie operator, as
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well as a condition based on reason r. So, according to Davidson, they might take the
following form:
P f (y is better than x, given r)
Here, r is the reason why y is better than x. Given r, y is better, prima facie. Note that
this is not the kind of prescription found in Hare and, as such, does not entail a
commitment either to doing y or even to evaluating y to be best unconditionally.26
On the other hand, we also make unconditional evaluative judgments, which
Davidson sometimes calls "evaluative judgments sans phrase." These are simply of the
form ‘x is better than y / Now, PI and P2 only involve unconditional judgments, sans phrase,
and not conditional or prima facie judgments.
According to Davidson, then, we may make a conditional, or all-things-
considered, judgment that y is preferable to x, but then make an unconditional, or sans
phrase, judgment in favor of x, and do x, not y. Our judgment to do y being conditional
on reason r, it does not commit us to doing y. Only the unconditional judgment to do x
commits us to action. Since only unconditional judgments are involved in PI and P2,
and since the only conflict in akrasia is between one conditional and one unconditional
judgment, it follows that akrasia is consistent with PI and P2 and, thus, there is no
problem of akrasia.
First of all, Davidson's account is really not so different from Socrates'. For,
according to Davidson, if someone has made an unconditional judgment that x is better,
they necessarily must do x. They cannot unconditionally evaluate x to be better yet fail
to do x (assuming that they know themselves to be capable of x, of course). In short,
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then, Davidson's unconditional evaluations are effectively the same as Hare's
prescriptions.
In fact, on Davidson's account of akrasia, here is what really happens. The akratic
judges course y to be best all-things-considered; that is, given some reason r, y is better.
But then the akratic agent makes an unconditional evaluation that x is better and, thus,
acts on x, not y. In short, the judgment that y is better was only hypothetical. So, when we
suffer akrasia, we simply choose to do one thing contrary to some hypothetical judgment
we have made. Or so says Davidson.
But this is unsatisfying, because it relies on what may be an irrelevant distinction,
because it seems simply to deny the possibility of strict akrasia. No final, bottom line,
unconditional, non-hypothetical judgment has been overturned or has failed to obtain.
The only unconditional judgment made was followed through quite consistently. In
this regard, Davidson seems to resemble Socrates more than any other thinker on this
topic. Like Socrates, Davidson denies strict akrasia and tries to offer an alternative
account intended to do away with our intuitions of mental struggle. What we feel is
actually a conflict between two different kinds of judgment, Davidson says. For this
apparent denial of akrasia, Davidson's account is rejected by many writers.27
1.1.6. Alfred Mele
The final theorist reviewed here is Alfred Mele. In his book Irrationality: A n Essay
on Akrasia, Self-Deception, and Self-Control, Mele offers a robust and detailed account of
the phenomenon of strict akratic action, which occurs when an agent performs an act
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freely, intentionally, and against his better judgment. This is not Socrates' diachronic
akrasia in which the agent flip-flops between judgments. Strict akratic action occurs in
the face of the better judgment. Mele explains first how the concept of strict akratic
action is possible and then how the event often occurs.
Strict akratic action is, first of all, free action. As Mele points out, this is a serious
challenge to any account of akrasia. When speaking loosely, people often speak of
akratic action as a case where the agent was "carried away with passion," so to speak.
Indeed, no account of akrasia is complete without an explanation of how the akratic
action is free.
The other theories reviewed here that allow for strict akratic action, specifically,
Plato's and Aristotle's theories, struggle to offer such an explanation. For Plato, one acts
akratically when the passions of the lower parts of the soul overpower those of the
highest part of the soul, reason. As Plato explains it, however, it looks as though the
faculty of reason is incapable of resisting the greater power of the lower parts of the soul
at the time of akratic action. Of course, had the agent undergone proper training and
gained sufficient knowledge before the moment of akratic action, the power of the
agent's reason might have been sufficient to resist the irrational desires. Yet at the time
of action, it seems that the agent did not possess the capacity to resist the irrational
desire, though he may possess the capacity to gain such a capacity.
Aristotle's theory may also face this challenge. According to Aristotle, akrasia
occurs when a bodily passion overpowers a rational practical syllogism and leads to
irrational action. The passion somehow renders the agent's practical reasoning
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defective. The agent reasons and acts not from his universal principles, but out of an
undue attention to the particular present in the minor premise of the practical syllogism.
Once again, we may wonder how the resultant action can be called free. For the passion
seems to overwhelm and prevent the practical syllogism from following through
properly. Does the akratic agent possess the capacity to refrain from the akratic action
at the time of execution? It is not at all clear that he does, in Aristotle's theory.
Mele's own account addresses this challenge head-on. It may be the case that
when faced with the threat of akrasia, the agent is not sufficiently motivated by his
practical judgments to resist the akratic action. However, Mele reasons:
An agent can, for example, refuse, at the time of action, to focus his attention on
the attractive aspects of the envisioned akratic action and concentrate instead on
what is to be accomplished by acting as he judges best. He can attempt to
augment his motivation for performing the action judged best by promising
himself a reward (e.g., a night on the town) for doing so. He can refuse to
entertain second thoughts about the judgment that he has just very carefully
reached. He can practice more sophisticated self-control techniques prescribed
by his behavioral therapist...W hen we ask whether an akratic action was
motivated by an irresistible desire, we should ask whether it was in the agent's
power at the time to augment his motivation to perform the action judged best,
or to decrease his contrary motivation — or, more precisely, it was in his power to
bring it about that the bulk of his motivation lay on the side of his better
judgment. (24)
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In short, then, the strength of a desire may be sufficient for action, but not be irresistible,
because in most circumstances we could marshal more motivational force by focusing
our attention and other cognitive methods or by relying on non-cognitive techniques.
Mele next takes up an aspect of the Davidsonian denial of the possibility of strict
akratic action. Davidson finds difficulty in seeing how the very concept of akrasia is
even coherent. According to Mele, Davidson's difficulty lies in his identification of
one's unconditional judgment with an intention. Mele argues convincingly that better
judgment is not identical to choice, nor to intention. Something additional is required in
order for any judgment to become a choice to act, or an intention. According to Mele,
we can make what he calls decisive better judgments. The decisive better judgments give
us a motivation to act, but they do not entail that we attempt to do anything at all. Only
forming an intention has that entailment, for Mele. But strict akratic action is not free
and intentional action against another of our intentions. Instead, it is free and
intentional action against one of our better judgments. And this is the mistake Mele
attributes to Davidson: he mistakenly identifies (a kind of) judgment with intention.
By distinguishing best judgment from intention, Mele allows for intentional
action that contravenes best judgment. Since he has already shown how such action can
be free, Mele has therefore shown how free, intentional action against our best
judgment is conceptually possible. After having explained this, he turns to explain how
it is psychologically possible. At root, his explanation boils down to this: "...evaluation
and motivation can be out of line with each other."28 Mele first gives a real-world
example. Consider a biology student who has an assignment to prick his own finger
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and place a drop of his own blood on a slide to examine. He evaluates that doing this
assignment is in his interest and so he evaluates pricking his finger as being the best
course of action to do. So, in one sense of the term wants to, the biology student wants
to do prick his finger. But he also fears the pain involved. Now, say he considers the
pain at length and decides that, even given the pain, it is still best for him to proceed
with the pricking. His evaluative judgment concerning what is best to do becomes
decisive. This decisive judgment gives him a motivation to prick his finger. And say
that this motivation leads to his forming an intention to do so. He then picks up the
needle and brings it toward his finger. But at the last moment, he intentionally pauses
and refrains from pricking and he does so while still judging it best to proceed. Now, the
refraining act is intentional, free, and against his better judgment. This is possible for
one of two reasons: First, it may be the case that his motivation to prick his finger
remained, but his motivation to refrain grew as the needle approached his finger. At
the last moment, the motivation to refrain exceeded the motivation to prick and, so, he
refrained. Or perhaps he never had a stronger motivation to prick his finger. In this
case, he had an evaluative judgment that pricking would be better. Thus, in an
evaluative sense, he wanted to prick his finger. But even then, he lacked to motivational
wherewithal to follow through. Either of these explanations could account for the
student's strict akratic action.
Mele has claimed that Davidson's exclusive appeal to reasons are not sufficient
to explain (some) hum an action, especially strict akratic action. To augment what he
takes to be Davidson's too simplistic account, Mele offers several further considerations,
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beginning with a notion of self-control. Mele describes the self-controlled person as
follows:
In short, a self-controlled person is someone who is appropriately motivated to
conduct himself as he judges best and has the ability to master motivation to the
contrary...And, of course, self-control comes in degrees... (60)
The self-controlled person is one who has a greater motivation to obey his best
judgments, which gives him greater power to resist contrary motivations. This greater
motivation and power come in degrees, of course.29
After having discussed the possibility of strict akratic action (as well as several
related paradoxes), Mele turns to explain how strict akratic action could actually come
about in Chapter 6, section 3 and 4, where he relies on two methods. First, he discusses
the view that our motivation increases as the expected rewards become more proximate.
In other words, hum an beings demonstrate a bias toward the near. That this is so is
supported by psychological research, though this phenomenon cannot by itself explain
strict akratic action. After all, we sometimes exhibit self-control in the face of such
biases. Mele then introduces considerations of attention. If we attend to the desire to eat
the cake instead of the desire to stick to our diet, we may experience an increased
motivation to eat it and thus succumb. In short, then, a bias toward the near and a
certain use of attention can explain how particular cases of strict akratic action occur.
Mele's account captures many of our intuitions; indeed, it may capture more
than any previous thinker. Mele allows that strict akrasia can occur, unlike Socrates and
Davidson. Mele also acknowledges that desires can come apart from our practical
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judgments, like Hume. Yet Mele also recognizes that practical judgments do motivate.
He also offers a more thorough account than the other theorists of how strict akratic
action is free, intentional, and against our best judgment. As we shall see, Mele's
account resembles Spinoza's own in many of these ways.
1.2. Three Theoretical Positions
Six major theorists of akrasia have been presented, each with their particular
account of how - or whether - akrasia is possible. To aid our understanding of how
these thinkers relate to one another, it is helpful to categorize them according to how
they answer a particular question, which is:
What is the relation between practical judgments and motivation?
Those who say that practical judgments are modally linked to motivation may be called
strong internalists. Those that say that such judgments are only contingently linked to
motivation may be called externalists. And those who hold that such judgments are
modally linked to motivation, but only so linked ceteris paribus, are weak internalists.
These senses of internalism are sometimes called judgment internalism. As we shall see,
our six thinkers may each be placed into one of these three camps.
To be sure, there are many other senses of internalism and extemalism. Indeed,
there is even a related discussion concerning where our moral motivation ultimately
resides that uses these terms differently.30 In what follows, however, internalism is the
view that motivation is 'internal' to practical judgment - that is, when one makes a
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practical judgment, one necessarily has at least some motivation to act. I will take
extemalism to be the view that practical judgment entails no such motivation.
1.2.1. Strong Internalism
Strong internalism concerning judgment and motivation is the view that practical
judgments are modally linked to motivation. Socrates held this view, as did Donald
Davidson. Davidson expresses strong internalism with his P2 principle:
P2. If an agent judges that it would be better to do x than to do y, then he wants
to do x more than he wants to do y. (Davidson, 23)
According to Davidson's strong internalism, the course of action we judge to be best is
the one we most want to do. Our practical judgment, then, determines our motivation.
If P2 is true, then it is impossible that we might judge y to be a worse course of action
than x yet nonetheless desire to do y more than x.
Of course, for Davidson, we may indeed make conditional judgments to the
contrary. So, we may reason as follows: if we value our long-term health, then action x
is better than action y; indeed, insofar as we have these values, action x is the best action
available to us. Thus, our wanting to do y the most is conditional and not sans phrase.
However, we may thereafter make an unconditional or sans phrase judgment that action y
is best and thus want to do y the most. Concerning our unconditional judgments, P2
holds and, thus, Davidson is a strong internalist.
According to Socrates, hum an beings desire only their own long-term happiness.
Thus, any intentional hum an action will aim at this end. Given that all hum an action
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aims at the same end, our choices concerning how to act are choices of means towards
that end. The choice of one means over another is a choice based solely in our beliefs
concerning which means is the best to achieve our ends.
Before acting, an agent reviews his beliefs about the various means to happiness
at his disposal and, if he will act, he will reach a conclusion that one is the best action.
The only things that could prevent him from carrying out this acts are if he is prevented
by some external obstacle or if he re-evaluates the means available to him and reaches a
different conclusion. For if he evaluates one means as best, and if he thereafter does not
perform that action but some other action, he either acted for a reason or he did not. If
he did, then he must have later judged that course of action to be preferable to the
formerly chosen action. If he did not act for a reason, then his action is not intentional
and thus he does not suffer akrasia, but compulsion.
Davidson reasons along the same lines, though for somewhat distinct reasons.
For Davidson, all action is done for a reason. So, if an action is to be intentional, it must
be done for a reason. And having a reason to act is, for Davidson, just to have a belief
that this course of action is best. But strict akratic actions seem to go contrary to our
judgments as to what is best, so they do not seem intentional.
For Socrates, all action aims at the same end and, so, all action involves choosing
the best means. So, when we act intentionally, we do so because we have judged that
course of action to be best. But strict akratic action seems to go contrary to the course of
action we have judged to be best and, so, it is difficult to see how we could have chosen
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such a course of action at all. And so, it is difficult to see how such a course of action is
intentional.
Note that both Davidson and Socrates employ certain assumptions about the
relation between practical judgment and motivation. For Davidson motivation comes
about from reasons, which are judgments concerning what is best to do. For Socrates,
motivation comes from a judgment as to what would be the best means to our shared
end, happiness.
Both thinkers require a kind of totalizing, single judgment concerning the best
course of action in order to engender a motivation to act. Neither thinker, for example,
countenances multiple conflicting motivations, because neither allows multiple
conflicting judgments. Such judgments would have to take the form of 'I judge x to be
the best course of action and I judge x not to be the best course of action.' Davidson and
Socrates reject the possibility of such logically contradictory judgments.
Thus it seems that, implicit in the strong internalist position, is the view that
hum an action results from a totalizing decision process that cannot result in
contradictory motivations, because such a result would require a single mind to affirm
contradictory judgments simultaneously, which the strong internalist takes to be absurd.
As we shall see, many weak internalists attempt to account for multiple competing
motivations and judgments in the same agent, either by allowing a single mind to
affirm contradictory judgments or by positing distinct parts of a mind affirming non
contradictory judgments.
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Very generally, then, the strong internalist affirms certain theses about the nature
of reason and the mind, namely, that no rational agent may affirm contradictory things
at the same time and that a rational agent possesses a unitary mind, not one composed
of distinct and possibly opposing parts. As we shall see, Spinoza denies these theses.
W hat's more, the strong internalist must deny the possibility of strict akrasia, instead
explaining away instances of akrasia in various ways. For example, Socrates explains
instances of akrasia as being diachronic, involving a vacillation of the mind caused by the
instability of appearances. Davidson claims that the opposition in akrasia is between a
conditional, or prima facie, judgment and an unconditional judgment. But the course of
action judged in the prima facie judgment cannot be detached from its condition, so that
no judgment directly opposes the unconditional, sans phrase judgment.31
1.2.2. Extemalism
Extemalism is the view that practical judgments and motivation are only
contingently connected, if at all. For Hume, our motivations to act are not internal to, or
constituents of, our practical judgments. In this sense, then, Hume is not an internalist,
but an externalist. For, when one makes a practical judgment, one may not necessarily
feel a motivation to act, because motivations, or passions, do not originate in reason.
Hume is considered to be the pioneer of this position, though as we shall see, Spinoza
preceded him in certain important respects.
For Hume, reason is the slave to the passions. This means that the judgments of
reason may not be efficacious except at the command of desire, or passion. Once a
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passion has arisen w ith regard to some object, only then can reason employ its
judgments. Even then, reason does not move the hum an being to act. Instead, reason
points the way for the passion to expend its energies, serving as guide toward the
means judged to be best suited for satisfying the relevant desire.
Like Socrates, Hume takes the role of practical judgment to be instrumental. That
is, beliefs serve to direct us toward means to our ends, while our desires determine
what those ends are. Reason, therefore, serves only an instrumental function, for it acts
only as a means. Unlike Socrates, however, Hume does not reduce all desires to a
single, fundamental desire for our real and long-term happiness. Instead, Hume's
passions arise in us independently of our reasoned judgments.
To support this claim, Hume provides various examples and makes an appeal to
introspection. One way to understand his insight is this: ideas mirror the world; they
meet the world via the relation of representation. This means that all ideas represent
things - and thus judgments do as well, for Hume takes all cognitions, including
judgments, to be ideas. But the representational relation has the wrong direction of fit
to be the kind of thing that causes action. Desire, on the other hand, has the correct
direction of fit. Ideas conform themselves to the world via the relation of representation.
Desires, on the other hand, attempt to conform the world to themselves. The relation
between desires and the world points toward the world, while the relation between
ideas and the world points toward ideas. This is what it means to say that the direction
of fit for ideas is not appropriate to explain hum an action. And it is this insight that
underlies Hum e's extemalism.
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Extemalism also conforms to Hume's picture of the hum an mind. Whereas the
strong internalist adopts what could be called a highly rationalist view of the mind as a
rational, unitary agent, Hume adopts what could be called a mechanist view of the mind,
one that takes the mind to be a complex mechanism containing inter-working parts. So,
desires may arise and overcome other desires just as a one pound weight may move a
one hundred pound weight, given the right situation, position, and so on. Hume
repeatedly presents a picture of the mind as a mechanism and repeatedly presents his
own model of explanation as one akin to Newton's. For Hume, the mind is a
mechanism of interacting forces and psychology is the science of explaining these
mechanical forces and their interactions. If we understand the mind to be such a
mechanism, we may see how desires and passions may arise independently of our will,
indeed, even contrary to our will.
It is also natural that such a view of the mind would include the possibility of
multiple, conflicting and perhaps incommensurate desires and goods. So, unlike the
strong internalist who is generally pressured to deny contradictory judgments and
contrary desires, the Humean externalist feels no such pressure. As such, akrasia does
not pose the problem it does for the strong internalist, for whom strict akrasia seems
impossible. Because the externalist can allow multiple opposing desires and, more
importantly, because the externalist denies that there is a necessary connection between
practical judgments and motivation, the externalist can easily allow that our
motivations may part with our judgments, as when we suffer akrasia. Indeed, akrasia is
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not only unproblematic, for a Humean externalist, it is not even irrational, strictly
speaking, a rather counterintuitive result.
The externalist faces other problems, however. For the externalist must now deal
with the natural intuition that underlies the strong internalists' principle P2.
P2. If an agent judges that it would be better to do x than to do y, then he wants
to do x more than he wants to do y.
The strong internalist adopts this position because it seems natural to say that judging
an action to be better results in wanting to do it. Imagine a person who makes a moral
judgment that doing x is the right or good thing to do. It is implausible that this person
would not therefore want to do x. Indeed, their judgment that x is the best course of
action just is their reason to do x, Davidson might say.
The externalist must deny this intuition. And contemporary externalists do just
that by appealing to a figure they call "the amoralist." The amoralist is a man who
makes moral judgments but simply does not give a damn about morality and, so, feels
no motivation to do those actions he has deemed right or good. An internalist might
cite Hare's counterargument that this amoralist has not in fact made a moral judgment,
but an inverted commas moral judgment. An inverted commas moral judgment occurs
when an agent judges that a course of action is condoned or even demanded by
convention or social mores, but not necessarily by the agent himself. So, the internalist
might say, this alleged amoralist does not make a true moral judgment and, thus, it is to
be expected that he does not feel motivated to act in that way.
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The externalists merely reply that no, the amoralist does in fact make a real
moral judgment and not simply an inverted commas moral judgment. At this point,
however, the argument breaks down. Some externalists say that the amoralist is a
counterexample to strong internalism, while strong internalists will deny this is so. So,
whereas the strong internalist must finesse his account of akrasia, the externalist must
explain why moral judgments do not entail a motivation to act.
The debate about the amoralist can be duplicated for the case of practical
judgment. Imagine a person who, when he judges that an act would advance his
happiness, feels no desire to perform that act. If such a person is possible, then
motivation must be separate from (or external to) practical judgment. As in the case of
the amoralist, the strong internalist will reject the possibility of such an individual,
while the externalist must explain why it is that, in almost every case in our experience,
we do in fact feel some motivation to act according to our practical judgments. In either
case, the externalist holds that our motivations (Hume's 'passions') have their origin
somewhere other than our judgments, a view the strong internalists deny. Certainly,
both views hold difficulties, to which we shall return.
2.2.3. Weak Internalism
Weak internalism is the view that practical judgments are modally linked to
motivation, but only ceteris paribus (i.e., in the absence of certain intervening conditions
such as a strong passion). This view is an attempt to capture the positive aspects of the
two positions just described, while avoiding their pitfalls. The challenge that faces
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weak internalism is one of coherence; can the theorist accommodate these disparate
intuitions in an account that explains akratic action as freely and intentionally pursuing
a course of action judged not to be best?
Consider again Davidson's principles:
PI. If an agent wants to do x more than he wants to do y and he believes himself
free to do either x or y, then he will intentionally do x if he does either x or y
intentionally.
P2. If an agent judges that it would be better to do x than to do y, then he wants
to do x more than he wants to do y.
P3. There are incontinent actions. (Davidson, 23)
The weak internalist will generally accept PI and P3, but deny P2 as it stands. Instead,
they affirm a weaker version of P2, which is:
P2': If an agent judges that it would be good to do x, then he wants to do x.
The strong internalist affirms PI and P2. The weak internalist affirms PI and P2'. The
externalist, however, affirms only PI. Generally all weak internalists and externalists
affirm P3 as well. Strong internalists affirm P3, though they must offer an alternative
account of akrasia that is consistent with PI and P2.
Various weak internalists deny either PI or P2, depending on their system.
According to Plato, for example, an agent may form the rational judgment that x is
preferable to y and the rational soul may most want to do x, yet the person may perform
action y instead, if the spirited soul overpowers the rational soul. This seems to be case
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where P2 is affirmed and PI denied. Plato may deny PI because he associates the
agent with the rational soul.
Aristotle allows for P1&P2' but not P1&P2, because it is always possible that the
agent will have a stronger, irrational want, i.e., a bodily passion for x, that overpowers
his practically reasoned judgment that y is best. Thus, there can be cases where P1&P2
fail to obtain.
Alfred Mele is also a weak internalist who denies Davidson's principle of P2.
That he is an internalist is evident by his saying:
"Wanting more" in the evaluative sense does involve motivation; for, as I have
characterized the notion, what are evaluated are objects of wants having
motivational force. (163n9)
In other words, the competing judgments in question already involve motivational
wants. Mele assumes that only those kinds of wants are involved in akrasia. Thus, Mele
is a kind of internalist.
But he is no strong internalist, either. Mele implicitly recognizes and rejects
strong internalism and establishes that he is a weak internalist when he says:
If agents can act akratically even against an unconditional practical judgment,
then practical reasoning does not have the power that some philosophers have
claimed for it. It does not follow from this, of course, that practical reasoning,
reasons, and judgment have no motivational force, but only that other forces
must be taken into account in explaining (some) actions. (41)
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Mele does not mean to deny that agents act for reasons, of course. Indeed, he clarifies
this point a bit later, saying:
Akratic actions do not falsify the claim that havings of reasons are causes of
action. The agent who akratically does A, does A for a reason. That he took his
reason to do a competing action, B, to be a better reason — even if he formed an
intention to do a B — does not show that his having a reason for which he acts is
not a cause of his action. (47)
In short, then, Mele accepts a kind of Davidsonian causal theory of action, according to
which one acts for reasons which are also causes. He does not accept Davidson's
principle P2, however. Mele turns to P2 explicitly, saying:
We may, and should, reject Davidson's P2 -- the claim that any agent who judges
(unconditionally) that it is better to do x than to do y is more strongly motivated
to do x than to do y -- without having to abandon a causal theory of action. P2 is
false. The connection between better judgments and the balance of an agent's
motivation is more complex than Davidson thinks; and this holds as well for the
connection between intention and motivation. The extent to which an agent is
self-controlled is also an important factor. This is not to say, however, that there
is no connection, nor that to explain an intentional action by citing reasons(s) for
which it was intended and performed is not to give a causal explanation of the
action. (49)
So, practical judgment, even unconditional or decisive practical judgment, does not
entail intention, for Mele. Put another way, strength of evaluation does not entail
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strength of motivation. But judgment or evaluation does entail some motivation or
reason for action, though it may not be efficacious, or the strongest reason or motivation,
for action. And so, Mele is a weak internalist.
1.2.4. Conclusion
Six theorists of akrasia have been introduced: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hume,
Davidson, and Mele. From these competing theories, three positions have been
identified concerning the nature of the relation between practical judgment and
motivation: strong internalism, weak internalism, and extemalism. In what follows,
Spinoza's own thoughts on these questions will be introduced. As with most issues,
Spinoza does not discuss these questions in the terms of those who came before him or
in terms familiar to 20th Century authors. Therefore some care will be taken in the next
chapter to present his thought in his own words. Only after that has been done shall I
place his theory in the context of our six theorists. In so doing, we shall see that Spinoza
is a weak internalist, one that most closely resembles Mele among our six theorists,
though with certain Humean tendencies as well. Indeed, presented in this way, we
shall see how novel and attractive Spinoza's account of akrasia truly is.
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Chapter Two:
Spinoza's Affective Psychology
2.0. Introduction
In the previous chapter, I surveyed six theories of akrasia, as well as three
theoretical camps into which those theories can be divided. Before I turn to Spinoza's
own account of akrasia and our determination of which camp into which he falls, I must
discuss certain more general features of Spinoza's psychological theory. Without
grasping Spinoza's thoughts on ideas, affects, and the conatus, his account of akrasia
cannot be comprehended.
In what follows, I shall discuss the outlines of Spinoza's psychology. I begin
with his theory of ideas. Following that discussion, I will treat the affects and how they
relate to ideas, a topic that bears the utmost significance for the Spinozist account of
akrasia yet to come. I shall end this chapter with a discussion of the conatus, another
central and necessary theoretical component of Spinoza's psychological theory. This
overview will provide the reader with the necessary background to be able to follow
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Spinoza's discussion of the passions, bondage, and akrasia, which I investigate in the
following chapter.
2.1. Ideas
Like most thinkers in the early m odem period, Spinoza employs ideas
throughout his epistemology and psychology. For some thinkers, such as the
Cambridge Platonists, these ideas are ectypes, pale shadows of the archetypes in the
divine mind.32 Others, such as Descartes, worked in the wake of Aristotle and the
Scholastics, taking ideas to be representations of things.33 Like Descartes, Spinoza takes
ideas to be representations. Spinoza's epistemology and psychology cannot be labeled
Cartesian, however. For Spinoza introduces a variety of novel aspects to his theory that
must be understood on their own terms. For example, Spinoza distinguishes between
inadequate and adequate ideas. Descartes employs these terms as well in his Reply to
A m auld's Objection to his Meditations. Yet adequate ideas are absolutely central to
Spinoza's thought, whereas Descartes only mentions them in passing in a reply to
Amauld. In fact, Spinoza's usage seems to depart from Descartes'. Because of its
centrality and importance to his doctrine of ideas, Spinoza's theory of adequacy will be
investigated at length below.
Among the most unusual tenets of Spinoza's epistemology and psychology,
however, is his doctrine of the three kinds of knowledge. Since this doctrine is a
component of his theory of adequate ideas, we shall investigate this doctrine first before
turning to adequacy.
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2.1.1. The Three Kinds of Knowledge: An Overview
The Ethics addresses an age old question: how can a human being gain happiness
in this life? For an answer, one might read his text and reply pithily, "one gains
happiness through knowledge," which is, in fact, largely Spinoza's answer, though this
curt reply is hardly informative. It is especially unhelpful when one discovers that
Spinoza claims there are at least three different kinds of knowledge. Only a close reading
of this obscure trichotomy can reveal what Spinoza's proposed path to happiness is.
The first kind of knowledge in the Ethics is, roughly, knowledge of particulars
from sensation. Such knowledge involves ideas that are inadequate, or incomplete, in
some way.34 Spinoza introduces this kind of knowledge, claiming that it may derive
"from singular things which have been represented to us through the senses in a way
that is mutilated, confused, and without order for the intellect (see p29c); for that reason
I have been accustomed to call such perceptions knowledge from random experience
[experientia vaga]."35 This knowledge is a result of our body physically interacting with
some other body, in which case it can be understood as sense perception. Of course,
knowledge of an object can also come about through means other than perceiving the
object directly; Spinoza describes this origin when he says that such knowledge comes
"from signs, e.g., from the fact that, having heard or read certain words, we recollect
things, and form certain ideas of them, which are like them and through which we
imagine the things."36 In the Ethics, Spinoza claims that the first kind of knowledge can
be derived from two sources; one can perceive some object directly, or one can learn
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about some object via report or hearsay. Because it is inadequate, knowledge of the first
kind is the source of error, whereas knowledge of the second and third kinds are
adequate and thus true.37 Stated briefly, ideas of things gained from sensation and
report are usually inadequate because we cannot generally understand the cause of the
thing from direct sensation or report and because we gain only a partial perspective on
the thing itself; instead, we must engage in the activity of reason.38 Exactly why this
knowledge is inadequate will become apparent once adequacy has been treated more
fully below.
Concerning the second kind of knowledge, Spinoza says, "we have common
notions and adequate ideas of the properties of things...This I shall call reason and the
second kind of knowledge."39 The second kind of knowledge consists, in part, of
common notions [notiones communes], which are described when Spinoza says, "those
things which are common to all, and which are equally in the part and in the whole, can
only be conceived adequately."40 In other words, common notions are certain universal
properties that we can come to know adequately 41 For example, Spinoza believes that
one can rationally grasp the fundamental laws of motion and rest when one interacts
with bodies in the world. Because I am a body capable of interacting with other bodies,
I can form an adequate conception of the abstract, fundamental laws of motion and rest
that apply to all bodies.42 The common notions will be discussed below.
The third kind of knowledge shares many qualities with the second kind.
Spinoza says, "knowledge of the second and of the third kind is necessarily true."43
This is so because knowledge of the second and third kinds are adequate, whereas
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knowledge of the first kind can be false.44 Because the second and third kinds are both
adequate, they are both active. That is, the mind is purely active in forming these ideas.
This is apparent when Spinoza says, "our mind does certain things [acts] and
undergoes other things, namely, insofar as it has adequate ideas, it necessarily does
certain things, and insofar as it has inadequate ideas, it necessarily undergoes certain
things."45 Here it is clear that both the second and the third kinds of knowledge are a
purely active. These acts are a very different kind from the passive case of being acted
upon embodied in the first kind of knowledge. Thus, the second and third kinds of
knowledge pertain only to adequate ideas and, because of that, they also constitute a
pure mental activity in a way that the first kind of knowledge does not.
In Part 5 of the Ethics, Spinoza presents a method for achieving peace of mind,
which involves replacing confused ideas with adequate ones. He says, "the more the
mind understands things by the second and third kinds of knowledge, the less it is
acted on by affects which are evil, and the less it fears death."46 Both the second and
third kinds of knowledge help to protect the individual from evil affects, that is,
passions. But in the same Part, Spinoza emphasizes the third kind of knowledge when
he says, "the greatest striving of the mind, and its greatest virtue is understanding
things by the third kind of knowledge."47 Here it is clear that some important
differences exist between the second and third kinds of knowledge.
The third kind of knowledge is first set out in 2p40s2, which says, "there is... [a]
third kind, which we shall call intuitive knowledge. And this kind of knowing
proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to the
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adequate knowledge of the essence of things."48 Spinoza calls this intuitive knowledge
(scientia intuitiva).49 It involves an intuitive mental movement between the essences of
God and a thing. Of the third kind of knowledge, Spinoza says, "because the essence of
our mind consists only in knowledge, of which God is the beginning and foundation
(by lp l5 and 2p47s), it is clear to us how our mind, both with respect to essence and
existence, follows from the divine nature, and continually depends on God."50 Spinoza
claims that our mind, like all things, is dependent on God, citing lp l5 and 2p47s. Ip l5
is Spinoza's formulation of the famous doctrine of monism, which says, "whatever is, is
in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God."51 And in 2p47s, he says,
"and since all things are in God and conceived through God, it follows that we can
deduce a great many things which we know adequately, and so can form that third
kind of knowledge."52 These two propositions, which Spinoza cites in 5p36s, suggest
that knowledge of the third kind is related to the doctrine of monism; we have
knowledge of the third kind when we immediately and adequately grasp that a
particular thing is a mode of God and is dependent on God. I will return to this
discussion below.
Spinoza presents the reader with one example to aid the understanding of the
three kinds of knowledge, which is as follows:
I shall explain all of these with an example. Suppose there are three numbers, and the
problem is to find a fourth which is to the third as the second is to the first. Merchants do
not hesitate to multiply the second by the third, and divide the product by the first,
because they have not yet forgotten what they heard from their teacher without any
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demonstration, or because they have often found this in the simplest numbers, or from
the force of the demonstration of P19 in Book VII of Euclid, namely, from the common
property of proportionals. But in the simplest numbers none of this is necessary. Given
the numbers 1, 2, and 3, no one fails to see that the fourth proportional number is 6 - and
we see this much more clearly because we infer the fourth number from the ratio which,
in one glance, we see the first number to have with the second. (2p40s2; Curley, 478; Geb
11/122
This example can be understood in the following way. The first two cases represent
two different instances of the first kind of knowledge. In the first case, a merchant
knows how to figure this proportion because of something he was told by his teacher
without demonstration. The merchant who has remembered a dictum from his teacher,
then, can be said to be using the first kind of knowledge from signs. Next in the
example is a merchant who knows how to solve a problem "because [he] has often
found this [proportion] in the simplest numbers." This case is of knowledge from
experientia vaga, the vagaries of experience, since this merchant has the knowledge
through what he has "found."
In the next part of the ratio example, Spinoza claims that some merchants may
know the solution to the problem "form the force of the demonstration of P19 in Book
VII of Euclid, namely, from the common property of proportionals." This must be a
case of the second kind of knowledge, involving a demonstration based on common
notions, especially given that geometers since Euclid have regularly referred to their
axioms as common notions.53
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In the final part of the ratio example, the merchant knows the answer to the
problem not because of some Euclidean proof, which is unnecessary for him, but by
direct intuition. We see the truth of the matter "at a glance" (uno intuitu), intuitively.
This uno intuitu must be scientia intuitiva.
Some interpreters take the second kind of knowledge to be an incomplete form of
reasoning, only perfected in the third kind of knowledge. Of the second kind of
knowledge, Henry Allison says,
Knowledge from general principles [the second kind of knowledge] remains ungrounded
ultimately...this mystery can be removed only by grounding the principle in the nature of
God. This grounding, both of principles and their consequences, is achieved by the third
kind of knowledge.54
But in 2p46d, Spinoza says, "the demonstration of the preceding proposition is
universal, and... will involve God's eternal and infinite essence. So what gives
knowledge of an eternal and infinite essence of God is common to all," which suggests
that knowledge may be universal yet still grounded in God's nature. In other words,
the second kind of knowledge is grounded in God's nature, though perhaps in a
different way from the third. I will return to this distinction below.
Yet other interpreters affix an unwarranted kind of mystical insight to the third
kind of knowledge. This mysticism has no grounding in Spinoza's text, but the view
nonetheless seeps in to otherwise exemplary interpretations.55 Of the second and third
kinds of knowledge, Margaret Wilson says, "the second kind of knowledge differs from
the third both in requiring steps of reasoning, as distinct from direct mental vision, and
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in failing to arrive at the inmost essences of things."56 At its heart, though, her
interpretation leans heavily on her claim that the second kind of knowledge simply
cannot look deeply enough into things. Only the third kind, she asserts, has this power.
Spinoza had no such miraculous insight in m ind.57 For him, the third kind of
knowledge is distinct from the second in that it involves seeing how a particular thing
fits into the causal network of nature. Given Spinoza's monism, that means
understanding a thing in relation to God.58
Though a central doctrine in Spinoza's epistemology, the three kinds of
knowledge will not play a pivotal role in the following discussion. The third kind of
knowledge is pivotal to Spinoza's account of human freedom, but it will not occupy
much of our space here. Instead, we will focus more of our attention on the distinction
between adequate and inadequate ideas, which falls between the first and second kinds
of knowledge.
2.1.2. The Account of Adequate Ideas
Though we have been discussing the outlines of Spinoza's entire epistemology,
our real concern is his notion of adequacy, because the central tenets of his psychology
turn on the adequate/inadequate distinction. As we shall see, Spinoza seems to present
two criteria for adequacy, so it will useful to determine the details of these two criteria
before proceeding. Our attention, however, will be limited to the Ethics, since he does
not present an account of adequacy in the Short Treatise59 and only employs the
adjective adaequatus unevenly in the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect.60
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In the Ethics, Spinoza offers a definition of adequate ideas.61 The definition alone,
however, does not take us far in determining whether such ideas are available to the
hum an mind, so we m ust look to how Spinoza subsequently uses the term. He offers
an explanation of adequacy that relies upon his doctrine of monism62 at 2p llc , where he
says:
From this it follows that the human mind is a part of the infinite intellect of God. Therefore,
when we say that the human mind perceives this or that, we are saying nothing but that God,
not insofar as he is infinite, but insofar as he is explained through the nature of the human
mind, or insofar as he constitutes the essence of the human mind, has this or that idea; and
when we say that God has this or that idea, not only insofar as he constitutes the nature of
the human mind, but insofar as he also has the idea of another thing together with the
human mind, then we say that the human mind perceives the thing only partially, or
inadequately. (Curley, 456; Geb 11/94-95)
By the doctrine of monism, the hum an mind is a part of God's infinite intellect. Being
infinite in Spinoza's sense, God's intellect contains all ideas. But the hum an mind itself
is just an idea,63 so God's intellect includes it and its contents as well.
Consider two ideas x and y in God's mind. Say that y is the idea that constitutes
some human mind; say, further, that x is some other idea. If God's idea x is a proper
part of God's idea y, then we may say that mind y has adequate idea x. However, if
God's idea x is only partially within his idea y, then we may say that mind y has idea x
only inadequately, or partially. Call this the containment sense of adequacy:
(CON) Idea x is adequate in mind y, itself a complex idea, iff x in its entirety is a
proper part of y.64
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Thus, in 2p llc , Spinoza seems to equate an idea's being adequate in a mind with its
being completely contained in that mind.65
Elsewhere, however, Spinoza employs a different notion of adequacy, according
to which an adequate idea of x's cause is necessary for an adequate idea of x.66 At
2p24d, Spinoza says:
The idea, or knowledge, of each part [of the body] will be in God (by P3), insofar as he is
considered to be affected by another idea of a singular thing (by P9), a singular thing which
is prior, in the order of Nature, to the part itself...And so, the knowledge of each part
composing the human body is in God insofar as he is affected with a great many ideas of
things, and not insofar as he has only the idea of the human body, that is (by P13), the idea
which constitutes the nature of the human mind. And so, (by PI 1C) the human mind does
not involve adequate knowledge of the parts composing the human body. (Curley, 468-9;
Geb 11/111)
Each part of our body has another, prior body as its cause; similarly, each bodily event
has another, prior bodily event as its cause. Often, these prior, causing bodies are
distinct from our own body. So, for God to have an idea of each part of our body, he
must also have ideas of things besides our body. Thus, God's ideas of our bodily parts
are not wholly contained within the idea in God's mind that constitutes our mind.67
Therefore, our ideas of the parts of our bodies are incomplete, and hence inadequate,
even though God's ideas are not inadequate.
Similarly, in 2p25d, Spinoza argues that an idea of an external body is inadequate
in the mind because that mind does not contain ideas of the external body's causes. He
says:
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We have shown (P16) that the idea of an affection of the human body involves the nature of an
external body insofar as the external body determines the human body in a certain fixed way.
But insofar as the external body is an Individual which is not related to the human body, the idea,
or knowledge, of it is in God (by P9) insofar as God is considered to be affected with the idea of
another thing which (by P7) is prior in nature to the external body itself. So adequate knowledge
of the external body is not in God insofar as he has the idea of an affection of the human body, or
the idea of an affection of the human body does not involve adequate knowledge of the external
body. (Curley, 469; Geb 11/111)
In this quotation, the idea in question is of an affection of the human body caused by an
interaction with an external body - i.e., a bodily sensation of an external object. Because
this kind of sensation involves both our body and an external body, its idea also
involves ideas of both bodies. But an external body, or its motion, are generally caused
by some third body not related to us; thus we do not have an idea of the cause of the
external body involved in our sensation. Because of this lack, Spinoza says, our idea of
these kinds of sensations cannot be considered adequate ideas.
In both of the preceding propositions, Spinoza implies that having an adequate
idea of something requires having an adequate idea of its cause.68 This suggests what I
will call the causal requirement, which is:
(CR) Idea x is adequate in mind y iff y also has an adequate idea of x's cause.69
The argument for CR relies implicitly on la4, which says, "the knowledge of an effect
depends upon, and involves, the knowledge of its cause." This means that a mind that
has knowledge of x m ust also have knowledge of x's cause. But Spinoza generally uses
'has knowledge of' and 'has an idea of' interchangeably.70 So, having an idea of x
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depends upon and involves having an idea of x's cause. CR could be seen as an
elucidation of the nature of this dependence and involvement. Indeed, the causal
requirement, CR, extends the containment criterion to include not only the idea itself,
but the idea of its cause as well.
Therefore, the containment criterion (CON) and the causal requirement (CR)
could be combined, to form this new sense of Adequacy:
(ADQ) Idea x is adequate in mind y iff x and an adequate idea of x's cause is a
proper part of y.
This doctrine suggests that, in order for a mind to contain all of an idea, it must also
know something of that thing's cause. In short, Spinoza thinks, phenomena are to be
understood and explained causally.
But (ADQ) demands not just an idea of x's cause, but ideas of its adequate cause.
This definition seems to establish a vicious regress. For, consider again la4 and the
causal requirement (CR), especially as it is used in 2p25d. Knowledge of a sensation,
say, requires knowledge of an external mode that caused the sensation. But that cause
itself is also an effect of some prior cause. So, to understand the external mode, one
must understand some prior thing, and so on. This suggests that one cannot have
knowledge of a mode unless one has knowledge of a long series of causal antecedents.
This iterated application of la4 seems to be employed in 2p9, when Spinoza says,
The idea of a singular thing which actually exists has God for a cause not insofar as he is infinite,
but insofar as he is considered to be affected by another idea of a singular thing which actually
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exists; and of this [idea] God is also the cause insofar as he is affected by another third [idea], and
so on, to infinity. (Curley, 453; Geb 11/91-92).
One scholar, Michael Della Rocca, interprets this passage as warranting the following
claims: "...the idea of a certain thing is caused by God insofar as God has infinitely
other ideas of particular things...God is the cause of the idea of certain things insofar as
God has the infinitely many ideas that are the causal antecedents of the idea in
question."71 In other words, each singular thing, or finite mode, has an infinite series of
causes and we should consider this entire series as the cause of that mode. So, Della
Rocca suggests, a human mind can have an adequate idea of a singular thing only if
that mind also has an idea of each of its causal antecedents, which is equivalent to
(ADQ). He also suggests that each finite thing has an infinite series of causal
antecedents.72 So, adequate knowledge of any finite mode requires knowledge of an
infinite series of causal antecedents; therefore, Della Rocca may be correct in saying that
we cannot have adequate knowledge of finite things.73
Spinoza has offered two related criteria for adequacy - the containment
requirement (CON) and the causal requirement (CR). These two can be combined to
form (ADQ). In what follows, it will be shown that the common notions and the idea of
God meet (ADQ).
2.2.3. Common Notions
Spinoza's theory of adequacy as just explained does not preclude hum an
possession of adequate knowledge. As mentioned, Spinoza asserts that hum an beings
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have adequate ideas. Among those that he affirms we possess are common notions and
the idea of God.74 Spinoza introduces the common notions at 2p38, saying, "those
things which are common to all, and which are equally in the part and in the whole, can
only be conceived adequately."75 The common notions are adequate ideas that take
certain things, or properties, as their objects.76 These objects are found universally,
"equally in the part and in the whole," further, they can only be conceived adequately.
Spinoza offers 2Lem2 as an example of such a common property. 2Lem2d says,
"all bodies agree in that they involve the concept of one and the same attribute (by Dl),
and in that they can move now more slowly, now more quickly, and absolutely, that
now they move, now they are at rest." The capacity for motion and rest found in all
bodies is a common property and, so, the idea of this capacity is a common notion.
This capacity is also a fundamental principle in Spinoza's quasi-Cartesian
physics. In discussing the nature of bodies, Spinoza begins with the following two
axioms: "all bodies either move or are at rest" and "each body moves now more slowly,
now more quickly."77 Therefore, at least some of the common notions are of
fundamental principles of physics.
Spinoza speaks of these principles in a somewhat different way in a letter to
Georg Hermann Schuller, who has asked on behalf of Ehrenfried Walther von
Tschimhaus the following question, "I should like to have examples of those things
immediately produced by God, and of those things produced by the mediation of some
infinite modification,"78 to which Spinoza replies, "...the examples you ask for of the
first kind are: in the case of thought, absolutely infinite intellect; in the case of extension,
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motion and rest."79 This exchange refers to the doctrine of infinite modes, which is
sketched at lp21-23, where Spinoza says, "all the things which follow from the absolute
nature of any of God's attributes have always had to exist and be infinite, or are,
through the same attribute, eternal and infinite."80 Put briefly, infinite modes are
properties or characteristics that follow directly from a divine attribute. Spinoza says
explicitly that motion and rest is a fundamental feature of Extension. As such, it is an
infinite mode, following directly from the nature of the attribute of Extension.
Common notions are of common properties, which are those found equally in
the part and in the whole; that is, they are found in their entirety in every mode of an
attribute. The capacity for motion and rest is one such common property. This
common property is an infinite mode, something that follows immediately from the
nature of Extension itself.81 Thus, at least some of the common notions are ideas of
infinite modes under Extension, which themselves are fundamental principles of
Spinoza's quasi-Cartesian physics.82
This interpretation of the common notions is borne out in the demonstration to
2p38, where Spinoza says:
P38 Dem.: Let A be something which is common to all bodies, and which is equally in the
part of each body and in the whole. I say that A can only be conceived adequately. For its
idea (by P7C) will necessarily be adequate in God, both insofar as he has the idea of the
human body and insofar as he has ideas of its affections, which (by P16, P25, and P27)
involve in part both the nature of the human body and that of external bodies. That is (by
P12 and P13), this idea will necessarily be adequate in God insofar as he constitutes the
human mind, or insofar as her has ideas that are in the human mind. The mind, therefore (by
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PI 1C), necessarily perceives A adequately, and does so both insofar as it perceives itself and
insofar as it perceives its own or any external body. Nor can A be conceived in another way,
q.e.d. (Curley, 474; Geb II/ 118)
Take A to be the capacity for motion and rest. Being a fundamental feature of Spinoza's
physics, this capacity is present in every part of Extension. Because the common
property is involved in every mode of Extension, that is, in every part and affection of
body, it follows that the common notion will be involved in every idea of those parts or
affections.83 Further, since the common property is completely and wholly present
within each mode of Extension, the common notion is complete within the hum an mind
and its ideas of its bodily affections. In other words, the idea of the common property is
a proper part of the idea of the human body and its affections and, as such, is wholly
contained within the hum an mind. Such containment, it has been established, is one
criterion for adequacy.
Given that all our ideas are of affections of our own body, and given that there
are certain fundamental laws of physics that hold universally of all bodies, we can come
to know these fundamental laws whenever we consider our body or its physical
interactions.84 Because these laws are wholly instantiated in the objects of our ideas, we
can form adequate ideas of them.85
But containment (CON) is only one criterion for adequacy. According to (ADQ),
an idea of something is complete in the mind only when that mind also contains ideas
of that thing's causal antecedents, that is, when it contains an idea of that thing's
adequate cause. For Spinoza, every finite mode has an infinite chain of causal
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antecedents. Infinite modes, however, do not. Some follow directly from God's essence
conceived under a certain attribute, while others follow immediately from some infinite
mode. Thus, at least some infinite modes have finite chains of causal antecedents.
Indeed, some have only a single link in their causal chain, following directly from the
attribute itself. The capacity for motion and rest is one of these immediate infinite
modes.86 In other words, then, our ideas of infinite modes may be adequate yet not
result in an infinite regress, because infinite modes may have only a finite series of
causes.
Thus, the common notions meet the containment criterion for adequacy (CON).
If our idea of a common property is to be adequate, then it must also meet the causal
aspect of (ADQ) expressed in (CR); that is, we must also have an adequate idea of its
cause. The capacity for motion and rest is an infinite mode that has, as its cause, God's
essence conceived under the attribute of Extension. Thus, for this common notion to be
adequate in a mind, that mind must also include an adequate idea of the attribute of
Extension. In order to show this, we must determine whether the mind also has an
adequate idea of the common notion's cause, namely, the idea of God.
2.1.4. The Idea of God's Essence
Concerning the idea of an attribute, Spinoza says, "by attribute I understand
what the intellect perceives of a substance as constituting its essence."87 The idea of the
attribute of Extension is just the idea of the divine essence as conceived under that
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attribute. If we have this idea, then our common notions of the infinite modes of
extension are adequate.88
Spinoza asserts that we do in fact have an adequate idea of the essence of God.
In 2p45d, Spinoza says,
.. .singular things (by IP15) cannot be conceived without God - on the contrary, because (by
P6) they have God for a cause insofar as he is considered under the attribute of which the
things are modes, their ideas must involve the concept of their attribute (by IA4), that is (by
ID6), must involve an eternal and infinite essence of God. (Curley, 482; Geb 11/127)
Whenever one forms an idea of any thing or event, one must form that idea under a
certain attribute. In other words, the idea of Thought in general is necessarily a part of
one's idea of something mental, while the idea of Extension is a part of one's idea of
something bodily; one cannot consider a particular body without assuming the general
idea of Extension. But, Spinoza says, having an idea of Extension just is having an idea
of the divine essence.89
Then, in 2p47, Spinoza says, "the hum an mind has an adequate knowledge of
God's eternal and infinite essence."90 This is so because the mind necessarily has ideas
of itself, under Thought, and of its body and external bodies, both under Extension.
Further, given 2p45d, these ideas - of our own body and mind, for example -
necessarily involve the ideas of the attributes of Thought and Extension. Thus, every
hum an mind necessarily has an idea of God's essence, as conceived under those two
attributes.
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Further, Spinoza says, this idea of God's essence is adequate .91 The
demonstration for this claim is important, as it echoes the justification behind the
common notions:
Dem.: The demonstration of the preceding proposition [2p45] is universal, and whether the
thing is considered as a part or as a whole, its idea, whether of the whole or of a part (by
P45), will involve God's eternal and infinite essence. So what gives knowledge of an eternal
and infinite essence of God is common to all, and is equally in the part and in the whole. And
so (by P38) this knowledge will be adequate. (2p46d; Curley, 482; Geb II/127-8)
Spinoza has argued that the idea of every mode must involve the idea of its attribute.
Necessarily, as we do have some ideas, we therefore do have some idea of an attribute.
W hat's more, this necessary connection between the idea of a mode and the idea of its
attribute is a property common to all modes. Thus, Spinoza claims, we all have an
adequate idea of the divine essence for the same reason that we all have adequate
common notions.
Let me reiterate. The hum an mind is just the idea of its body and its bodily
interactions. There are certain common properties in all bodies, which are involved in
every body and bodily interaction. When we form ideas of bodies and bodily
interactions, as we must, our ideas necessarily involve ideas of these common
properties. Because these properties are equally in the part as in the whole, our ideas of
these properties, the common notions, are wholly contained within our minds. Further,
when we form ideas of bodies or of our own mind, we must conceive of these things
under certain attributes. When we do so, our ideas necessarily involve an idea of these
attributes. Like the common notions, the ideas of the attributes are equally in the part
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as in the whole. As such, we necessarily form an idea of these attributes that is wholly
contained within our minds. Thus, both the ideas of the attributes, which are just our
conceptions of God's essence, and the common notions satisfy the containment criterion
(CON), above.
Both common notions and our idea of God's essence meet the causal
requirement (CR) as well. As quoted above, Spinoza asserts that our idea of God's
essence is adequate, but there is another reason for thinking this is so. Concerning God,
or Substance, Spinoza says:
A substance cannot be produced by anything else (by p6c); therefore it will be the cause of
itself, that is (by dl), its essence necessarily involves existence, or it pertains to its nature to
exist. (Ip7d; Curley, 412; Geb 11/49)
God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes, ...necessarily exists, ( lp ll; Curley, 417;
Geb 11/52)
God, which Spinoza equates with Substance, necessarily exists; for Spinoza, this means
that God is self-caused.92 Therefore, in having an idea of God, one also has an idea of the
cause of God.93 And Spinoza has defined the attributes as the divine substance as
perceived by the mind. Thus, the attributes are self-caused as well, just as the divine
substance itself is.
So, in having any idea whatsoever, the hum an mind thereby also has an idea of
an attribute. But an attribute is just a conception of the divine essence. And when one
conceives of the divine essence, one also conceives of the cause of the divine essence,
since God is a cause per se. Thus, in having any idea whatsoever, the hum an mind
necessarily contains an idea of God and an idea of the cause of God. And so, in having
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any idea whatsoever, the idea of God in the hum an mind meets both the containment
criterion (CON) and the causal requirement (CR). Thus, the idea of God in the human
mind meets (ADQ) and therefore is adequate.
It has also been established that the hum an mind contains certain common
notions. Further, these common notions have as their objects things that have God as
their cause. And so, since we have an adequate idea of God, the common notions also
meet (ADQ)- Thus, the common notions are also adequate in the hum an mind.
Another way to understand this is to consider the principle of simplicity. In
Letter 12 and elsewhere, Spinoza holds that the divine attributes are not divisible into
parts, even though they are infinite; that is, the divine attributes are not aggregates or
sums of things. On the contrary, he claims, this infinity is a simple and uniform infinity,
as opposed to a numerical infinity. If something is simple, it cannot break down into
parts and, thus, cannot undergo corruption. Thus it is indestructible and eternal. If the
attributes are ontologically simple, however, it may be reasonable to assume they are
conceptually simple as well, especially given Spinoza's doctrine of a parallelism
between bodily modes and ideas.
Now, if something is conceptually simple, one cannot grasp it only in part, for it
is not so composed. Instead, one must grasp it completely, that is, adequately, or not at
all. For example, self-evident notions often are said to display this characteristic of
simplicity. And this seems to be exactly how Spinoza takes the idea of the attributes -
self-evident truths of the highest simplicity. Given these ideas of the attributes,
common notions follow. These common notions themselves have a kind of qualified
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simplicity and eternity of a hypothetical or dependent form, for example, "given
Extension, then certain common notions follow." And what is this simple idea we have of
the divine attribute? I suggest we take seriously what Spinoza says at lp34: "God's
power is his essence itself."94 In other words, God's essence just is power. So, when we
conceive of an attribute, which is said to be God's essence as conceived in a certain way,
we are conceiving power in Extension or power in Thought.95 The idea of a uniform,
infinite power, for Spinoza, is a simple idea, one that is not composed of simpler ideas.
As such, it can only be known adequately or not at all.96
Spinoza's theory of ideas divides ideas into two categories, adequate and
inadequate. The class of inadequate ideas is coextensive with the first kind of
knowledge. The first kind of knowledge, being inadequate, are ideas that are known
only partially and without a full understanding of their causes. The adequate ideas,
however, are further divided into two exhaustive categories, the second and the third
kinds of knowledge. They are grasped in their totality and their causes are understood.
These include the common notions, which involve the laws of nature and logic. The
third kind of knowledge, not discussed in the preceding, is a mental activity connecting
particulars to the divine essence. As it is not directly relevant to our discussion here, it
will be set aside. For what concerns us most is the distinction between adequate and
inadequate ideas. This distinction underlies the opposition between active and passive
affects. And this opposition is essential to understanding Spinoza's account of akrasia.
It is to the affects, then, that we now turn.
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2.2. Affects
2.2.1. Introduction
Spinoza's affective psychology lies literally and figuratively at the center of the
text of his Ethics. Its introduction in Part 3 serves as the transition from Part 2's
epistemology of ideas to the ethics and politics of Parts 4 and 5. Despite their centrality,
however, relatively little has been written on the affects of the mind in Spinoza's
philosophy.97 Spinoza commentators generally agree that affects of the mind in
Spinoza's system involve a kind of cognition, a view sometimes labeled "cognitivism."
Philosophers have applied the term "cognitivism" to a variety of theories.
Cognitivism is often contrasted with the view attributed to Hume that emotions are
brute feelings or sensations that contain no cognitive content,98 as well as that of
William James, who took emotions to be the conscious awareness of physiological
events.99 The exact nature of the cognitive content ascribed to emotions differs from
writer to writer, however. In Martha Nussbaum's usage, for example, emotions are
cognitive in that they bear information in some sense.100 According to Robert
Solomon's sense of cognitivism, emotions are judgments of a certain sort, lying in
certain relations to other mental states.101 Very generally, then, cognitivism is the view
that emotions, or affects, contain some cognitive content, though that content may not
exhaust the nature of the affect, nor may it necessarily be propositional in content.102
Most commentators agree that affects in Spinoza's system are cognitive in some
sense of that term. For example, Michael Della Rocca says, "in general, for Spinoza,
affects are intentional mental states. They are not contentless sensations (as they are in
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Hume), but rather cognitive states directed at particular objects or states of affairs."103
As considered in the mind, affects are representations of some sort. Don Garrett also
agrees, saying, "every affect [of the mind] is at the same time an idea (i.e., a
representation) of a state of the individual's body, and (indirectly) of external bodies
that have contributed to producing that state."104 Affects of the mind, then, are held to
be ideas.
2.2.2. On the Nature of Ideas
Spinoza defines "idea" at 2d3, where he says, "by idea I understand a concept of
the mind which the mind forms because it is a thinking thing."105 In this definition,
Spinoza states that ideas are concepts, by which he means something formed by an
action of mind. Spinoza states why he uses the term "concept" [conceptum] in an
explanation following this definition, where he says, "I say concept rather than
perception, because the word perception seems to indicate that the mind is acted on by
the object. But concept seems to express an action of the mind.106" Spinoza offers this
explanation because he wishes to distinguish his notion of ideas from Descartes', who
holds that perceptions are purely passive, only volitions being active.107
Ideas may be either passive or active for Spinoza, depending on whether they are
inadequate or adequate. He says, "our mind does certain things [acts] and undergoes
other things, namely, insofar as it has adequate ideas, it necessarily does certain things,
and insofar as it has inadequate ideas, it necessarily undergoes other things."108 This
may initially seem like a contradiction, for he says in 2d3 that all ideas are mental acts,
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yet 3pl suggests that some ideas are inadequate and thus instances of mental passivity.
With adequate ideas, our mind is wholly active, which means that the mind is an
adequate cause. With inadequate ideas, however, the mind is partially active and
partially passive, which means that the mind is only a partial cause, as he explains in
3dl and 3d2. In both cases, however, the mind is active in some sense, which is
Spinoza's point in 2d3, above. Spinoza takes pains here not to present ideas as purely
passive perceptions; ideas are products of mental acts.109
If Spinoza means to say that ideas are concepts, how ought we to understand
him? At the very least, Spinoza's ideas have cognitive or representative content.110
Spinoza does not explain what he means by a concept here, however. By "concept," he
could mean a psychological entity like a representation or mental act;111 on the other
hand, he could also mean a logical object, such as a proposition.112 Spinoza renders a
uniform logical reading problematic, however, when he equates ideas with particular
affirmations of mind, which are certainly psychological.
Spinoza equates ideas with mental affirmations, or volitions, when he states, "in
the mind there is no volition, or affirmation and negation, except that which the idea
involves insofar as it is an idea."113 In this statement, Spinoza establishes that a volition
is an act of affirmation or negation. Further, there are no volitions in the mind except
those which ideas involve simply because they are ideas. In other words, the only
volitions in the mind are those involved in the essence of ideas.
By identifying volitions and ideas, Spinoza is not claiming that volitions do not
exist because there are only ideas, nor the converse. Instead, we understand that ideas
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can be conceived at least in two ways, one cognitive and one volitional. In other words,
we may refer to modes of thought as ideas or as volitions, one referring to their
cognitive content, the other to their volitional or affirmative nature. Considered
together, however, they are the affirmation of a representation, which can be
understood as a judgment.114
2.2.3. The Affects
Spinoza turns to discuss the affects in Part 3 of the Ethics, where he offers the
following as a definition, saying, "by affect I understand affections of the Body [in]
which the Body's power of acting is increased or diminished, aided or restrained, and at
the same time, the ideas of these affections."115 An affect is an event in which the body
undergoes a change in its power and of which the mind simultaneously forms an idea.
This mirrored relation between bodily events and ideas in the mind is the result of
Spinoza's doctrine of parallelism.116 In this case, however, the relation is between not
just any mode of body and its idea, but between a power-changing affection of body
and its parallel mental affect. Since this affect in the mind is the mental correlate of a
change in the body's power, this very affect must involve a change in the m ind's power
as well. So Spinoza says, "the idea of any thing that increase or diminishes, aids or
restrains, our Body's power of acting, increases or diminishes, aids or restrains, our
Mind's power of thinking."117 For, just as a mode of body has its parallel mode of
thought, or idea, and an affection of body has its parallel affect of mind, so too does the
power of the body have its parallel in the power of the mind. Thus, an affect is a change
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in the body's power, which is paralleled in the mind by an idea involving a change in
the m ind's power.118
In the definition in 3d3, "affect" refers both to a change or affection in the body
and the idea of that change, though Spinoza often speaks as though he means only the
mental phenomenon by the term "affect."119 In the "General Definition of the Affects,"
for example, Spinoza says, "an Affect that is called a Passion of the mind is a confused
idea, by which the Mind affirms of its Body, or of some part of it, a greater or lesser
force of existing than before..."120 Note, however, that the discussion here is restricted
to affects that are "a Passion of the m ind."121 Thus, one need not conclude from the
definition that all affects are necessarily only ideas. After all, the definition also defines
all affects as passions and confused ideas, even though Spinoza specifically states that
some affects can be active and involve adequate ideas.122
Considered solely as modes of body, affects are the bodily events associated with
certain emotions. Spinoza recognizes this when he says, "as for the external affections
of the body, which are observed in the affects - such as trembling, paleness, sobbing,
laughter, and the like - 1 have neglected them, because they are related to the body only,
without any relation to the m ind."123 So again we see how the term "affect" refers both
to an affection of the body in which its power changes and the idea of that affection.
Because Spinoza is primarily interested in the psychological dimension of the affects,
however, he restricts his discussion to the mental; I will follow this restriction as well,
only addressing affects in the mind. Further, these affects, being ideas, are necessarily
cognitive.
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2.2.4. Affects are Cognitive
Spinoza regularly suggests that affects have cognitive content. Consider 4p8,
where Spinoza says, "the knowledge of good and evil is nothing but an affect of Joy or
Sadness...."124 Spinoza does not mean to reduce knowledge to non-cognitive affect, of
course. Instead, he wishes to suggest that cognitions have an affective dim ension.125
Spinoza repeats this theme at 4pl4 as well, where he states, "no affect can be restrained
by the true knowledge of good and evil insofar as it is true, but only insofar as it is
considered as an affect."126 Again we see that one thing - true knowledge in this case -
can be considered as either a cognition or as an affect.127
In his explanation of the General Definition of the Affects, Spinoza asserts that an
affect is not only an idea, but an affirmation. He says,
.. .the Mind passes to a greater or lesser perfection when it happens that it affirms of its body
(or of some part of the body) something which involves more or less reality than before. So
when I said above that the Mind's power of Thinking is increased or diminished, I meant
nothing but that the Mind has formed of its Body (or of some part of it) an idea which
expresses more or less reality than it had affirmed of the Body. (Curley, 543: Geb n/204)
When the mind forms an affect, it affirms something. This act of affirmation involves a
change in the body's power, which in turn involves a change in the m ind's power. One
can consider this mode of thought as a cognition, insofar as it involves some
propositionally structured, representational content. Further, one can consider it as an
affirmation, for this representational content itself involves an affirmation. Finally, if
we consider that the content of an idea involves a change in the power of the body or
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mind, then we consider this idea as an affect. In other words, all modes of thought, or
ideas, are both cognitions and judgments.128 And when those ideas involve a change in
the body's or the m ind's power, these ideas, then, are affects.
So, affects are ideas. It should be evident that Spinoza's theory of the affects is
strongly cognitivist, as it has been labeled by several Spinoza scholars.129 The
appropriateness of this label bears itself out in an examination of the cognitive nature of
the particular affects as well.
All of the affects, according to Spinoza, are derivatives of the three primary
affects,130 which are: pleasure or Joy [laetitia], pain or Sadness [tristitia], and Desire
[cupiditas].131 When we form certain ideas, which are affirmations of representations,
the power of our mind is increased. The increase in power involved in forming this
idea is felt as Joy. When we form other ideas, our mind's power is decreased, thus
feeling Sadness. So, Spinoza says, "by Joy, therefore, I shall understand in what follows
that passion [in] which the M ind passes to a greater perfection. And by Sadness, that passion
[in] which it passes to a lesser perfection."132 Passions are simply passive affects, so what
has been said of affects applies equally to passions.133 Therefore, Joy is a judgment in
which the mind becomes more perfect, which means that the power of the mind
increases. Likewise, Sadness is a judgment in which our mind becomes less perfect,
which means that the m ind's power decreases.
Here is an example that may help to illustrate this point. Say that I believe Peter
harmed me. That is, I affirm a representation of Peter harming me. Next, let us say that
this involves a decrease in my power. This would be a case of a Spinozist affect because
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I affirm some idea, in which the power of my mind to act is reduced. By Spinoza's
lights, my power will have been reduced, which I will feel as sadness. Further, because
I believe Peter to be the cause of this sadness, I will feel this sadness as hate towards
Peter.134 Thus, the very same mode of thought is simultaneously a representation, an
affirmation, and an affect; that is, it is a change in the mind's power involved in a
judgment that is felt in a certain way, namely, as hate.
Finally, concerning desire, Spinoza says, "desire is man's very essence, insofar as
it is conceived to be determined, from any given affection of it, to do something."135
When we are affected in a certain way, specifically, so that we are determined to do
something, we have an affect of desire.136 In other words, affects which cause us to act
are instances of desire. So, all affects are really species of Joy and Sadness; those affects
that motivate us to act are desires, whether they be joyful or sad.137 In fact, all affects of
desire are also affects of either Joy or Sadness, both of which are cognitive. As such,
affects of desire are cognitive as well.138
2.2.5. Spinoza's Janus-Faced Psychology
The dual nature of ideas as either cognitive or affective explains an aspect of
Spinoza's thought with which some commentators find difficulties. For example, in the
latter half of the Ethics, Spinoza argues in favor of a life lived in accordance with reason,
offering a kind of cognitive therapy to help free us from the bondage of the passions.139
Jonathan Bennett rightly points out that, for Spinoza, an affect can only be overcome by
an opposing affect; this view is contrary to that of Descartes, who holds that one ought
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to overcome passion w ith reason.140 In other words, Bennett claims, Spinozist reason
seems to be impotent, only affects being able to overcome other affects, a view that
stands in contrast with Descartes' focus on the virtues and strengths of reason. And
Bennett is not alone in raising this concern, as several other prominent interpreters of
Spinoza have voiced similar worries.141 So, does Spinoza demean the power of reason?
Is he a predecessor of Hume on this issue?
I do not believe so. If we understand cognitive therapy as it is found in a
Cartesian psychology, where reason stands on one side and passion or affect on the
other, then reason would indeed by impotent, for Spinoza, and his cognitive therapy
useless. But Spinoza's genius lies in rejecting this very dichotomy; he believes that the
objects of the mind cannot be so divided. So, Lee Rice says:
The true revolution in Spinoza's account of affectivity is to be found not just in his consistent
and thoroughgoing determinism, but also his systematic and consistent denial of "the split
between the cognitive and the emotive or affective, or between faculties of thought and
feeling, or, more sharply, between thought and action."142
For Spinoza, every instance of an affect is itself also a cognition. This principle
underlies his unique psychological theory. For Spinoza, affects are ideas involving
changes in the m ind's power. These changes in the m ind's power may come about
when the mind is purely active, or only partially so. That is, in some cases, we
experience a change in mental power in an action we perform and other times we
experience such a change in undergoing something. As discussed in the previous
chapter, the mind's ideas may be inadequate or adequate. When the mind is an
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adequate cause of its ideas, those ideas are adequate; otherwise, the ideas are
inadequate. Spinoza speaks of affects similarly when he says, "if we can be the
adequate cause of any of these affections, I understand by the Affect an action;
otherwise, a passion."143 Affects in which the mind is an adequate cause are active
affects and those in which it is not an adequate cause are passive affects, or passions.
Spinoza introduces these active affects when he says, "apart from the Joy and
Desire that are passions, there are other affects of Joy and Desire that are related to us
insofar as we act."144 Given that affects are identical to ideas, it follows that active
Spinoza explains this experience as an awareness that one of our perceptions is
confused or inadequate. This explanation is consistent with Spinoza's view that
volitions are not free causes, but are wholly determined. For Spinoza, the faculties of
Intellect and Will are nothing but abstractions from particular ideas and volitions,
respectively, which are identical, thus rendering the Intellect and the Will also identical.
In other words, the faculties of Intellect and Will are nothing but beings of reason that
refer to one or another aspect of the same set of modes of thought.
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It seems that, for Spinoza, the mind performs one action, that of forming
affirmative ideas. Further, these ideas may also be considered as affects. In explaining
any particular mental act or decision, one need only refer to ideas; no reference to
faculties or other phenomena is necessary.
Given this seemingly complete account of mental phenomena, what are we to
make of Spinoza's claim that hum an beings have a striving, or conatus? When
considered solely in relation to the mind, the conatus is just the Will. When considered
in relation to mind and body together, it is Desire. Does the conatus upset this austere
picture of a mind wholly constituted by ideas and nothing but ideas?
2.4.2. Conatus and Desire
Spinoza introduces the conatus at 3p6, saying, "each thing, as far as it can by its
own power, strives to persevere in its being."193 In one way or another, every entity
strives in some way to persevere. In fact, Spinoza says in 3p7, "the striving by which
each thing strives to persevere in its being is nothing but the actual essence of the
thing."194 Every existing entity has an actual essence, which is its striving to persevere.
Human beings also exhibit this universal tendency, as Spinoza explains when he
introduces his theory of desire, which he introduces at 3p9s, saying:
When this striving [conatus] is related only to the Mind, it is called Will; but when it is
related to the Mind and Body together, it is called Appetite. This Appetite, therefore, is
nothing but the very essence of man, from whose nature there necessarily follow those things
that promote his preservation. And so man is determined to do these things. Between
appetite and desire there is no difference, except that desire is generally related to men
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insofar as they are conscious of their appetite. So desire can be defined as appetite together with
consciousness of the appetite. (3p9s; Curley, 500; Geb 11/147-148)
Spinoza restates and clarifies this definition when he defines the affect of desire in the
Definitions of the Affects at the end of Part 3, where he says:
Desire is man's very essence, insofar as it is conceived to be determined, from any given
affection of it, to do something.
Exp.: We said above, in P9S, that Desire is appetite together with the consciousness of it. And
appetite is the very essence of man, insofar as he is determined to do what promotes his
preservation. But in the same Scholium I also warned that I really recognize no difference
between human appetite and Desire...Here, therefore, by the word Desire I understand any
of a man's strivings, impulses, appetites, and volitions, which vary as the man's constitution
varies, and which are not infrequently so opposed to one another that the man is pulled in
different directions and knows not where to turn. (Def. Aff. I; Curley, 531; Geb 11/190)
According to Spinoza’s explanation of this definition, Desire is a catch-all term that
includes the collection of m an's strivings, impulses, appetites, and volitions. This
collection is man's essence.
From these two definitions, we can draw certain conclusions about the nature of
Desire and conatus. Both Desire and the Will are "nothing but" the very essence of a
hum an being. In other words, a person's Will and his Desire are both ways in which
we can understand his essence, or conatus. When we consider the essence of a hum an
being solely under the attribute of Thought, we conceive of his Will. Of course, we may
also conceive of this essence solely under the attribute of Extension, in which case we
conceive the person's bodily conatus, about which Spinoza does not concern himself in
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the Ethics.195 Nonetheless, when we conceive of that essence under both Thought and
Extension, we conceive of his Desire.
Since Desire is distinct from the Will only in that Desire is considered in
conjunction with the body, it follows that this essential Desire, like the Will, is an
abstraction and nothing over and above its particular constituents. So, Desire is nothing
over and above particular desires. The constituents of the Will are volitions, or ideas.
These constituents may also be considered as affects. Particular desires are affects as
well. Thus, our essential Desire is nothing over an above our collection of ideas
considered in a certain way. And so, our essential Desire is nothing more than our
collection of affects.196
A human being is nothing but a collection of modes that are related in a certain
way. These modes can be considered as either ideas or volitions with regard to the
mind. They may also be conceived as particular affects with regard to the hum an being.
Similarly, the body is a collection of modes of extension, which are individuated only in
their tendency toward self-preservation. Thus, the conatus, in all cases, is simply a
relation that unites the aggregate of modes; it is a collective tendency toward
perseverance.
Dan Garber claims that this tendency for an aggregate body to preserve itself has
its foundation in the constituent bodies' persistence in their states of motion or rest.
This bodily force is inertia. Extrapolating from Garber's view on bodily conatus, we can
speculate on the nature of the conatus in the mind and human being as well.
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The inertia of individual bodies explains their tendency to maintain their
individuating motion and rest, while a collective, collaborative inertia helps to maintain
the motion and rest that individuates an aggregate. Only when the individual inertias
of a group function as an inertial principle for the whole collective can the collective be
considered as an entity itself. Otherwise it is simply a collection; such is the distinction
between a listless crowd and an army marching in formation.197 That is not to say that
this inertial principle of the aggregate is anything over and above the inertial principles
of the constituent parts; indeed, the inertial tendency of an aggregate entity does
nothing that is not in fact a result of individual forces of inertia.198
Regardless of whether the speculation just offered is correct, our explanations of
particular hum an behavior need not involve abstractions such as Intellect, Will, Desire,
or conatus unless it is understood that such terms are abstractions and themselves bear
no causal efficacy beyond the efficacy of their constituents. Thus, the following kind of
explanation is incomplete: Jones believes there is water in the fridge that he needs to
drink to survive; as with all things, Jones' conatus directs him to do whatever he must
to survive; therefore he drinks the water. Such an explanation reveals very little,
because the appeal to the conatus here obscures the real causal interaction, which
happens at the level of particular modes.
Thus, the appeal to belief-desire pairs, for example, may be somewhat
misleading, since both relata could be described as ideas. Instead, one might say that
Jones has an idea of water in the fridge and that this idea has a positive affective quality,
such that we may say that he desires the water. This idea and affect, by virtue of its
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own affective force, may be sufficient to drive Jones to act to drink the water. This is
Spinoza's mechanistic view of hum an action.
This is not to say that the conatus is impotent or that this doctrine is of no use in
a Spinozist study of psychology. On the contrary, the conatus doctrine is a principle
that represents a universal tendency that all beings exhibit. As such, it can play an
explanatory role at a general level. All creatures do in fact strive to persevere in their
own being, as the conatus doctrine suggests. But this striving is to be explained by
reference to particular desires for apparent goods, not by a general Desire or
fundamental im pulse.199
As we shall see, our affects can come into conflict and our judgments can as well.
Some of those judgments and desires will be rational, others irrational. Yet there is no
overarching faculty of volition to assent to some judgments and reject others. Further,
there is no fundamental desire to which all other desires can be reduced. Finally, both
inadequate and adequate ideas are a part of the hum an essence. These tenets of
Spinoza's psychology will play a significant role in what he has to say about bondage
and what we can take away from that discussion about akrasia.
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Chapter Three:
Spinoza on Akrasia, An Exegesis
3.1. On Human Bondage
Spinoza does not discuss akrasia itself at length. Instead, he couches his theory of
akrasia in his larger ethical theory of bondage and freedom. In fact, aside from a few
references to feelings of being tom by the passions and a telling quote from Medea,
Spinoza does not discuss akrasia directly at all. Nevertheless, Spinoza does have a novel
and interesting theory of akrasia, one well worth excavating from his larger system. In
order to do that, however, we must first explore his theory of bondage and freedom.
We have seen that ideas can be either adequate or inadequate. The affects, which
are really just ideas, can be active or passive, according to whether they involve
inadequate or adequate ideas. Further, affects and ideas are all we really need to
consider when trying to understand psychological phenomena in Spinoza's system.
This is the case for understanding bondage to the passions as well.
3.1.1. Introduction
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Spinoza titled Part 4 of his Ethics "On Human Bondage, or the Powers of the
Affects," a title so memorable as to have inspired Somerset Maugham to name his great
novel after it. Within Part 4, Spinoza explains how reason can be overcome by the
passions. Being in bondage, we are vulnerable to cases of weak will, in which we
knowingly pursue ends contrary to our own interest and good. Spinoza indicates that
our bondage to the passions leads to the classical problem of weakness of will, or akrasia,
when he explains our bondage by quoting Ovid's Medea, who says, "I see and approve
the better, but follow the worse."200 Spinoza's concern with our bondage to the passions
extends beyond Part 4, however, as he titles Part 5 "On the Power of the Intellect, or on
Human Freedom." There he offers a solution to the bondage of the passions by which
we can gain a degree of hum an freedom.
In fact, our bondage to the passions concerns Spinoza throughout the Ethics. In
the Preface to Part 2, Spinoza announces his intent to investigate "only those [things]
that can lead us, by the hand, as it were, to the knowledge of the hum an Mind and its
highest happiness,201" a reference to hum an freedom.202 He arrives at this goal in Part 5,
only after laying the necessary groundwork. There, he provides his promised avenue to
hum an freedom from the passions, also known as happiness. W ithout doubt, then,
Spinoza's doctrine of the passions demands close scrutiny.
Despite the passions' prominent role in the Ethics, however, his account has
received relatively little attention.203 Spinoza's concern with the threat of akrasia has
received even less.204 Spinoza does not fully explain the relationship between bondage
to the passions and weakness of will, though the existence of some relationship is
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apparent. In what follows, this relation will, it is hoped, become clear. In order to
succeed, we will need to review several aspects of Spinoza's psychological theory,
including his rejection of faculties. A bit later we shall also return to his doctrine of the
conatus.
3.1.2. Akrasia and Parts of the Soul
As discussed, the mind cannot be divided into distinct faculties, nor its objects
into distinct classes. This raises an interesting question, however, since some writers
believe that a division of the mind is necessary for the possibility of akrasia.205 In his
classic account in the Republic, Plato explains akrasia by positing distinct parts of the soul
that come into conflict.206 Only by positing distinct parts or activities of the mind in
conflict, it may initially appear, is akrasia explainable. Against this view, Edmund
Henden has argued that a partitioned mind is not necessary for the occurrence of
akrasia.207 After reviewing several reasons for believing that the mind must be
partitioned in order to explain weakness of will, Henden concludes that this
"partitioning claim" is without merit. According to Henden, a bias toward the near and
cognitive dissonance are likely candidates to explain weakness of will, even in the
absence of any divisions in the mind. Cognitive dissonance, for example, posits
conflicting beliefs in one mind, not distinct parts of the mind, nor distinct activities or
faculties, in conflict.208 Though conflicting beliefs involve a distinction between aspects
of the m ind's contents, this distinction is certainly not the metaphysical partition one
might find in Plato.
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Terry Penner has also argued against the necessity of partitioning the soul in
order to explain akrasia.209 Penner proposes that akrasia occurs when the mind vacillates
between alternative representations in a unitary mind, calling this "diachronic belief-
akrasia." His use of this idea in the Socratic case may serve as a model to explain akratic
acts in Spinoza's psychology as well.210 At the very least, Penner shows that one need
not divide the mind in order to explain weakness of will.
Another theorist who is often taken to advance the partitioning claim is Sigmund
Freud. Freud invoked mental partitioning as well, though his doctrine was offered in
an attempt to explain repression and self-deception. How, Freud wondered, could a
mind be said to know something yet not have conscious awareness of it? He attempted
to explain this phenomenon by positing distinct parts of the mind, such that one part of
the mind conceals knowledge from another part, in some sense. Sartre criticizes Freud's
partitioning, claiming that he does not explain the phenomenon at all, but merely
internalizes an interpersonal conflict and thus merely pushes the dilemma one step
backwards.211 Sartre's alternative explanation is his theory of bad faith, which does not
rely on a need for partitions.212 Though Sartre's rebuttal of Freud is valuable, his
alternative offers little of use in understanding Spinoza.
Spinoza certainly allows for akrasia, though he does not partition the mind is
these ways. Though few have held such a position in the history of philosophy,
Spinoza may not be alone in rejecting a division of the soul, while still accepting the
possibility of akrasia. Some of the Stoics also denied such partitioning, while
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nonetheless allowing for weakness of will. Attributing an account of akrasia to the
Stoics is controversial, however, and lies outside the scope of our investigation.213
Spinoza denies the strong sense of partitioning that Plato adopts, in that he does
not see distinct parts in the mind. As opposed to Descartes, Spinoza also denies the
division of the m ind's activities into distinct faculties, in that Spinoza sees the m ind's
activity to be singular. This is not to say that Spinoza takes the mind to be an absolutely
simple unity, however, because the mind is a complex idea composed of constituent
ideas and affects, just as the body of which it is an idea is also a complex, aggregate
entity. These constituents may come into conflict, resulting in the kind of cognitive
dissonance to which Henden refers.214 Our vulnerability to such dissonance is part of
our bondage to the passions.
3.2.3. On Freedom and Bondage
Spinoza claims that all hum an beings are to some degree or other in bondage to
their passions.215 To be in bondage is, generally speaking, to lack freedom in some
sense. Making matters more complex, however, is the fact that Spinoza seems to utilize
two distinct senses of freedom in the Ethics.216 He defines freedom at the beginning of
Part 1, saying:
That thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its nature alone, and is determined
to act by itself alone. But a thing is called necessary, or rather, compelled, which is
determined by another to exist and to produce an effect in a certain and determinate manner.
(Id7; Curley, 409; Geb 11/46)
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Here freedom is a state in which one's existence and action is wholly self-determined,
that is, self-caused. Call this absolute freedom, for which there are two criteria. First, (1)
an absolutely free being is one that does not depend on another for its existence.
Second (2), such a being is also determined to act only by its own nature.217 Only God,
Spinoza argues, qualifies as absolutely free, saying, "God alone is a free cause."218
Further, Spinoza argues, God is the efficient cause of both the essence and the existence
of all things.219
This line of argument culminates in Spinoza's strong statement of determinism,
which states:
Every singular thing...can neither exist nor be determined to produce an effect unless it is
determined to exist and produce an effect by another cause...and so on, to infinity. (Ip28;
Curley, 432; Geb 11/69)
In this absolute sense of freedom, no hum an being may ever achieve freedom at all,
because every human action has an infinite chain of modes as its cause. Further, every
hum an being depends on an external cause for his existence. Thus, in the absolute
sense of freedom, hum an beings are, without question, unfree.
Later in the Ethics, however, a second, hum an sense of freedom emerges, one
contrasted not with being the cause of one's own existence, but with bondage. Spinoza
introduces this notion of bondage in the Preface to Part 4, where he says,
Man's lack of power to moderate and restrain the affects I call Bondage. For the man who is
subject to affects is under the control, not of himself, but of fortune, in whose power he so
greatly is that often, though he sees the better for himself, he is still forced to follow the
worse. (4 Preface, Curley, 543; Geb n/205)
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Being in bondage, it seems, is a lack of self-control, or rather, a lack of self-determination
in action. We lack this self-rule whenever we are under the control of affects deriving
in fortune or, as he suggests later on, in affects deriving from experientia vaga - the
vagaries of experience. Further, being in this state may result in our seeing the better
course of action, but following the worse. It should begin to be clear how Spinoza's
theory of bondage will relate to his account of akrasia.
Spinoza returns to the opposition of freedom and bondage again in Part 4. After
having discussed the power of the passions over hum an beings, Spinoza says:
.. .we shall easily see what the difference is between a man who is led only by an affect, or by
opinion, and one who is led by reason. For the former, whether he will or no, does those
things he is most ignorant of, whereas the latter complies with no one's wishes but his own,
and does only those thing he knows to be the most important in life, and therefore desires
very greatly. Hence I call the former a slave [servum], but the latter, a free man [liberum].
(4p66s; Curley, 584; Geb 11/260)
In this passage, freedom seems to be acting in accordance with one's wishes, or doing
what one knows to be best. Note that one may do what one wants or judges best, while
nonetheless being determined by an external cause.220 That is, one may lack freedom in
the first, absolute sense while having freedom in the second, hum an sense. This second
sense of freedom initially resembles Hobbes' thought, in that it presents freedom as
consisting in the ability to do what one wants. For example, in his debate with
Bramhall, Hobbes defines freedom by saying,
For he is free to do a thing, that may do it if he have the will to do it, and may forbear if he
have the will to forbear.. ,221
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For Hobbes, to be at liberty is just to be able to do what one desires. Like Hobbes,
Spinoza sometimes describes freedom as the absence of constraint. On the other hand,
this quasi-Hobbesian view is not exactly what Spinoza intends, because not just any
desire is relevant to hum an freedom. Instead, he suggests that those whose behavior is
determined by irrational desires, i.e., by inadequate ideas, do not act freely, in this
second sense. One who is determined by passions is a slave and in bondage in a way
that the rational person is not. Therefore, simply doing what one desires is not
sufficient; one has hum an freedom just when one acts on one's rational desires.
Spinoza identifies this hum an freedom with reason again in the Preface to Part 5,
where he says:
I pass, finally, to the remaining Part of the Ethics, which concerns the means, or way, leading
to Freedom [libertatem]. Here, then, I shall treat of the power of reason, showing what it can
do against the affects, and what Freedom of Mind [libertas mentis], or blessedness [beatitudo]
is. From this we shall how much more the wise man can do than the ignorant. (Part 5
Preface; Curley, 594; Geb 11/277)
Here, Spinoza refers to "freedom of mind," which functions in the same way that the
hum an freedom does. Spinoza also implies that this freedom of mind involves the
power of reason against the affects. This power of reason over the affects entails that
the wise man is more capable of doing things than the ignorant man. When Spinoza
talks of reason combating the affects, he means active affects combating passive ones -
that is to say, adequate ideas versus inadequate ones. In other words, Spinoza suggests
here that having adequate ideas empowers reason in its fight against the passions. So,
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the more our action is determined by adequate ideas, the more freedom of mind we
gain.222
As is evident from these passages, Spinoza sometimes slides from human
freedom, that is, freedom of the human being generally to do certain things, to freedom
of the mind, that is, the mind's freedom in forming ideas. This shift parallels Spinoza's
shift from human striving to the striving of the mind, as found in propositions such as
4p26, for example, where Spinoza says,
What we strive for from reason is nothing but understanding; nor does the Mind, insofar as it
uses reason, judge anything else useful to itself except what leads to understanding. (4p26;
Curley, 559; Geb 11/227)
This is not a bias in favor of the mental aspect of hum an beings at the expense of their
corporeal aspect, however.223 For, given parallelism, the striving of the body, of the
mind, and of the hum an being in general are all one and the same striving, if
understood in different ways. In other words, hum an action, when understood solely
under the attribute of Thought, is nothing other than the formation of ideas. Similarly,
hum an freedom, when understood solely under the attribute of Thought, is conceived
as freedom of the mind. In short, Spinoza takes hum an freedom and freedom of the
mind to be synonymous.224
It is also useful here to remember that Spinoza is no ascetic. He believes that
whatever is really harmful to the overall, long-term health of the body could not be
beneficial to the overall, long-term health of the mind.225 Because he identifies the
striving of the mind with that of the body, he cannot allow for a lifestyle that would, all
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things considered, benefit the mind at the expense of the body. W hat's more, given that
Spinoza wishes to show the relative impotence of reason in the first part of Part 4 and
its role in hum an freedom in Part 5, it is reasonable that his discussion would focus on
this understanding of human existence.
There may also be another reason for his shift from human freedom to freedom
of the mind. Spinoza would likely agree that, for any instance of adequate knowledge,
there is some adequate cause in the body. However, his anatomical and physiological
theories are not sufficiently developed to allow him to discuss the bodily aspect of
chains of reasoning, for example. Given the weakness of his physical theory, then, he
cannot avoid talking in a primarily psychological sense if he wishes to discuss our
bondage, activity, and freedom. Nevertheless, he must allow that our bodies can
contain adequate causes that parallel those cases in which our mind is an adequate
cause, i.e., when our mind forms adequate ideas.226
At first blush, this second account of freedom, called either hum an freedom or
freedom of the mind, appears to be a new and distinct account from the one provided
in Part 1. This reading is not quite accurate, however, because hum an freedom is in fact
a derivative and limited form of absolute freedom.227 According to the Part 1 definition
of absolute freedom, something is free just when (1) its existence is self-caused and (2)
its action has its own nature as its cause. As discussed, the nature, or essence, of each
thing is its conatus. According to the conatus doctrine, each thing strives to maintain or
increase its power of acting.228 Therefore, if a thing's action has its striving to increase
power as its cause, then it satisfies condition (2), which is necessary for freedom.229
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Spinoza claims that the m ind's essence is a striving for perseverance and an
increase in its power. When this is occurs through reason, it is a striving for
understanding. So he says:
What we strive for from reason is nothing but understanding; nor does the Mind, insofar as it
uses reason, judge anything else useful to itself except what leads to understanding. (4p26;
Curley, 559; Geb 11/227)
When the mind uses reason, it strives only for understanding. Further, he explains,
"the essence of reason is nothing but our Mind, insofar as it understands clearly and
distinctly."230 When the mind uses reason, then, it understands clearly and distinctly -
that is, it has adequate ideas. So, when the mind forms adequate ideas, it strives from
reason for understanding; this striving is the m ind's essence. Therefore, insofar as the
mind forms adequate ideas and acts from them, the mind strives from its own essence,
or nature. In other words, when the mind forms and acts from adequate ideas, it is
determined to act by its own nature, which was condition (2) for freedom.
Thus we see that, in forming and acting from adequate ideas, the hum an mind
fulfills one of the necessary requirements, (2), for attaining a degree of freedom.
However, only God may meet the requirement (1), because human beings are modes of
the divine Substance. As any mode of a substance is dependent on the substance for its
existence, so human beings are necessarily dependent on God and thus cannot meet the
other necessary condition, (1), for absolute freedom.
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The claim that no hum an being, indeed, nothing finite at all, can be absolutely
free also has echoes in Hobbes. Like Spinoza, Hobbes distinguishes between two senses
of freedom, only one of which can apply to humans. He says,
.. .the distinction of free into free from compulsion and free from necessitation I acknowledge.
For to be free from compulsion is to do a thing so as terror be not the cause of his will to do
it.. .But free from necessitation, I say, no man can be.231
Like Spinoza, Hobbes denies that any hum an action can be absolutely free, though he
accepts that humans may be free in the sense of lacking external causal influence. Again,
this is not to say that Spinoza's understanding of freedom is straightforwardly
Hobbesian - it is not. Yet both thinkers do affirm determinism with regard to human
action, but allow for a sense of hum an freedom - they resemble each other in their
compatibilism.
Human freedom, then, is not a completely new sense of freedom, nor is it the
same freedom discussed in Part 1. Instead, it is a less robust version of absolute
freedom. For only God is an absolutely free cause, in that only God can meet both
conditions. Hum an beings, however, may meet condition (2) when they form adequate
ideas and act on them. When the hum an mind forms and acts from adequate ideas, it
strives from understanding. When it does so, it is determined solely by its own nature,
thus meeting condition (2). Therefore, forming and acting from adequate ideas brings
us that limited, hum an freedom.
This is not to say that we could ever attain total hum an freedom, because no
finite mind may possess all and only adequate ideas.232 This is so because man can
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never not be a part of nature. Because of this fact, the hum an mind necessarily contains
inadequate ideas. As such, the hum an mind may achieve even the more limited,
hum an freedom only to a degree.233 Further, even if one does succeed in forming
adequate ideas, they may be overcome by opposing passions in the phenomenon of
akrasia. In other words, the more adequate ideas the mind forms, and the more that the
actions of the mind are determined by adequate ideas, the more free one will become.
One can never be wholly free, however, in either sense of freedom 234
One final clarification is required before moving on. One reading of Spinoza's
theory of human bondage is this: we are in bondage to the extent that we have
inadequate ideas and free to the extent that we have adequate ones, full-stop. This
reading fails to account for akrasia, however. Indeed, we are most in bondage when we
form adequate ideas bu t fail to behave according to them. This suggests that our bondage
and freedom is not just a function of forming inadequate or adequate ideas, but also of
living according to them. It may be that having our behavior be governed by the right
ideas is really what concerns Spinoza. Of course, forming adequate ideas is necessary
for behaving in this way, but not sufficient.235
Jonathan Bennett, for example, falls prey to this misreading. He interprets
Spinoza as saying that we should avoid sensory perception, since they are inadequate
ideas. In fact, he even suggests that this view serves as a reductio for the entire
argument of Part 4.236 Bennett overlooks several important considerations, however.237
First, though the individual guided solely by reason is said to lack all passivity and thus
would lack all sensation, this free individual is an impossible ideal, not one we aim to
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achieve or even imitate.238 The living hum an being is expected only to minimize the
passions and try to focus on reason instead of dwelling in the senses - a standard
position of rationalists, as well as Stoics. Second, the mind comes to grasp common
notions in having sensory perception. In that regard, sensation is necessary for our
becoming more free.
One m ust remember that Spinoza is ultimately interested in the question of which
ideas determine our actions. So, though we may necessarily have sensations and thus
inadequate ideas, we may still be free if our actions come not from inadequate ideas,
but from reason. Remember the example Spinoza gives of the sun 239 Spinoza says:
For example, when we look at the sun, we imagine it to be about 200 feet away
from us, In this we are deceived so long as we are ignorant of its true distance;
but when its distance is known, the error is removed, not the imagination, i.e.,
the idea of the sun, which explains its nature only so far as the Body is affected
by it. And so, though we come to know the true distance, we shall nevertheless
imagine it as near us. (4pls; 4pls; Curley, 547-8; Geb 11/211)
When we see the sun, we have an inadequate idea representing the sun as relatively
small and near. When we have adequate knowledge via astronomy, we know that the
sim is actually very large and far. Yet the presence of this adequate knowledge may
coexist in the mind with our visual sensation. As long as we behave according to the
adequate knowledge, however, the inadequate knowledge does not truly bind us. In short,
then, hum an freedom is not to be contrasted with absolute causal self-sufficiency as
much as with bondage, our lack of self-determination in our actions. Though we still have
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a degree of passivity and thus bondage simply in virtue of having the inadequate ideas
of sensation, we can minimize our passivity and bondage both by forming the adequate
idea and by acting according to it, which is how Spinoza tells us to proceed.
Human freedom really just boils down to being determined by one's own
rational nature. Similarly, being in bondage just is the failure to be self-determined. We
fail to be self-determined in mere ignorance as well as when we suffer akrasia, that is,
when our adequate ideas fail to be efficacious. It should be noted, however, that these
two states are not the same. We have a greater degree of freedom when we form an
adequate idea but fail to act on it than when we are completely ignorant. For in the first
case we are to some degree active, but to a greater degree passive, while in the second
we almost entirely passive.
In sum, human bondage is simply the state of being determined by something
other than one's own rational nature, either in forming ideas or in acting more generally.
In other words, human bondage is either forming inadequate ideas or, worse, forming
them and acting from them. And hum an freedom is the state of being determined by
one's own nature, either in forming adequate ideas or, more importantly, in acting from
them. That is to say, we lack hum an freedom to the degree that our ideas and behaviors
are determined by passions, rather than reason, or adequate ideas. As discussed in the
previous chapters, however, adequate ideas oppose the passions only insofar as they
are affective. Thus, we are free from bondage to the extent that our ideas and our
behavior are not determined by passions, but by active affects.
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3.2. Conatus and Akrasia
Clearly, being in bondage is not a desirable state. Spinoza vividly describes the
experience of undergoing passive affects when he says, "we are driven about in many
ways by external causes, and that, like waves on the sea, driven by contrary winds, we
toss about, not knowing our outcome or fate."240 Despite this unpleasant experience,
we still often behave passionately, not rationally. Given that we essentially pursue our
own interest, however, this may seem contradictory. This raises the following question:
how can Spinoza affirm an egoistic psychology that involves hum an beings knowingly
acting against their own interest, as they do when they act passionately in the face of
opposing knowledge?
3.2.1. The Conatus and Egoism
Spinoza's doctrine of the conatus undergirds his versions of ethical and
psychological egoism.241 Like most aspects of Spinoza's psychology, his egoism has its
basis deep in his metaphysics and epistemology.242 He begins with his definition of
activity at 3d2, where he says:
I say that we act when something happens, in us or outside us, of which we are the adequate
cause, i.e. (by Dl), when something in us or outside us follows from our nature, which can be
clearly and distinctly understood through it alone. On the other hand, I say that we are acted
on when something happens to us, or something follows from our nature, of which we are
only a partial cause. (3d2; Curley, 493; Geb 11/139)
That is, insofar as we are active, we are an adequate cause. Next he says:
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...our Mind does certain things [acts] and undergoes other thing, viz. insofar as it has
adequate ideas, it necessarily does certain things, and insofar as it has inadequate ideas, it
necessarily undergoes other things. (3pl; Curley, 493; Geb 11/140)
That is, our mind is an adequate cause just when we have adequate ideas. In other
words, when our behavior is determined by inadequate ideas, we cannot be said to act,
strictly speaking, but only to undergo certain things. That is to say, when we have
inadequate ideas, we do not perform actions, but undergo passions, even though we
may be exhibiting some agent-like behavior.
Adequate ideas, on the other hand, are active affects, as Spinoza affirms when he
says, "apart from the Joy and Desire that are passions, there are other affects of Joy and
Desire that are related to us insofar as we act."243 Further, these active affects may only
be related to Joy and Desire, but not Sadness or pain. For, insofar as we act, our power
increases, while Sadness occurs only when our power decreases. Spinoza explains this
in 3p59, saying, "among all the affects that are related to the Mind insofar as it acts,
there are none that are not related to Joy or Desire."244 Therefore, because we cannot
have active affects in which our power decreases, we cannot have adequate ideas in
which our power decreases. This means, in turn, that we cannot be an adequate cause
in which our power decreases. And so, insofar as we are active in Spinoza's narrow
sense, our power cannot decrease. Thus, when we act in this sense, we necessarily act
in a way that maintains or increases our power; that is, we necessarily act in our own
interest.245
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Spinoza employs this technical sense of the term 'to act/ according to which a
hum an being is said to act only from adequate ideas. In this technical sense of action, it
is impossible to act irrationally. For a person's irrational action can only involve
inadequate ideas, in which case the person does not act, strictly speaking, but is acted
upon. Therefore, one cannot act against one's interest. Thus, Spinoza affirms
psychological egoism.
In fact, if Spinoza intends only this strict sense of action, then he is committed to
a thesis even stronger than psychological egoism, as it is traditionally understood. For,
when we act in this strict sense, we only act for what is truly in our interest. Strictly
speaking, we only act when we are determined by adequate ideas, which, being
adequate, are true representations. Given the conatus doctrine, it follows that any time
adequate ideas determine us to act, we will act toward what is truly good for us.
Whereas psychological egoism has traditionally been construed as the view that people
always act toward what they perceive to be good, Spinoza here asserts that people
always and only act for what they really know to be good. Spinoza's doctrine, then, is
psychological egoism of the strongest kind - at least, it is so when we consider
Spinoza's narrow sense of action just described.
In the beginning of Part 3 and elsewhere, Spinoza restricts the use of the term 'to
act' [agere] to cases of adequate knowledge. For example, after having presented a
myriad of passions, Spinoza turns to the active affects, which involve adequate ideas.
There he makes a distinction between "the affects that are related to man insofar as he is
acted on [patitur]" and "those that are related to him insofar as he acts [agzf]."246
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At other times, however, he uses the verb with regard to inadequate ideas. For
example, Spinoza defines ambition, saying, "this striving to do [conatus aliquid agendi]
something...solely to please men is called Ambition, especially when we strive so
eagerly to please the people that we do [agamus] or omit certain things to our own
injury..."247 Here Spinoza uses the word 'act' in a broader sense, meaning, simply, to
do something or to behave in a certain way, though Curley translates agere in this
passage as 'to d o / not 'to act.' Later, Spinoza says, "he who strives, only because of an
affect, that others should love what he loves, and love according to his temperament,
acts [agit] only from impulse and is hateful." 248 In this passage Spinoza
straightforwardly employs agit in a context of inadequate ideas; these passages suggest
that Spinoza did not use agere consistently. In fact, Spinoza once uses agere in both
senses in the same paragraph, when he says,
Insofar as a man is determined to act [agendum] from the fact that he has inadequate ideas, he
is acted on [patitur] (by 3pl), i.e. (by 3dl and d2), he does [agit] something, which cannot be
perceived through his essence alone...But insofar as he is determined to do something from
the fact that he understands, he acts [agit] ... (4p23d; Curley, 558; Geb 11/226)
In his first two uses of agere in this passage, Spinoza refers to a behavior determined by
inadequate ideas, while in the third use he refers to one determined by adequate ideas.
In short, like the term affectus, Spinoza employs the term agere and its derivatives in two
senses, one broad the other narrow.
In general, then, Spinoza recognizes two senses of hum an action. In the narrow
sense, he often reserves agere for those cases involving adequate ideas. Nevertheless, he
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allows that human beings may act irrationally, even though such behavior does not
meet the criteria for action in the narrow sense.249 Yet even in passions we are "partial
causes."250 Though we do undergo something in the passions and we are in some ways
passive when we have inadequate ideas, we are nonetheless a partial cause and thus
partially active. Indeed, our essence is thus partially active even with inadequate ideas,
which is just what Spinoza establishes in 3p9. And so, our conatus is involved in both
adequate and inadequate ideas; that is, we may be said to act in the broad sense even
when we do so from inadequate ideas.
Consider Spinoza's admonition to try to persevere in our being. Now, given that
our conatus necessarily directs us to do so, this would seem unnecessary. As Michael
LeBuffe argues, however, Spinoza in fact exhorts us to do what will actually allow us to
persevere, not merely what we perceive will do so. In other words, when Spinoza tells
us to try to persevere in our being, he is exhorting us to a life of reason.251 That is, he is
urging us to live so that our conatus acts more often from adequate ideas than
inadequate ideas. Spinoza's entire project works under the assumption that some
people act against their interest some of the time.
Where does that leave Spinoza's psychological egoism? When 'to act' is taken in
the narrow sense, Spinoza's theory is a strong psychological egoism, for every act we
perform is not only toward our perceived good, but toward our actual good as well.
Even in the broad sense of action, Spinoza is still a psychological egoist, despite his
allowance that we sometimes act against our real interest in favor of an apparent good.
Whether or not we act from adequate or inadequate ideas, we necessarily pursue
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something we represent to ourselves as good for us. Spinoza even allows for cases of
akrasia, where we know what is good for us, but instead follow some irrational desire
for a merely apparent good that overwhelms our knowledge.
Accepting akrasia certainly does not entail the rejection of egoism, by any means,
because every desire we form is one aimed at something perceived to be in our own
interest. For Spinoza, akrasia occurs when we choose something perceived to be
desirable in the short-term over our long-term good, or something that is good for us in
one respect but not overall. In short, Spinoza's particular explanation of akrasia leaves
his egoism intact. W hat's more, Spinoza's system may even allow for self-sacrificing
and self-destructive behavior, which are even stronger challenges to psychological
egoism.252
Spinoza's ethical egoism253 follows from the conatus doctrine as well, for he
defines virtue as being equivalent to increasing one's power when he says:
By virtue and power I understand the same thing, i.e. (by IIIP7), virtue, insofar as it is related
to man, is the very essence, or nature, of man, insofar as he has the power of bringing about
certain things, which can be understood through the laws of his nature alone. (4d8; Curley,
547; Geb 11/210)
Spinoza reaffirms the identity of virtue and power at 4p20, where he says: "the more
each one strives, and is able, to seek his own advantage, i.e., to preserve his being, the
more he is endowed with virtue; conversely, insofar as each one neglects his own
advantage, i.e., neglects to preserve his being, he lacks power."254 So, seeking one's
own advantage and increasing one's power is virtuous behavior, for Spinoza. This
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understanding is consistent with Spinoza's definition of good and evil as well, which he
states in 4d l and 4d2, saying:
4dl: By good I shall understand what we certainly know to be useful to us.
4d2: By evil, however, I shall understand what we certainly know prevents us from being masters
of some good. (Curley, 546; Geb 11/209)
Once again, the good for Spinoza is just the good for us, which is what brings us an
increase in power.255 And so pursuing the good, in this sense, increases our power;
therefore, acting to increase our power is acting virtuously.256 What remains to be seen
is if Spinoza's system can account for two challenges commonly raised against theories
of psychological egoism: self-destructive and altruistic behavior. Furthermore, seeing
how Spinoza's egoism can resist these challenges sets the stage for how he believes
akrasia to occur.
3.2.2. Selfless and Self-Destructive Behavior
In 3p9, Spinoza establishes that the hum an mind strives, from its essence, both
insofar as it has desires involving adequate ideas and desires involving inadequate
ideas.257 He says:
3p9: Both insofar as the mind has distinct ideas, and insofar as it has confused ideas, it strives,
for an indefinite duration, to persevere in its being and it is conscious of this striving it has.
Dem.: The essence of the Mind is constituted by adequate and inadequate ideas (as we have
shown in p3). So (by p7) it strives to persevere in its being both insofar as it has inadequate
ideas and insofar as it has adequate ideas. (Curley, 499; Geb E/147)
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Since the essence of the mind involves both adequate and inadequate ideas, it follows
that our mind's essential striving will also involve both kinds.258 Similarly, both our
rational and irrational desires exemplify our tendency to pursue those things we take to
be good for us, that is, both rational and irrational desires are a part of our conatus.
And so, it is hum an nature to be moved both from reason and from passion.259 In 4p65,
Spinoza claims that the principle of choosing the greater of two goods or the lesser of
two evils is a principle of reason. In other words, it is not something we do simply
because of the striving of our conatus. Instead, it is a rational principle we may or may
not follow. Though everything that we desire is an apparent good, to be sure, not
everything that we desire is always in fact in our best interest.
In principle, if a hum an being were to possess only adequate ideas, then any
behavior that lessens her power to persevere would be inconsistent with her conatus.
Humans are not such beings, however, since their essence is an appetite directed by
both adequate and inadequate ideas. This fact, stated clearly in the often overlooked
3p9, would help to explain how suicide is possible, which has long been taken as a
counterexample to Spinoza's doctrine of conatus.260
A suicidal person is one whose inadequate ideas and irrational desires have
gained such prominence that his mind has become largely passive - i.e., his rational
desires are almost entirely inefficacious. At that point, whatever he does is likely to be
against his interest. Whether he slowly drinks himself to death or hangs himself, for
example, is simply a matter of which inadequate ideas he has. He is still behaving
consistently with his conatus when he is determined by his irrational desires, even those
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that may lead to his destruction.261 Therefore, when the suicidal person makes his choice
toward suicide, his behavior is simply determined by some irrational desire.262 Seneca
acted similarly when he chose suicide, though his choice was guided by reason, not
passion. In Seneca's case, he faced torture and execution, so he chose rationally to
commit a painless suicide. As just mentioned, reason directs us to choose the lesser of
two evils; therefore, reason would direct Seneca to do what he did. It should be clear
how self-destructive behavior can be explained in Spinoza's egoist psychology.
Similar things could be said about seemingly altruistic behavior.263 If we have
inadequate ideas about the afterlife, say, that direct us to sacrifice our life for another,
we behave in accordance with our conatus, even though we are significantly passive in
this event. Of course, this might not qualify as altruistic self-sacrifice at all, since we aim
for a reward in heaven. Say, however, that one has the adequate idea "one should
return hate with love," which is one of Spinoza's common notions.264 If acting on this
principle endangers or even ends one's life, has one acted against the conatus? Perhaps
not. Above all, though, the conatus does not favor the rational over the irrational,
necessarily, but is determined solely by their relative affective force.
Perhaps this is what Spinoza means when he denies teleology of the conatus.265
He says, "we neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we
judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive
for it, will it, want it, and desire it."266 The conatus does not favor reason over the
passions, nor does it value our all-things-considered, long-term interests over our short
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term, heat-of-the-moment desires. Instead, we merely act from the strongest desire,
only consequently recognizing objects of desire to be goods.
Two further points are relevant here. First, if Seneca's rational suicide is
consistent with the doctrine of conatus, then an irrational suicide can also be consistent
with that doctrine, given that the conatus involves being determined equally from both
adequate and inadequate ideas. In the case of both irrational and rational suicides, the
desire for a perceived good determines action, despite the fact that a rational suicide
involves more hum an freedom than an irrational suicide. Both, however, are consistent
with the conatus.
One need not resort to extreme examples of altruism to challenge egoism.
Consider the simple act of giving money to a beggar. Even so great an egoist as Thomas
Hobbes is reported to have done just so and to have seen such behavior as in
accordance with egoism. John Aubrey reports as follows:
One time, I remember, going into the Strand, a poor and infirm old man craved his alms. He
beholding him with eyes of pity and compassion, put his hands in his pocket, and gave him
6d. Said a divine (that is Dr Jasper Mayne) that stood by - 'Would you have done this, if it
had not been Christ's command?' 'Yes,' said he. 'Why?' said the other. 'Because,' said he, 'I
was in pain to consider the miserable condition of the old man; and now my alms, giving
him some relief, doth also ease me.'267
This anecdote does not win the case for the egoist, nor does the Lieutenant Edens
example, above. On the other hand, both show that such behaviors can be explained by
an egoist psychology. As opposed to many other egoists, however, Spinoza grounds
his psychology in his metaphysics, viz. the conatus doctrine, and his theory of mind
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generally. If those grounds have independent plausibility, then his egoism ought to
have such plausibility as well. In that case, the theory need only account for possible
counterexamples, which is just what it seems to be capable of doing.
On the other hand, Spinoza's system could not easily accommodate altruistic or
self-destructive behavior if we understand the conatus to be, simply, that we necessarily
do either what really is in our interest or what we believe to be in our long-term, all-
things-considered interest. We do neither, of course, instead acting from particular
appetites and desires (3p9s), some of which are rational, some of which are irrational
(3p9). We can reason and form beliefs about the future and the future effects of our
actions, to be sure. But only insofar as these beliefs about the future engender particular
desires in the present can they determine our behavior. Lieutenant Edens believes that,
if he rims now, his body may survive but his personality will be destroyed in the future,
in some sense. More importantly, he believes that, if he remains and fights, he will
likely die, but he will be doing what he really wants to do. His beliefs about the future
engender self-interested desires in the present, which cause him to behave in the way he
does, a behavior that from outside appears altruistic.
Can Spinoza's theory account for a desire that takes as its goal one's personal
destruction? For example, Freud's death drive (der Todestrieb) is not simply a desire for
death or destruction that arises from the accidental acquisition of some false
information. Rather, for Freud, der Todestreib is a life force, a drive comparable to eros.
Similarly, the destrudo impulse that der Todestreib engenders is, like the libido, a
fundamental impulse.268 Though Spinoza's thought can accommodate self-destructive
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desires, he cannot countenance that such a desire could come from our essence in the
same way as our adequate ideas. Though Spinoza can accommodate self-destructive
desire, he rejects the claim that humans might be fundamentally or essentially self
destructive, or that they contain two competing tendencies in their essence, one toward
life and another toward death.
For Spinoza, our conatus is nothing but our way of striving to persevere. For
hum an beings, this striving manifests in our being determined by particular desires to
pursue things we believe to be good. If we feel that the continuation of our life would
be worse than its end, then we will believe death to be a good for us and so we will
desire to die and may even be determined to pursue it, as Seneca did. It is more likely,
however, that we are determined to avoid something else, rather than actively pursuing
death and self-destruction. The suicidal person usually seeks suicide not out of love of
self-destruction and death but only secondarily, as a means of escaping some present
pain or fear. In short, then, most suicides are like a man who jumps from a high story of
a burning building. They do not seek to die by falling, but to avoid the nearer and
presently more fearful death by burning. So, their desire to avoid the fire is greater than
their desire not to fall from the building, so they jump. At least, this seems to be what
Spinoza's system entails. If Spinoza is correct here, then a suicidal person is so because
he has an inadequate idea that death will bring less pain than life. And this behavior is
perfectly in accord with our interpretation of the conatus. And of course, the rational
suicide of Seneca, who wisely chose a painless suicide over a painful death by torture,
raises no problem whatsoever for this interpretation. After all, Seneca's rational choice
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is explained in the same way as the irrational suicide, the only difference being the fact
that whereas Seneca's choice was rational and admirable, the choice of irrational suicide
is not.
A final point is required in order to give an explanation of how akrasia could
occur. In every inadequate idea, the mind is partially passive, which means that every
inadequate idea has some cause external to the mind. The strength of an inadequate
idea, as well as the strength of its associated irrational desire, is determined not by our
mind but by the strength of the external cause of the inadequate idea. Spinoza says,
"the force and growth of any passions, and its perseverance in existing, are not defined
by the power by which we strive to persevere in existing, but by the power of an
external cause compared with our own."269 This explains how a passion could be
stronger than one of our rational desires, since external causes can always be stronger
than our own power 270
3.3. Akrasia in Spinoza
3.3.1. Akrasia In Spinoza: A First Pass
There are a variety of different kinds of akrasia.271 For example, some very weak
cases of akrasia involve acting against one's beliefs or suspicions, while other, more
interesting cases involve acting against one's knowledge of the better option. This
distinction is irrelevant for Spinoza, because he does not divide cognitions in this way.
For our purposes, then, we shall consider only cases in the latter category - acting
against our knowledge of our good.
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Instances of akrasia may also be synchronic or diachronic (synchronic akrasia
corresponds to what has been called strict akrasia). Synchronic, or strict, akrasia occurs
when an agent makes a judgment that doing one action is more desirable than doing
another, yet at the same time intentionally performs the less desirable action.272 In
diachronic akrasia, on the other hand, the mind vacillates between two appearances of
the good, but acts while considering only the appearance of the less desirable option 273
In other words, the judgment that one option is better than the other and the
performance of the action do not occur simultaneously, but in succession. Sometimes,
this kind of akrasia appears as a rash or impulsive action. For example, say that I know I
shouldn't eat cake because it will spoil my diet. In a moment in which I am not
focusing on that judgment, I instead consider the mouthwatering appearance of a slice
of cake and then succumb. In this case, I act rashly, choosing to eat the cake at the
moment when I was considering its desirability and not my prior judgment of what
would be best overall. In other words, in synchronic akrasia, the mind vacillates
between the rational desire to refrain and the momentary, irrational desire to eat. Then
the mind acts at the moment when it is considering only the irrational desire.
Spinoza recognizes this phenomenon, in which the mind vacillates between
several representations, when he says:
This constitution of the Mind which arises from two contrary affects is called vacillation of
the mind .. .From this we can easily conceive that one and the same object can be the cause of
many and contrary affects. (3pl7s; Curley, 504; Geb 11/153)
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Spinoza explains how this vacillation arises by reference to the fact that different
aspects of the object in question can cause different desires in us; further, being complex
things ourselves, the same objects can cause different desires in us as well. In
considering the object, then, the mind will vacillate among these several affects, or
desires. It may be that one of these desires is rational and another irrational. On which
desire we act is a function of the relative strengths of the desires.
Spinoza accepts the possibility of synchronic, or strict, akrasia as well. In fact, the
first 17 propositions in Part 4 are hard to understand unless they refer to synchronic
akrasia. According to Spinoza there, an irrational desire or passion overpowers or
restrains a rational desire or active affect, which involves knowledge of our good. In
other words, the cases with which Spinoza is concerned here are those in which two
representations of our good coexist in the mind, yet only one, the more powerful one, is
efficacious. This does not seem to be a case of the mind attending to one desire over
another or vacillating between two representations.274 Indeed, the entire language of
power used to analyze the affects suggests that one affect meets another head-on and
overpowers it, as occurs only in synchronic akrasia. After having explained that our
knowledge of the good is not very powerful and can easily be restrained by passions,
Spinoza quotes Ovid at 4pl7s, saying, "I see and approve the better, but follow the
worse."275 This is best understood as a kind of synchronic, or strict, akrasia.276
In any event, Spinoza does not distinguish these two species of akrasia, instead
considering only the genus. For Spinoza, in a case of akrasia, the mind contains two
desires, one a rational desire to do A and the other an irrational desire to do B. The
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rational desire involves an adequate idea that truly represents action A as being in our
interest, while the irrational desire involves an inadequate idea that falsely represents
doing B as in our interest. That is, A presents something as good for us that really is so,
while B presents something as good for us when that is not in fact so. Perhaps A, the
true representation, takes into account our long-term interests, while B, the false
representation, focuses only on the here and now and thus misrepresents the overall
value of some pleasurable behavior. Regardless, the two are competing desires
presenting opposing views of the good in this situation. According to Spinoza, the
stronger desire will determine the mind to act, regardless of the ideas' adequacy or
inadequacy.
In fact, the mere presence of an idea - even an adequate idea - that action B is not
in our interest is not sufficient for removing a desire to do B. For we may also have
some other, inadequate idea according to which B appears, on the contrary, to be
desirable in some way. If we perceive some behavior to be harmful or dangerous in
some way, it may still appear to be desirable - and we will pursue the stronger of the
two appearances, or rather, behave according to their resulting desires.277 Spinoza
affirms this claim when he says, "no affect can be restrained by the true knowledge of
good and evil insofar as it is true, but only insofar as it is considered as an affect."278
That is, our irrational desires cannot be overcome simply by true knowledge of our
good; only as a desire can our knowledge of the good overcome these irrational desires.
If our rational desires are weaker than our irrational ones, however, we are vulnerable
to suffering akrasia.279
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3.3.2. How Particular Instances of Akrasia M ay Occur
Here, then, is how akrasia occurs. First, the mind must contain two ideas of
objects, a and b, both of which we are represented as providing joy [laetitia] to the
individual. Further, say having both a and b is impossible. Given our essential nature
as desirous beings, we will form desires for each of these objects. Thus, from ideas of a
and b will arise desires A and B. Given the incompatible nature of having both objects,
however, we cannot act on both A and B. Now, say that idea of a is adequate and idea
of b is inadequate. Desire A is rational, because a is adequate, while desire B is irrational,
because b is inadequate. The strength of desires A and B is determined by the strength
of the causes of ideas a and b, respectively. So, if the cause of idea b is stronger than the
cause of idea a, then desire B will be stronger than desire A, in which case we will act on
B, not A. Therefore, we will act on desire B, while still knowing it is not the best course
of action (knowledge embodied in idea a). So, we will act knowingly against our
interest. We do this because our conatus does not distinguish between our rational and
irrational desires, instead tending us toward whatever desire happens to be the
strongest, which is a matter contingent on the relative strength of the causes involved.
Spinoza offers a detailed explanation of our bondage to the passions, showing
how and why akrasia occurs in particular circumstances.280 He begins by establishing
that, as natural beings, we must always suffer passions to some degree. He restates this
commitment to a naturalistic view of hum an nature, saying:
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It is impossible that a man should not be a part of Nature, and that he should be able to
undergo no changes except those which can be understood through his own nature alone,
and of which he is the adequate cause. (4p4; Curley, 548; Geb 11/212)
The metaphysics behind this claim are rooted in the doctrine of monism, according to
which each hum an being is a mode of Substance, the larger system of divine nature.
Being such modes, humans have a limited and finite power, such that they may always
be acted on by external forces. Spinoza has already announced this view in the Preface
to Part 3, where he denies that man in nature is "a dominion within a dominion."281
Spinoza elucidates this view in a corollary, saying, "from this it follows that man is
necessarily always subject to passions, that he follows and obeys the common order of
Nature."282 Since a passion is the result in the hum an mind when the hum an body is
affected from without, and given that the hum an body must be so affected, it follows
that the mind must be subject to the passions.
Spinoza then addresses this question: Given that passions are inadequate ideas,
can knowledge remove a passion? He answers this question, saying, "nothing positive
which a false idea has is removed by the presence of the true insofar as it is true."283 In
the subsequent scholium, he explains this with his aforementioned analogy of seeing
the sun. The appearance of the sun in the sky as a small relatively proximate orb is an
inadequate idea, because in fact it is much larger and more distant than it appears to the
eye. Even after our having learned these astronomical facts, however, the sun still
appears to us in the same way. The relative smallness and seeming proximity of the
stm in our sensory perception are not dispelled by knowing the truth.
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Now consider another case. Say I see a spider and become unduly afraid.
Further, say that I happen to know that this species of spider is harmless to hum ans and
cannot cause me any pain. Spinoza's theory plausibly suggests that this knowledge
may not remove the feeling of fear. Because the cause of the inadequate idea, namely,
the sensory stimulus, remains, the inadequate idea remains as well, side by side with
the adequate rational idea, which is different in kind. And, just as in the case of the sun,
the inadequate sensory ideas remain because their causes continue to act on us.
Next, say that the spider is on the floor, in a doorway through which I wish to
pass. How I act in this situation depends on how strong the emotion of fear is
compared to how strong my desire is to get through the door. In other words, my
knowledge that the spider cannot really hurt me will not remove the fear I feel, nor
allow me simply to overcome the fear and pass through the doorway. Only if I also
have some further emotional motivation to do so, such as hunger for the food in the
kitchen beyond the doorway, for example, may I be able to overcome my fear.
This account of the interaction of truth and the passions culminates in 4p7, where
Spinoza says, "an affect cannot be restrained or taken away except by an affect opposite
to, and stronger than, the affect to be restrained."284 This principle undergirds Spinoza's
mechanistic psychology, according to which the passions interact according to efficient
causation, as constituent parts in a mechanism.285 Each affect in the mind is the idea of
a bodily affection or change. Yet no modification in a body may occur except through
interaction with another body as an efficient cause. And the idea of this efficient cause,
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being an idea of a change in a body, is itself an affect. Therefore, affects cannot be
removed except by other affects.
This is a model of the mind worth considering at greater length. The mind is a
complex idea, Spinoza says, composed of myriad constituent ideas, all of which are
interrelated such that they exhibit a tendency to persevere in their being. With a
complex physical being like the hum an body, the constituent parts together exhibit a
tendency to cohere spatially in such a way that the whole retains its individuating
character. In other words, hum an bodies have a distinctive conatus; the hum an body
generally tends toward self-preservation. Any physical collection that fails to do so also
fails to be an entity over and above its constituent parts.286
Spinoza holds the mind to be the idea of the body 287 In the case of the mind,
therefore, its constituent ideas are related in such a way that they exhibit conatus as
well; these ideas interact in a way analogous to the bodily mechanism, composing a
kind of spiritual automaton.288 This interaction within the spiritual automaton is a
matter of efficient causation, as in the bodily automaton, because Spinoza rejects formal,
final, and other kinds of causation. These ideas interacting in the mental automaton
have a tripartite nature - they are cognitions, volitions, and affects. In 4pl through 4p7,
Spinoza establishes that modes of the mind are causally efficacious only insofar as they
are affects. This is what Spinoza means when he says that an idea cannot effect change
in the mind insofar as it is true, but only insofar as it is an affect.289 Akrasia occurs as a
result of this aspect of the mind; our affects drive our actions, not our knowledge of the
good per se.
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Spinoza reiterates this view later in Part 4, where he says, "no affect can be
restrained by the true knowledge of good and evil insofar as it is true, but only insofar
as it is considered as an affect"290 and "a Desire which arises from a true knowledge of
good and evil can be extinguished or restrained by many other Desires which arise
from affects by which we are tormented."291 An idea's being true, even its being true
knowledge of our good, does not entail that this idea will be efficacious, since the
strength of an affect is determined by the strength of its cause, not by its cognitive
content 292 Similarly, whether desires based on knowledge of our good are efficacious is
a function of the strength of the desire's affective cause, not the cognition on which it is
based.
After having established the basis for the conflict of the affects, Spinoza proceeds
to explain the principles according to which they interact. Those affects whose causes
we imagine as present will, ceteris paribus, be stronger than those whose causes we
imagine as absent. So Spinoza says, "an affect whose cause we imagine to be with us in
the present is stronger if we did not imagine it to be with us."293 The reason for this is
simple enough; Spinoza takes an idea considered in isolation of all other ideas to be an
idea in which we imagine something as existing. Spinoza introduces the foundation for
this principle in Part 2, where he says,
If the human Body is affected with a mode that involves the nature of an external body, the
human Mind will regard the same external body as actually existing, or as present to it, until
the Body is affected by an affect the excludes the existence or presence of that body. (2pl7;
Curley, 463-4; Geb 11/104)
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In Spinoza's rudimentary account of bodily affections, sensory perception is a process
according to which some external body imprints itself onto our sense organs in some
way, such that our brains will represent the external body as present until something
else mars or removes the imprint.
Since the affects are ideas of bodily affections, it follows that affects in which we
imagine something will function as though the object is present as well, unless there is
some other idea present that counts against that existence. He makes this principle
explicit in Part 3, where he says, "so long as a man is affected by the image of a thing, he
will regard the thing as present, even if it does not exist..."294 This principle can be
found in Descartes, who says, "existence is contained in the idea or concept of every
single thing, since we cannot conceive of anything except as existing."295 For Spinoza,
to imagine something not present is to have two ideas, one that posits the existence and
nature of the thing and another idea that posits a state of affairs that excludes the
presence of the thing in question.296
Each of these affects has a certain amount of affective force, as it were. Therefore,
the case in which I have a sole affective idea that posits the existence of x will be
stronger than a case in which I have an idea positing x and another idea denying the
existence of x. Since these latter two are opposite in a certain way, the unopposed affect
will have a greater effect on me than the opposed and thus weakened one. Therefore,
given that having an affect toward some object involves imagining the object to be
present, it follows that the addition of a second idea denying the presence of the object
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would weaken the affect toward the object. After all, if we fear spiders, we will feel
more fear in the absence of a belief that there are none present.
Spinoza provides other principles concerning affective strength. So, he says, "we
are affected more intensely by a future thing which we imagine will be quickly present,
than if we imagined the time when it will exist to be further from the present."297 That
is, we feel more strongly about things that are nearer to us than those that are farther.
Similarly, those things that we imagine as necessary affect us more strongly than those
imagined as contingent. For to imagine something as necessary is to imagine it as
always existing, while to imagine something as contingent is to imagine something that
may be non-existent or absent.
Finally, Spinoza says:
A Desire which arises from a true knowledge of good and evil, insofar as this knowledge
concerns the future, can be quite easily restrained or extinguished by a Desire for the
pleasures of the moment. (4pl6; Curley, 554; Geb 11/220)
Here, Spinoza combines what he has said about the relative weakness of true
knowledge of good with the relative weakness of our affects toward future states of
affairs. Our desires to do certain things that we believe will bring about our good in the
future are weak for several reasons. First, the strength of this desire is not a function of
the truth or cognitive content of the ideas involved and so this desire is at no advantage
over other, less rational desires we might have. Second, this desire concerns our good
in the future; as such, it is weakened because its object is imagined as not existing in the
present. Therefore, other things being equal, our desires for the pleasures of the present
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will be stronger than our desire for our good in the future, even when that future-
directed desire is based on true knowledge.
Later in Part 4, Spinoza explains a final way in which we are in bondage to the
passions and thus may suffer akrasia. Whereas the previous principles involve the
affective nature of desire versus its truth value or our natural bias toward the near, the
following principle involves a bias toward particular aspects of ourselves at the expense
of the whole. He says, "a Desire arising from either a Joy or a Sadness related to one, or
several, but not to all parts of the Body, has no regard for the advantage of the whole
man."298 This straightforwardly applies to the passions of lust and gluttony, wherein
one acts in the interest of parts of our body or brain, but perhaps at the expense of the
whole.
Yet it could be applied more metaphorically as well. Imagine a man who takes
great pleasure in music, to such an extent that he spends no time pursuing other
knowledge or, more generally, tending to other necessities in his life. This would be
one who favors certain desires at the expense of the good of the whole. This example is
not farfetched, for, in a scholium to the above proposition, Spinoza says,
Therefore, since Joy is generally (by p44s) related to one part of the body, for the most part
we desire to preserve our being without regard to our health as a whole. To this we may add
that the Desires by which we are most bound (by p9c) have regard only to the present and
not the future. (4p60s; Curley, 581; Geb 11/256)
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In short, then, desires very often lead us astray because they exhibit some sort of
irrational bias, either toward the present or the near future over the long-term, or
toward a part of our bodies, or our lives, at the expense of the whole.
With these statements, Spinoza believes that he has shown how Ovid's Medea
might have been led to say, "...video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor."299 Spinoza
describes how reason prescribes us to act, given that we will pursue our own interests.
These dictates of reason, as Spinoza calls them, may serve as a guide to the life of reason,
for they represent true knowledge of good and evil. As just explained, however, simply
knowing these dictates does not entail that one will follow them. And this is Spinoza's
account of akrasia.
3.3.3. The Relation Between Bondage and Akrasia
Bondage is the degree to which we lack hum an freedom, yet it is in akrasia that
w e feel our bondage most keenly. For here we see that even in the face of knowledge of
our good, we nonetheless are determined by passions. Yet when we lack this
knowledge completely and take the world at face value, so to speak, relying solely on
our inadequate ideas, we do not become aware that a better avenue might be available.
But when we act akratically, we realize that one action really is better for us, yet we are
driven to behave in some other way. When two passions compete for our attention, on
the other hand, we merely wish we could do both. Only in akrasia do we come to
recognize that one perception misleads us, while the other is preferable.
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When we perceive that something is good for us, we desire it. So, if we reflect on
our experiences of akrasia themselves, we may perceive that reason is good for us,
because it illuminates our true goods and reveals that some of our other, inadequate
ideas are not to be trusted. After all, Spinoza says, "knowledge of the second and third
kinds, and not of the first kind, teaches us to distinguish the true from the false."300
When we see that the true is useful to us, we desire it. So Spinoza says, "the Striving, or
Desire, to know things by the third kind of knowledge cannot arise from the first kind
of knowledge, but can indeed arise from the second."301 In fact, the desire to know
things by the second and third kinds of knowledge is self-perpetuating.
In short, then, akrasia can serve a productive role for hum an beings, because it
can alert us to the fact that our passions threaten our well-being. Given our egoism, it
follows that we will desire to increase our knowledge. However, this desire may not
aim at knowledge in general, nor at theoretical knowledge, necessarily. For it may aim
primarily at knowledge of what is useful to us, since this is what is at issue when we
suffer akrasia. Now, Spinoza defines the good just as those things that are useful to us.
So, when we suffer akrasia, we may form a desire for rational knowledge of our good.
This rational desire to know what is useful to us may initially suggest a
distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge. For, if we have a desire only
for what is useful to us, we may not desire knowledge of quantum physics or some
other topic we judge as useless. Such judgments are surely what guide people to
pursue some aims as opposed to others, but these judgments may turn on a false
dichotomy. For this opposition between theoretical and practical knowledge is not
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entirely accurate. Spinoza says, "we know nothing to be certainly good or evil, except
what really leads to understanding or what can prevent us from understanding."302 In
other words, the good of the mind is nothing but knowledge itself. Put another way,
the only thing truly useful to the mind is knowledge simpliciter. Knowledge in general,
then, strengthens the mind. Thus, the striving of the mind for understanding does not
distinguish between more or less useful reasoning.
This should come as no surprise, because the mind and the body are one thing
understood in two ways. Spinoza establishes this when he says, "a mode of extension
and the idea of that mode are one and the same thing, but expressed in two ways"303
and "the object of the idea constituting the human Mind is the Body, or a certain mode
of Extension which actually exists, and nothing else."304 Given that understanding is
the m ind's activity and knowledge its power, and given that the mind and body are two
ways of understanding the same hum an being, it follows that my striving toward
understanding is the same as my striving toward increasing my power and persevering
in my being more generally.
However, it may be that certain kinds of adequate knowledge are more useful
than others for controlling the passions. Certainly, knowledge of quantum physics
strengthens the mind, brings understanding and lessens our bondage, but knowledge of
the causes of the affects may allow us to remove the passions more effectively. As such,
this knowledge, knowledge of the causes of the passions, is very desirable indeed.
Appropriately, this is the kind of knowledge that Spinoza pursues to escape bondage
into freedom.
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And so we see that bondage is a state that makes our performing akratic action
more likely. Bondage is, in a sense, dispositional akrasia. In this regard, then, Spinoza's
concept of bondage resembles akrasia in its original sense - a state of character. A
person with an akratic character is one more likely to perform akratic action. And this
trait is characterized by ignorance and submission to the passions.
3.4. Conclusions
All told, Spinoza divides ideas in several ways. They can be adequate or
inadequate. They may also be one of the three kinds of knowledge. If they are
adequate, they originate in the nature of the mind itself, while if they are inadequate, an
external cause acts upon us to give us the idea.
Similarly, Spinoza tells us that affects can be either passive or active. When
active, they involve adequate ideas and, when passive, inadequate ideas. When our
mind is active in adequate ideas, our power increases, and is felt as an active affect.
When our mind is passive in inadequate ideas, it is felt as a passion, or passive affect.
These affects can be felt as varieties of joy, sadness, or desire. Together, our desires
constitute our conatus, which is our general tendency to pursue our own interest, that is,
to pursue what we believe will increase our power and thus cause us joy. This conatus
is not a separate, real faculty, but rather is a being of reason abstracted from our
particular desires, just as our Will is abstracted from our particular volitions.
When we are passive in our inadequate ideas, or rather, when we undergo
passions, we are not self-determined. As such, we are not free, but in bondage. Even
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though the conatus directs us to pursue our own interest, this tendency does not favor
rational over irrational desires. Therefore, we often choose the worse of two options,
even when we perceive the better. That is to say, we can act akratically. Our desires,
both rational and irrational, determine our actions based solely on their affective power.
As we shall see in the final chapter, from Spinoza's affective psychology, his
concept of human bondage, and, most importantly, his discussion of issues surrounding
of akrasia as just explained, we can draw a powerful, novel, and fascinating theory of
weakness of will. This theory compares favorably with those of the six theorists
presented in Chapter One.
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Chapter Four:
Spinoza's Theory of Akrasia
4.1. Intemalism and Extemalism in Spinoza
We have now surveyed enough of Spinoza's system to compare his account of
akrasia to the other theories we introduced in Chapter One. There, our theorists were
divided into several camps: strong intemalism, weak intemalism, and extemalism. The
principle according to which the theorists were so categorized concerns how they
answer this question, posed in Chapter One, which was: What is the relation between
practical judgments and motivation? Spinoza has a clear and unique answer. He holds
them not only to be linked modally, but to be identical. More accurately, they are two
aspects of the same mental mode. When we judge that something would be the best
course of action (usually because it would benefit us), we also feel a desire to pursue
that course of action. Desire, which for Spinoza fulfills the role of motivation, is the
affective aspect of a practical judgment.
As we shall see, Spinoza's is in fact a novel kind of weak internalist. He does hold
a modal connection between judgment and motivation, which makes him an internalist.
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He allows that strength of motivation and judgment may diverge, however, in that we
do not always most want to do what we judge to be best. Sometimes, Spinoza believes,
our desire to do what we have judged to be not the best course of action is stronger than
our rational desire to do what we have judged best. And it is in this phenomenon,
akrasia, that the richness and uniqueness of Spinoza's psychology is on display. In what
follows, Spinoza's account of akrasia will be contrasted with the six thinkers discussed
in Chapter One and the exact nature of Spinoza's weak intemalism will become clear.
4.1.1. Spinoza Contra the Strong Internalists
The primary reason why Spinoza cannot be a strong internalist is that he accepts
the reality of akrasia, as is evidenced by his citation of Medea's "I see and approve the
better, but follow the worse."305 Spinoza certainly does not mean to refer here to the
diachronic akrasia of the strong internalist, for Spinoza describes that phenomenon as a
vacillation of the mind, which he takes to be a distinct phenomenon from our acting
from passion against our better judgment. As we shall see, Spinoza's account differs in
several other important respects from the strong internalists we have reviewed.
The first strong internalist discussed was Socrates. Like Socrates, Spinoza
believes that a perfectly rational agent will desire only those things which most increase
his well-being overall and in the long-run. Unlike Socrates, however, Spinoza does not
reduce all desires, rational and irrational, to this desire for happiness or one's good.
Indeed, despite his doctrine of the conatus and his strong commitment to egoism,
Spinoza countenances conflicting desires. This is so because, like Plato, he believes that
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desires are conditioned by their objects and, thus, we may possess incommensurable
desires.
Each desire, on Socrates' view, contains an all-things-considered judgment. That is,
each desire concerns what would be best to do, not merely what would be good or
pleasurable. Spinoza, on the other hand, takes desires merely to concern the object at
hand and not to involve any such global considerations. Though behavior toward
maximizing our good/pleasure may be a general tendency in Spinoza's system, desires
need not be global judgments of this sort at all. Desires include a judgment, to be sure,
but that judgment is of something's goodness, usefulness, or pleasantness, not
necessarily whether it is best or not. Essential to Spinoza's view is the claim that the
hum an essence or conatus works on both adequate and inadequate ideas. So, for
Spinoza, we may act on either our good or our bad judgments as well as our rational or
irrational desires.
For Spinoza, desires also involve a kind of judgment. If I desire something, I
judge it to be useful or pleasurable. Note, however, that this judgment does not involve
an implicit evaluation of the relevant alternatives. This desire is a mechanical response
to a certain stimulus, which will not necessarily cause any such evaluation. Further,
this stimulus may create a desire in us that aims solely at a short-term good. Indeed, it
may aim us at something we believe to be bad in the long-run - or even in the short rim.
Imagine three different kinds of stimuli, one which causes us to believe that A is
better for us than B, one that impels us toward A and one that impels us toward B.
Further, say that the stimulus impelling us toward B is stronger that the other two
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stimuli combined. We can therefore simultaneously know that A is better yet act
toward B. We are being "impelled," yet this impulsion is no different from when we
are impelled by stimuli and antecedent conditions toward something we judge to be
good. Indeed, if we adequately judge that A is good for us, we will by that very fact
desire A. If we then act toward A , we do so from our own knowledge, yet we are
nevertheless "impelled." This is a natural result of Spinoza's mechanist, determinist
view of the mind.
Thus, for Spinoza, it is not just "the skill of measurement" that is the key to our
salvation, as it is for Socrates. Instead, we must cultivate desires that accord with the
judgments of that skill. In other words, our salvation lies in having the strongest
possible rational desires, not just in rational beliefs. For rational beliefs may not involve
powerful enough desires to overcome the passions. So Spinoza's account is much more
Aristotelian than Socratic.
On the Socratic view, making an accurate measurement removes any contrary
judgments. If I measure what good will result from an action, I thereby remove any
judgments that reach a different conclusion. So, if I judge x to be bad, I cannot at the
same time desire x. Spinoza disagrees. I can know that the sun is huge and distant yet
still experience its appearance as small and relatively near. The knowledge of the sun's
true distance and size do not cancel out or do away with the suspicion that it is
relatively small and near, given to us in sensation. Similarly, I can judge that something
is bad yet still experience the appearance of it as desirable or good. As long as the two
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distinct causes, or stimuli, of these mental states are present, they can coexist in the
mind.
In short, then, Spinoza differs from Socrates in that he allows incommensurate
desires and coexisting contradictory judgments. These aspects of his system allow him
to accept strict, synchronic akrasia and exclude him from being a Socratic strong
internalist.
The other strong internalist discussed was Donald Davidson. Spinoza's view
differs from Davidson's in ways similar to how it differs from Socrates. Like Mele,
Spinoza would deny Davidson's P2, that "if an agent judges that it would be better to
do x than to do y, then he wants to do x more than he wants to do y." For Spinoza,
motivation and evaluation are simply not so intimately connected. This is what
Spinoza means when he distinguishes (i) that affects, not ideas determine action and (ii)
that affects gain their strength from their causes, which are other affects, not from the
judgments with which they are involved.
Davidson locates the explanation of hum an action in reasons. People act on
account of having reasons, which are the causes of their actions. Akrasia is a problem
for a reasons theorist like Davidson, because akrasia seems to be a case where an agent
has a better reason to do one thing than another, but still does the other from a less
convincing reason. How can one have reason to act against one's reason? If we explain
hum an action using desire instead of reason, the oddness of this opposition seems to be
alleviated. If everyone acts from some desire, then the akratic agent acts against a
'rational' desire. The akratic agent has a desire to act that is contrary to another of his
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desires, where the two desires are simply opposing. This seems like less of a conceptual
problem. For surely people can desire things in different ways - we may desire x for its
long-term benefits and y for its immediate pleasure, and so on. But to say that we have
good reasons to do x and a less convincing reason to do y but our reasons lead us to do
y is admittedly strange. And that is why Davidson comes up with his two kinds of
judgments, i.e., two kinds of reasons, only one of which can issue in action.
For Davidson, conditional and unconditional judgments seem to conflict, though
in fact only unconditional, or sans phrase, judgments lead to action. For Spinoza, on the
other hand, rational and irrational desires, and their constituent evaluative judgments,
really do conflict. One impedes the efficacy of the other. Since the affective force of the
competing desires determines which is efficacious, however, we may indeed act based
on a reason that we take to be inferior. We do act for a reason, but not for the best
reason, in these cases.
So, Spinoza's account differs from Davidson's because Spinoza allows for a mind
to contain contrary reasons, or judgments, in a way that Davidson does not. Whereas
Davidson could not accept that we both judge one thing to be the best course of action
and yet still have an efficacious reason to do something else, Spinoza can allow this
kind of irrationality to occur. In short, then, Davidson attributes a greater degree of
rationality to the agent than Spinoza and it is this irrationality - the coexistence of
contradictory judgments in the mind - that allows Spinoza to accept synchronic or strict
akrasia.
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It is clear that Spinoza is not a strong internalist. In investigating w hy he is not a
strong internalist, however, several fundamental Spinozist principles have been
emphasized. First, Spinoza allows a single hum an agent to affirm contradictory
judgments and thus be irrational to a greater degree than most strong internalists
would likely allow. Put another way, Spinoza includes irrationality in the essence of
the hum an mind. Second, Spinoza accepts incommensurable desires that can lead
toward competing, mutually exclusive courses of action. Being incommensurable, these
desires cannot be reduced to a single motivation for happiness or pleasure. Spinoza's
allowance of contradictory and incommensurable desires and judgments lies at the very
heart of his account of akrasia and is key to understanding his psychology in general.
This is not to say that Spinoza rejects internalism in its entirety, however. As we
shall see, Spinoza is not straightforwardly an externalist, either.
4.1.2. Spinoza Is Not an Externalist
Hume begins his discussion of akrasia by laying out a traditional and long
standing view of hum an psychology.
Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of
the combat of passion and reason, to give the preference to reason, and assert
that men are only so far virtuous as they conform themselves to its dictates.
Every rational creature, it is said, is obliged to regulate his actions by reason; and
if any other motive or principle challenge the direction of his conduct, he ought
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to oppose it, till it be entirely subdued, or at least brought to a conformity with
that superior principle.306
In other words, Hume takes his predecessors to have advanced a two-fold view
according to which (i) reason opposes and is different from the passions AND (ii) the
power of reason is and ought to be superior. As we have seen in Chapter One, of
course, Hume famously rejects (ii), saying, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of
the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."307
Crucially, however, Hume accepts a version of (i). He believes that reason involves only
inert ideas that represent things, while passion contains the motive forces of the mind.
That is, Hume takes judgment and motivation to be utterly distinct, not only in their
function but also in their ontology. Ideas and passions work differently from one
another because they are, fundamentally, different kinds of things.
Unlike Hume, Spinoza holds that judgment and motivation are intimately
connected. Reason ought not to be the slave to the passions, for Spinoza, though it may
be so in the case of the person in bondage. Indeed, the language of slavery and
bondage fit well together. For Spinoza, judgments and motivations are ontologically
identical. Just as the motion of the arrow and the arrow in motion are conceptually or
perhaps modally distinct but not really distinct, so too are the static, representative
features of a mental mode related to the dynamic, affective features of a mental mode.
When we judge something to be good, we must be desiring it.
In this difference lies Spinoza's rejection of extemalism. As it is usually
understood, judgment extemalism is the view that practical judgments and motivation
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are modally distinct; they are, to use Hume's phrase, distinct existences. As he says, "A
passion is an original existence, or, if you will, modification of existence, and contains
not any representative quality."308
For Spinoza, this is exactly false; judgments and motivation are not distinct
existences, but in fact are identical. Further, for the externalist, judgments concerning
what would be the best course of action may not entail any motivation to pursue that
course of action. For Spinoza, on the other hand, all judgments of the good will be
caused by a desire for that thing. As Spinoza's doctrine of the conatus makes clear,
hum an beings tend to pursue that which will benefit them. So, when we judge
something to benefit us, we must also be desiring that thing. Of course, this desire may
not be very strong at all and may be easily overpowered by other modes of the mind.
Nevertheless, we do feel some motivation to pursue that course of action we judge to be
in our interest, or good.
On the other hand, Hum e's affective psychology strongly resembles Spinoza's in
certain ways. Hume says, "Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a
contrary im pulse..."(415) And this is so, Hume says, because:
When I am angry, I am actually possest with the passion, and in that emotion
have no more a reference to any other object, than when I am thirsty, or sick, or
more than five foot high. It is impossible, therefore, that this passion can be
opposed by, or be contradictory to truth and reason; since this contradiction
consists in the disagreement of ideas. (Hume, Treatise, 415)
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In other words, passions, being non-cognitive, brute forces, are simply not the right
kind of thing to oppose ideas, which are representations. Because the two things are
fundamentally different in kind, one cannot oppose the other in any true sense. The
only thing that can oppose an affect is another affect. For Hume, mental conflict must
occur between affects, as he mentions, saying, "...there are certain calm desires and
tendencies, which, though they be real passions, produce little emotion in the mind, and
are more known by their effects than by the immediate feeling or sensation..." (417)
These calm passions oppose other, violent passions and lead to the feeling of mental
conflict we mistakenly associate with the battle between reason and passion.
Like Hume, Spinoza explains hum an psychological conflict by positing two
kinds of affective states. What Hume calls the violent and calm passions Spinoza calls
the passive and active affects. Hume's and Spinoza's understandings of these
dichotomies are not the same, however, as Spinoza's affects are aspects of cognitions,
while Hume's are brute, non-cognitive mental states. And it is here, in his cognitive
theory of the affects, that Spinoza most noticeably departs from Hum e's theory. In
many other regards, however, the two theories are similar. Both employ a mechanistic
view of the psyche, in that psychological phenomena are to be explained by the
interacting forces of mental parts. And they are both naturalists, in that they hope to
offer a psychology analogous to the physics of their days. Hume models his
psychology after the Newtonian physics and Spinoza models his after his version of the
Cartesian physics.
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Hume's distinctive non-cognitivism explains how he can accept akratic action
and deny that it is, strictly speaking, irrational. Indeed, according to one interpretation
of Hume, akratic action, like all action, is not properly a matter of rationality or
irrationality at all. Being a result of non-rational passions, action is non-rational in this
sense. As opposed to this view, Spinoza's affects are cognitions. As such, Spinoza can
label some affects rational, when they involve adequate ideas, and others irrational,
when they involve inadequate ideas. So, Spinoza's account of akrasia retains the
irrationality of akrasia, while Hum e's does not. This could be considered a m ark in
favor of the Spinozist theory, since akrasia is in fact practical irrationality.
W hat's more, non-cognitivists need not be externalists, nor must all externalists
deny the irrationality of akrasia. Indeed, this is far from the case. For example, there are
some expressivists who take moral judgments to be nothing but expressions of emotion.
Yet they take these judgments to be intrinsically motivational and so they are non-
cogntivist internalists. Like these expressivists, Spinoza takes motivation to be literally
constitutive of normative beliefs. Unlike the expressivists, however, Spinoza's
normative beliefs are cognitive and bear truth values.
In sum, then, Spinoza cannot be an externalist because he posits an identity
relation between judgment and motivation. Whenever an agent judges a course of
action to be best, that agent will also desire to pursue that course of action, though that
desire may not be efficacious. The position just described in weak intemalism and it is
to that which we now turn.
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4.1.3. Spinoza and the Weak Internalists
The first weak internalist we surveyed was Plato. For Plato, our better
judgments lead to a motivation to act on those judgments, but it is a defeasible
motivation. Our rational motivation is defeasible, for Plato, because we may have other
motivations that overpower our rational motivation.
Like Spinoza, Plato allows that a hum an being may contain contradictory and
incommensurable motivations. Unlike Spinoza, however, and like Socrates, Plato
seems to disallow that such contradictory impulses could coexist in the same locus of
agency. And so, Plato posits multiple subsystems from which distinct motivations may
originate.309 This is his parts of the soul doctrine. In short, then, Plato and Spinoza both
accept that the hum an being may have incommensurable desires. They both also accept
that a human being may exhibit akratic action. But they differ with regard to whether a
single agent may contain contradictory judgments.
Spinoza rejects this solution in the strongest of terms, as he should, because
Plato's answer to the Socratic rejection of synchronic akrasia is unacceptable on its own
terms. For Plato, it seems the agent that matters is the rational soul. If this is the case,
then the agent does not freely and intentionally perform akratic acts, because the
rational soul is overpowered by the other parts of the soul in those cases.
Spinoza's own system does not fall into this trap. Though we sometimes may
talk as though parts of us are in conflict, this is figurative. Instead, specific elements of
the hum an mind may conflict, such as differing judgments and desires. This conflict is
sufficient to explain akrasia; no drastic partitioning is necessary. If I desire to stay in my
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room and study because I judge it to be best but I also desire to go for a walk across the
quad, my desire to take a walk can speak for itself; if it speaks loudly enough, it will be
efficacious and my rational desire will not be.310 No distinct parts to contain these
conflicting desires need be postulated; no independent subsystems are required.
Indeed, Spinoza rejects portioning the soul into parts just as he rejects medieval faculty
psychology.
Plato's student, Aristotle, took up the same question that Plato did and
attempted to provide a different weak internalist answer. As we shall see, however,
Aristotle met with more success, proposing one with which Spinoza has some
agreement.
Aristotle has said that akrasia occurs when our passionate, sensual desires lead us
to focus only on the pleasantness of certain particulars, as opposed to our universal
principles. Aristotle also claims that people can reason poorly, due to emotional biases,
and thus act angrily or ambitiously and so on. And so, Aristotle in fact offers two
distinct theories. In cases of bodily passion, we may perform strict akratic actions. We
may be aware of the conclusions of our practical syllogisms, yet act on a conclusion
drawn solely from the minor premise and, thus, act against the conclusion relying on
the major and minor premises together. In other words, we may act from a particular
against our practical reasoning based on universal principles.
With regard to this first theory, Aristotle's view accords with Spinoza's in certain
important ways. We suffer akrasia when an irrational desire, which involves an
inadequate idea, overcomes a rational desire, which involves an adequate idea. For
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Spinoza, inadequate ideas are usually ideas of sensation and not universal principles of
reason. Further, like Aristotle's, Spinoza's rational desires derive from some universal
principles, or common notions. When we suffer akrasia, for Spinoza, the inadequate
idea (which is generally an idea of sensation and particular), overcomes the practical
syllogism, rendering the common notion ineffective. Finally, like Aristotle, Spinoza also
allows that we might reason poorly due to the interference of the passions. This is
bondage, for Spinoza.
On the other hand, Aristotle's account of akrasia in cases of non-bodily passion,
such as in actions motivated by ambition or greed, does not sit comfortably with
Spinoza's theory. For Aristotle holds that, when we act from these non-bodily passions,
we merely reason poorly. Thus, our misdeeds are to be explained solely by reference to
bad reasoning. We acted in a way we had judged to be best, though we had reached
that conclusion based on bas reasoning. In short, action from non-bodily passion does
not really count as strict akrasia at all, according to Aristotle.
Unlike Aristotle, Spinoza does not limit akrasia to cases of bodily passions such as
hunger or thirst. Instead, akrasia can involve any passion, including anger and ambition.
Perhaps more importantly, Spinoza denies the Aristotelian divide between reason and
passion. Spinoza does accept the Aristotelian claim that particulars often trump
universals in akrasia, since akrasia can involve irrational desires based in the first kind of
knowledge overpowering those rational desires based in the second kind. Nevertheless,
he diverges from Aristotle when he claims that even the bodily passions and desires are
cognitive.
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Both Spinoza and Aristotle countenance opposing, contrary judgments to coexist
in the same mind. So, an agent may form a practical syllogism that he ought not to eat
the cake. Due to his hunger, however, he may focus unduly on the particular and
conclude that this cake looks delicious and so he will eat it. So, the agent's mind may be
said to contain opposing judgments, for Aristotle. Also like Aristotle, Spinoza denies
that all deliberate action is driven by a singular, fundamental desire to maximize our
overall good. He follows Aristotle in holding that desire is simply the pursuit of
something seen as a good, not necessarily the best. This allows for longer term
considerations to be swept aside by passions.
In short, Spinoza accepts the Aristotelian rejection of Socrates, where the
passions can 'overwhelm' our rational deliberations and prevent them from being
efficacious. But he applies this intuition to his own mechanistic, deterministic picture of
the mind. Because of this, the passionate desires are much more like their rational
brethren than they are in Aristotle. For, in Aristotle, we act from reason as a result of a
properly formed practical syllogism, while desire is usually something that simply
prevents us from forming such a syllogism. For Spinoza, on the other hand, desires
operate on both sides, for reason and for passion, and in much the same way. They are
all simply efficient causes applying a degree of force on the mechanism, which is the
only kind of efficacy Spinoza's philosophy of mind can countenance.
Aristotle locates the source of our passionate akratic acts in the body, thus
establishing a mind versus body dichotomy that Spinoza cannot accept. Further, on one
interpretation, Aristotle can allow strict akratic action only in cases of bodily, passionate
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akrasia. In other circumstances, for example, those involving greed or ambition,
Aristotle explains akrasia in a Socratic manner, denying strict, synchronic akrasia and
instead attributing the seemingly akratic action to ignorance or poor reasoning. And on
this point Spinoza also diverges strongly from Aristotle. For Spinoza, we may act
akratically from any desire, not just from a bodily desire of hunger or lust. These
divergences, along with Spinoza's disregard for a more general theory of practical
reasoning like Aristotle's syllogistic theory, set Spinoza's account of akrasia apart from
Aristotle's in significant ways. Indeed, the theorist whose account of akrasia most
closely resembles Spinoza's is Alfred Mele's.
4.1.4. Spinoza and Mele
Consider the other major weak internalists we have considered, Plato and
Aristotle. Plato's partitioning is problematic and a method Spinoza rejects. Aristotle's
explanation is similar to Spinoza's is certain ways, but affect is opposed to reason for
Aristotle in a way that it is not for Spinoza. Indeed, Aristotle's account seems to rely on
an opposition between the decisions of the mind and the urges of the body, a
dichotomy that Spinoza also rejects.
The distinctive feature of Spinoza's system is his theory of the affects -- mental
modes can be judgments and desires at the same time, though the strength of desires
are determined by the strength of their causes, not by the validity or persuasiveness or
certitude of the judgment in question. In short, the evaluative and motivational aspects
of modes of thought operate independently, for Spinoza. And this is just the feature of
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our psychology that Mele locates as explaining akrasia as well. Two of Mele's main
points can be stated as follows:
(1) judgment does not entail intention; pu t another way, strength of evaluation
does not entail strength of motivation;
(2) But judgm ent/evaluation does entail some m otivation/reason for action,
though it may not be an efficacious or strongest reason/m otivation for action.
The Spinozist can basically accept (1) and (2), though he must clarify what intentions
are and also what the "other forces" involved that determine the power of motivation
are. Both of these requirements will now be addressed.
The closeness of Mele's and Spinoza's account can be seen by considering one of
Mele's examples. Recall the biology student who has an assignment to prick his own
finger and place a drop of his own blood on a slide to examine. He judges that doing so
is the best course of action and, so, wants to prick his finger. In fact, a moment before
picking up the needle, he wants to prick his finger more than not prick his finger;
indeed, he wants to prick his finger enough to lead him to take up the needle and
attempt to do so. But at the last moment, he intentionally pauses and refrains from
pricking and he does so while still judging it best to proceed. Mele offers two possible
explanations for this example of weakness of will. First, his desire not to prick his finger
may have increased so as to overpower at the last moment his desire to do so. Second,
he may never had had sufficient motivation to prick his finger, though he believed
himself to have such a motivation.
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This second case is similar to a man who desires to move a piano and intends to
do so, but discovers he does not have the physical strength to do so after several failed
attempts. Similarly, the biology student most desires to prick his finger and intends to
do so, only to discover he lacks the motivational strength to do so. This second
explanation brings to light what I take to be the defining feature of both Spinoza's and
Mele's accounts - evaluation, though connected to strength of motivation, is not
determined by it. That is, we may evaluate one course of action to be best, but be more
motivated to pursue another.
Mele explains how this can occur by presenting a more complex view of human
psychology, one in which judgments play a role, but do not tell the whole story.
Whether or not we will be motivated to pursue what we judge to be best is a function of
whether or not we are self-controlled. Mele describes the self-controlled person as
follows:
In short, a self-controlled person is someone who is appropriately motivated to
conduct himself as he judges best and has the ability to master motivation to the
contrary...And, of course, self-control comes in degrees... (60)
The self-controlled person is one who has a greater motivation to obey his best
judgments, which gives him greater power to resist contrary motivations. This greater
motivation and power come in degrees as well.
In many ways, Spinoza's free man, the man not in bondage to the passions, is
similar to Mele's perfectly self-controlled man. The free man, for Spinoza, is he whose
actions are wholly self-determined; he is the adequate cause of all of is actions.
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Practically speaking, the free man will always most want to do what he judges to be best.
In this regard at least, Mele's perfectly self-controlled man is similar, for the self
controlled person will also always most want to do what he judges to be best. Just as
actual human beings attain only a degree of freedom, however, so too do we attain only
a degree of self-control. We are more likely to want to do what we judge best, ceteris
paribus, the more free, or in self-control, we find ourselves. And so, in agreement with
Mele's theory, Spinoza's theory can only explain strict akratic action by reference to the
relative degree of self-control, self-determination, and freedom an individual possesses.
Both Mele and Spinoza accept that hum an beings may possess incommensurable
desires. Further, they both affirm that the hum an mind may contain incompatible
judgments. And both Mele and Spinoza deny that one needs to partition the mind in
order to explain akrasia. And Mele's explanation for how particular cases of akrasia
occur also resembles Spinoza's in certain ways.
Mele turns to explaining akratic action as it truly occurs in Chapter 6, section 3
and 4. He relies on two observations about hum an psychology to explain akrasia. First,
he discusses the view that our motivation increases as the expected rewards become
more proximate. According to Mele, experimental evidence has led psychologists to
conclude that hum an beings are likely to choose a lesser but immediate reward over a
greater but delayed reward. So, hum an beings will sometimes knowingly and
intentionally choose the lesser good over the greater when the lesser good is perceived
to be nearer at hand. More importantly, this explanation is arguably Spinoza's most
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prominent explanation of akrasia as well, a feature of hum an psychology I have called
Spinoza's bias toward the near.
The observation that hum an beings prefer immediate gratification to delayed
satisfaction will likely not surprise anyone, nor is it enough for us to claim that Mele's
account is the same as Spinoza's, of course. Appropriately, then, Mele points out that
this is not sufficient to explain cases of akrasia. So he also introduces considerations of
attention. If we attend to the desire to eat the cake instead of the desire to refrain, we
may experience an increased motivation to eat it and thus succumb. Or if we attend to
the pleasurable qualities of this cake before us instead of our commitment to our diet,
we may succumb.
Unfortunately, Spinoza does not employ attention in his account of akrasia.
Indeed, Spinoza's thought completely lacks such an account and is the poorer for it.
However, Spinoza offers another explanation of akrasia, one that has its own virtues.
He notes that people often are motivated by a desire that serves some part of them as
opposed to one that serves them overall. When we are motivated in this way, we do
not act form a desire for our overall good, but instead from one that is good for us only
in a certain respect. So, for example, we may desire the food because it will provide us
with a certain gustatory pleasure, though it will not provide us with the pleasures of
health and self-satisfaction. Yet the desire that serves us only in a certain respect may
be more powerful than those that serve our overall well-being. Indeed, these partial
desires may overwhelm our overall desires in just the same way that our short-term
desires may overwhelm our long-term ones. This is an aspect of Spinoza's explanatory
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scheme that differs from Mele's, though it is not a point of fundamental disagreement, I
think.
Yet there are significant points of disagreement between the two thinkers. For
example, Spinoza's psychology is affective and mechanistic in a way that Mele's is not.
For Spinoza, every single hum an action must be explained by some affect, either active
or passive. W ithout a doubt, Spinoza's affective, mechanistic psychology places him
closer to Hume than Mele and perhaps closer to Hume than anyone else.
Indeed, Spinoza's entire psychological system, with its emphases on activity
versus passivity and adequacy versus inadequacy finds no analogue in Mele's thought.
And of course, Mele would likely reject Spinoza's parallelism, his pantheism, his quasi-
Cartesian physics, and perhaps even his strong cognitivism. And unlike Mele,
Spinoza's thought is entirely lacking considerations of rationality, practical reasoning,
intentionality, and so on, all of which are features of Mele's thought. So it would
certainly be incorrect to say that Mele is some sort of Spinozist.
On the other hand, Spinoza's account of akrasia resembles Mele's more than it
does any other thinker. Both are weak internalists. They both see a connection between
evaluation and motivation. Yet neither believe that this connection is strongly modal,
instead wishing to qualify it. Unlike other weak internalists such as Plato, Pears or the
later Davidson, neither Mele nor Spinoza partition the mind in order to explain akrasia.
And unlike Aristotle, they do not pit the body against the mind. W hat's more, they
both explain akrasia by pointing to a more general feature of hum an psychology - the
relative independence of evaluative strength and motivational strength. For both Mele
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and Spinoza, we may very well make judgments that one course of action is best, yet be
more motivated to pursue another. And what determines whether our judgment and
motivation come apart is also a point of similarity between the two thinkers. For Mele,
the degree to which one has self-control determines the degree to which evaluation and
motivation diverge. For Spinoza, the degree of freedom, or self-determination,
determines this. And both thinkers rely on notions of a bias toward the near in their
explanations of the mechanism by which cases of akrasia arise.
Thus we see that Spinoza's theory of akrasia remarkably resembles Mele's.
Though Spinoza does not develop his theory of akrasia into a book-length study, as Mele
does, their accounts are sufficiently close that a Spinozist would likely accept most of
Mele's conclusions. Indeed, Spinoza's weak intemalism resembles Mele's more than
any other thinker's we have examined. However, his weak intemalism is unlike Mele's
and, indeed, unlike any other thinker's in several ways. Let us now turn to a discussion
of the fine details of Spinoza's unique weak intemalism.
4.1.5. Spinoza's Unique Weak Intemalism
Spinoza's weak intemalism is unique because it incorporates externalist
intuitions into a weak internalist framework. Spinoza believes that emotions are moral
judgments, so he cannot be said to be an externalist in the sense that emotions are not
modally linked to moral judgments. On the other hand, the affective force of an emotion
is only contingently linked to the cognitive content of the judgment. In that sense,
Spinoza resembles the externalists.
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Recall that, for Hume, motivations (passions) are not internal to or constituents
of practical judgment. In this specific sense, Hume is an externalist. So, whereas
Hum e's extemalism holds judgments and motivating desires to be independent
existences, Spinoza denies this. But, like Hume, Spinoza holds that emotions function
independently from judgments. For the strength of an affect is not determined by the
content of its judgment, but of the force of its cause. Inadequate ideas engender
irrational desires, the strength of which is determined by the force of the external cause
responsible for the idea. And adequate ideas engender rational desires, the strength of
which is determined by our own strength. And in that sense, the emotional aspect
functions independently from its cognitive aspect. And so, Spinoza resembles a
peculiar kind of externalist in this regard.
But his view is also unavoidably internalist. For, if the mind has formed a moral
judgment, it necessarily also has some desire, though the strength of that desire is not
determined by that judgment. Consider Davidson's principles:
PI. If an agent wants to do x more than he wants to do y and he believes himself
free to do either x or y, then he will intentionally do x if he does either x or y
intentionally.
P2. If an agent judges that it would be better to do x than to do y, then he wants
to do x more than he wants to do y.
P3. There are incontinent actions. (Davidson, 23)
Spinoza accepts PI and P3, but accepts a weaker version of P2, which is:
P2': If an agent judges that it would be good to do x, then he wants to do x.
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Spinoza affirms P2', but denies P2. The strong internalist affirms PI and P2. The weak
internalist affirms PI and P2'. The externalist affirms only PI. Generally all weak
internalists and externalists affirm P3 as well. Only some strong internalists (Davidson,
Hare) affirm P3, though they must offer an explanation of how it is possible, given its
prima facie inconsistency with PI and P2.
A complete explanation of Spinoza's account of akrasia m ust take Spinoza's
commitment to parallelism into consideration. This doctrine certainly adds an
additional wrinkle to this story, one which I will attempt to elucidate here by way of an
example. Say I am at the dinner table and I see the piece of cake. Now, my body,
having a certain constitution, interacts physiologically with the cake via perception.
This interaction, or affection, results in my body's increasing in power in a certain way
at the sight of the cake. This particular kind of increase in power is one that brings an
initial movement toward the cake. In the mind, I see the cake and consider it, which
brings me a kind of pleasure, the kind that signals I will feel more pleasure upon eating
the cake. This is a pleasure that is also motivating, since I feel this pull toward the cake.
Let's break this down into steps:
Body: Mind:
1 .1 perceive the cake. I conceive of the cake.
2 .1 feel a tingling of pleasure. I delight in seeing it. (affect)
I judge it to be attractive (idea)
3 .1 feel a pull toward the cake. I desire the cake (affect)
I judge the cake good to eat (idea)
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Depending on what other motions are in my body and what other affects are in my
mind, this pull/desire may be strong enough to move me to eat the cake. But it also
may not be, in which case I will refrain.
While this transpires, say I also have a judgment in mind that I ought not eat the
cake. This judgment is really the judgment that eating the cake would not be good for
me, given Spinoza's ethical egoism. So, my mind possesses an idea that eating the cake
would be bad for me. Given Spinoza's psychological egoism and the affective nature of
practical judgments, I then also have a desire not to eat the cake. And so, my body
contains a motion away from the cake. In this scenario, then, we have the following
states within us:
Body: Mind:
1. A motion toward the cake. A judgment that it would be good to eat,
which is also a desire to eat the cake.
2. A motion away from the cake. A judgment that the cake would be bad
to eat, which is also a desire to refrain.
The strength of the motions and their parallel desires are determined by the strength of
their causes. Let us say that the judgment that we ought to refrain from eating the cake
is based on adequate knowledge and, thus, this desire is rational. Further, let us say that
the judgment that cake would be good to eat is based on inadequate ideas. Thus, the
desire to eat the cake is a passion.
The strength of the rational desire is determined by the power of its cause, which
is our power of reason. That is, the rational desire is only as strong as we are, so to
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speak. The strength of the passion, however, is determined by how strongly the
perception of the cake has affected us. And that is determined by facts both about our
body and the cake. So, for example, if we are hungry or predisposed to like cake, then
the perception of the cakes will affect us more strongly than if we are not. And if the
cake appears expertly made, then it may also affect us more strongly.
Now, if the strength of the passion is greater than the strength of the active affect,
we will act on the passion. The motion toward the cake in our bodies will overpower
the motion away from the cake and we will eat the cake. In our minds, we will
experience akrasia, for we will act on a desire that is less rational or less in our interest,
because we desire it more strongly.
So, we act for a reason - namely, our judgment that the cake would be good to
eat. But we do not act for the best reason, since we have also judged that the cake would
be bad to eat and that judgment was based on reason, not inadequate ideas. Thus, our
motivating reason has deviated from the normative reason. And this is possible only
because the strength of our desires comes apart from the cognitive content of our
judgments, even though those judgments do give us some motivation to act in that way.
This is a weak internalist position.
Different theorists describe weak judgment intemalism differently, of course. For
example, consider the following statements of weak judgment intemalism:
- Practical judgment and motivation are modally linked;
- Practical judgment entails motivation; i.e., judgment is sufficient for motivation;
Motivation is internal to or constitutive of moral judgments;
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- the motivational efficacy of moral judgment is a conceptual truth.
Since Spinoza holds that affect and judgment are identical, he must hold that judgment
and desire (or motivation) are modally linked and that judgment entails motivation.
Further, given that they are identical, motivation is internal to judgment, or vice versa.
He does not hold that moral judgment is motivationally efficacious, however, where that
is understood as resulting in action. For we may have conflicting motivations, only one
of which may result in action. Therefore, the statement that moral judgments are
motivationally efficacious m ust mean only that moral judgments succeed in
engendering motivation, not that the motivation will necessarily succeed in leading to
action. And so, on all of the above descriptions of weak judgment intemalism, Spinoza
qualifies as a weak internalist.
As we have seen, several central tenets in Spinoza's psychology contribute to his
unique account of akrasia. Perhaps most important is his doctrine that affects and ideas
are identical. One part of that doctrine, that concerning desire, however, is most
relevant to his account of akrasia. I now discuss that theory of desire more carefully and
use it to formulate a rigorous statement of Spinoza's account of akrasia.
Spinoza's cognitive theory of desire can be stated as follows:
S makes a practical judgment that x is good for S to do (i.e., in S's interest) iff S
desires to x.
This view can be restated in simpler form as follows:
S judges x is good for S to do iff S desires to do x
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This is one way to state Spinoza's cognitive theory of desire, to be sure. Another, more
accurate way to state it is as follows, however:
S's judgment that x is good for S to do is identical to S's desire to x.
If we assume that the identity relation is a necessary one, we may thus state Spinoza's
cognitive theory of desire:
Necessarily, S judges x to be good for S to do iff S desires to x.
Of course, this biconditional necessarily obtains because the desire and judgment in
question are identical, or rather, they are two aspects of the same thing. From this
biconditional, we may infer the following conditional:
Necessarily, if S judges x to be good for S to do, S desires to do x.
Further, I suggest the following:
If S desires to do x, then S is motivated to do x (though this may be a defeasible
motivation)
This plausible principle holds that desiring to do x means we have a motivation to do x
(namely, to fulfill our desire). In other words, desiring to do something is a synonym
for being (defeasibly) motivated to do it. From the previous two statements, the
following statement of judgment intemalism follows:
Nec., if S judges that x is good for her to do, then S is motivated to do x.
And this is so, for Spinoza, because the judgment that x is good for one to do is identical
with one's desire to do x. As long as this motivation is understood to be defeasible,
then Spinoza is a weak internalist.
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Now let us try to formulate some principles of Spinoza's psychology that capture
the core of this weak intemalism. Doing so should also allow us to see how his theory of
akrasia grows out of his weak intemalism. We begin with the statement of intemalism
just formulated:
Nec., if S judges that x is right for her to do, then S is motivated to do x.
This is a statement of intemalism, to be sure, but not yet weak intemalism. Spinoza also
holds the following principles about the affects:
- Passive affects (passions) have external causes that determine their strength.
- Our mind causes rational affects and determines their strength.
- Often the power of external causes surpasses the power of individual agents.
What makes an affect passive is the involvement of an inadequate idea, which has been
defined as an idea not wholly contained in and caused by the mind in question.
Therefore, at least some of the cause of an inadequate idea lies outside the mind and,
thus, its strength is determined by matters external to the mind. Active affects, however,
involve adequate ideas, which are wholly contained in and caused by the mind. Since
these adequate ideas are wholly caused by the mind in question, the strength of that
mind determines the strength of the adequate idea and thus the active affect.
Furthermore, the power or strength of external causes always can surpass the power or
strength of an individual agent.
When we take the statement of Spinoza's intemalism, above, and apply it to the
affects and ideas discussed in these principles of Spinoza's affective psychology, we can
derive the following results:
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1. If S rationally desires to do x, then the power of S's mind determines the power
of S's desire to do x.
2. If S irrationally desires to do y, then the power of the external cause determines
the power of S's desire to do y.
3. Thus, sometimes, the power of S's irrational desire to y will surpass the power
of S's rational desire to x.
4. S does whatever action S has the strongest desire to do.
5. So, sometimes, S acts on her irrational desire to do y over her rational desire to
do x.
This description of psychological phenomena captures Spinoza's weak intemalism and
provides a picture of how akrasia may occur, because we act on either rational or
irrational affects. When we act on rational affects, we act for our own long-term good,
while our passionate behaviors tend to go against our long-term interests and often
overwhelm our rational desires. In many ways, this account sounds like Hume, who
describes the struggle in hum an psychology as one between calm, rational passions and
turbulent, vulgar passions.
This talk all seems plausible when we focus on desire. But what about when we
speak of our motivations to act as judgments?
la. If S rationally judges that x is right for her to do, then the power of S's mind
determines the power of S's judgment that x is right for her to do.
2a. If S irrationally judges that y is right for her to do, then the power of the
external cause determines the power of S's judgment that y is right for her to do.
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3a. Thus, sometimes, the power of S's irrational judgment that y is better will
surpass the power of S's rational judgment that x is better.
4a. S does whatever action S has the strongest judgment in favor of.
5a. So, sometimes, S acts on her irrational judgment that y is better over her
rational judgment that x is better.
In the above description, S considers two judgments, one rational because properly
grounded in rational principles, the other irrational because not grounded in rational
principles but in experientia vaga - that is, based in sensory perception. So, when we
suffer weakness of will, we follow a weaker line of reasoning that is motivationally
stronger, one based on sensory perception.
On this explanation of the account, Spinoza sounds like Aristotle. For Aristotle,
we form practical syllogisms based on universal principles; for Spinoza, we form
rational judgments based on universal common notions. For Aristotle, we may also
form practical judgments based on our sensations and we may do so for Spinoza as well.
And for Aristotle, those sensory judgments may sometimes overwhelm the rational
judgments and lead us to act akratically. Likewise, for Spinoza, we may be persuaded
by the sensory judgment over the rational one.
So we see again Spinoza's Janus-faced psychology. Here in weakness of will, the
hum an being may be described in quasi-Aristotelian terms, acting for various
competing reasons, some of which will be more compelling than others, even when
those less compelling reasons are rational and the more compelling ones are irrational.
Thus, when we act rationally, our practical judgments will always lead to act accordingly.
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And, always, our practical judgments give us a reason to act, if not the reason. In this
picture, the mind is a deliberator of reasons, one that can be rational ideally, if not really.
And likewise, the mind may also be described as a mechanism of competing
forces. Each force is fully determined by its causes and, so, akrasia occurs when the
mind causes one motion within itself, but that motion is overpowered by another
internal motion that has been caused by an external force. These forces meet as
calm /active/rational affects, on the one hand, and turbulent/passive/irrational affects
on the other hand. This Humean picture is of the mind as a mechanism in which forces
or desires compete to determine human action.
What does the Janus-faced nature of Spinoza's psychology mean for the
intemalism/extemalism debate? With regard to existence, Spinoza is an internalist.
Necessarily, if someone judges that one course of action is best, he will desire to pursue
that course of action. So, practical judgment entails a defeasible desire. With regard to
efficacy, however, Spinoza resembles the externalist. The strength, or efficacy, of a
judgment is independent of the strength, or efficacy, of a desire. Thus, we may judge
that one course of action is best, all-things-considered, but nonetheless feel a stronger
desire to pursue another course of action and, so, carry out that action instead.
In order to capture both ways of speaking and thus to present Spinoza's theory
in all of its complexity, one should say:
lb. If S rationally judges that x is right for her to do, then S rationally desires to do
x, and the power of S's mind determines the power of S's desire to do x.
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2b. If S irrationally judges that y is right for her to do, then S irrationally desires to
do y, then the power of the external cause determines the power of S's desire to
do y.
3. Thus, sometimes, the power of S's irrational desire to y will surpass the power
of S's rational desire to x.
4. S does whatever action S has the strongest desire to do.
5. So, sometimes, S acts on her irrational desire to do y over her rational desire to
do x.
And so:
6. Thus, sometimes, the power of S's irrational desire, which involves an
irrational judgment that y is better, will surpass the power of S's rational desire,
which involves a rational judgment that x is better.
Thus we see how Spinoza's unique weak intemalism explains strict akratic action. For
here, we are motivated to act on our practical judgments, ceteris paribus, specifically, as
long as an opposing and overpowering irrational desire is not present. Before making a
final evaluation of this fascinating account of akrasia, however, we will take up some
challenges that could be raised against it.
4.2. Challenges to the Spinozist Account
Mele and others claim that an agent's action qualifies as strictly akratic if and
only if (i) the agent performs the act freely and intentionally and (ii) against the agent's
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better judgment. In what follows, Spinoza's account of akrasia will be evaluated to see
whether it meets these conditions.
4.2.1. How are Spinozist akratic actions free and intentional?
Any account that accepts strict akrasia must explain how akratic acts are different
from compelled acts. As we have seen, in one sense, Spinozist actions from inadequate
ideas and passions are not free, because we are free just to the extent that we have and
act on adequate ideas. And when we act akratically, we act from passion, not adequate,
rational desire. Thus, in the narrow sense of action discussed above, so-called akratic
acts are compelled. But there is another sense in which Spinoza may say that we act. For
our passions and inadequate ideas are as much a part of us as our rational desires and
adequate ideas, as 3p9 makes clear and I discuss above. Thus, we are the ones
performing the akratic acts, just as we are the ones performing the enkratic acts.
But this does not by itself solve the problem; we have not yet distinguished
compelled acts from akratic or enkratic ones. For, if akratic acts involve passions
overwhelming our reason and determining our action, then how is akrasia different
from being compelled? Take the following as a paradigm example of compelled
behavior. Say that a sailor goes above deck during a storm, perhaps because he wishes
to see the sublimity of the force of nature. While rapt in his aesthetic experience, a wave
washes across the deck and knocks the sailor overboard, where he drowns. Though he
may be guilty of negligence for going above deck during a storm, we would not say he
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freely went overboard, nor that he intentionally drowned. Instead, the sailor was
forced overboard. The sailor's going overboard was a matter of compulsion.
Our explanation of strict akratic action must not have the same structure as this
paradigm case of compulsion. To see an example of a weak internalist account that fails
to meet this challenge, consider again Plato's account. When we suffer akrasia, in his
account, the rational soul is overwhelmed by an irresistible external power, namely, the
power of the spirited or sensitive soul. When the rational soul is overpowered by the
spirited soul, it is wholly passive in the same way that the sailor is passive with regard
to being washed overboard. Thus, Plato's account of akrasia seems not to meet this first
criterion.
In order to see how Spinoza avoids this pitfall, we must return to his conception
of desire as it relates to hum an action. Spinoza accepts the dictum that, if we can be
said to do something intentionally, we can be said to have done it for a reason. As we
have discussed, the reasons people act, for Spinoza, are desires. In fact, Spinoza defines
desire as the affect involved in hum an action. So, if we perform a behavior that is not
caused by a pleasurable or painful desire, then we cannot be said to act intentionally. In
other words, if we are not driven by the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain,
then our behavior is not something we do intentionally, for Spinoza. So, if a wave
washes us overboard, we are not performing an intentional act, because our going
overboard is not (normally) caused by our desire to do so.
If his conception of intentional action is stated this crudely, Spinoza seems forced
to include some cases that are often excluded from intentional action. If we have a strong
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desire that we cannot resist, such as a strong addiction, and if this addiction drives us to
partake in a harmful substance against all of our other wishes, Spinoza must still say
that we act, in his broader sense, and do so intentionally, because we are moved by one
of our own desires. Unless an account can be offered according to which this addiction
is not one of our desires, then it seems the addictive behavior against our will is
intentional.
This is not entirely satisfying. Consider the agoraphobic who simply cannot go
outside remain inside, even though he wishes he could. Does he remain inside
intentionally, even when he wants so much to be able to go outside? It is not entirely
clear that his remaining inside is intentional. We could perhaps construct an account
according to which the physiological disease and its attendant 'desire' is not a part of us,
in some sense, but a kind of foreign body, like a flu. If this is so, then the behaviors it
engenders are not our desires at all and so these acts are not intentional.
A better avenue of approach may be found in Mele's reply to this challenge. In
response to this concern, Mele says:
When we ask whether an akratic action was motivated by an irresistible desire,
we should ask whether it was in the agent's power at the time to augment his
motivation to perform the action judged best, or to decrease his contrary
motivation — or, more precisely, it was in his power to bring it about that the
bulk of his motivation lay on the side of his better judgment. (24)
This line of argument could work for someone who is not committed to
necessitarianism. For an agent may undergo two classes of passions - those that, had
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he followed Spinoza's therapeutic advice in Part 5, he could have resisted, and those he
could not have resisted even with the aid of those therapeutic methods. In a sense, then,
the agent could have resisted the desires in the first class but not those in the second.
Yet this questions raises another, thornier issue. For Spinoza seems committed to
the thesis of necessitarianism - the view that the actual world is the only possible one. In
that sense, then, no being has any power or force that it does not actually exert. In other
words, agents always bring about precisely what it is in their power to bring, for they
have no power that they do not in fact use. If the actual world is the only possible
world, then there is no possible world in which the agent exerts more power than he
does in the actual world. And thus, we cannot say that the agent could have exerted
more power to resist this desire. And so, any desire an agent suffers is irresistible.
Therefore, for the necessitarian, it seems that instances of akratic action are not free.
Three options remain at this point. First, one may reject the possibility of akratic
action. Yet our intuitions very strongly suggest that such action is possible. Second, we
may amend our definition of akratic action so that freedom is not a necessary condition.
If we do this, however, we shall have a difficult time distinguishing between akrasia and
compulsion. Third and finally, we may question necessitarianism. Indeed, myriad
reasons for rejecting necessitarianism present themselves upon reflection. Given the
serious problems with necessitarianism, then, this third option seems preferable. Given
the complexity and obscurity of Spinoza's thought on necessity and possibility,
however, I will not delve further into this question here. In what follows, I will assume
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that a counterfactual analysis of resistable desire is open to us, even if that means
choosing a Spinozist theory over Spinoza's own.
In short, then, the strength of a desire may be sufficient for action, but not be
irresistible, because in most circumstances we could marshal more motivational force
by focusing our attention, by employing other cognitive methods, or by relying on non-
cognitive techniques.
4.2.2. Intentionality
Spinoza can meet the challenge and thus his account satisfies the first condition.
But what exactly is the nature of intention here? After all, Spinoza employs no concept
of intentionality. This fact could lead one to believe that he follows Davidson in simply
identifying unconditional judgments with intentions. Such an attribution does Spinoza
a disservice, however. According to Davidson, intentionally acting against our
unconditional judgment is impossible, because it would involve intentionally acting
against our intention, which is absurd. And if Spinoza were to identify unconditional
judgments with intentions, then he would fall into this very paradox, which Davidson
uses to justify his strong intemalism.
Mele avoids the Davidsonian paradox by positing a distinction between what he
calls decisive judgments and intentions. This distinction allows the possibility of strict
akrasia. To be sure, Spinoza does not posit a distinct mental entity like an intention. It
may be, however, that desires can fulfill this function in certain circumstances and thus
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provide Spinoza the same avenue of escape from the Davidsonian paradox that Mele
takes.
Spinoza defines any affect that leads us to act as a desire. We are free to the
extent that we are ruled by active desire, and in bondage to the extent that we are ruled
by passionate desire. Merely forming adequate ideas is not the whole story of human
freedom, however; these ideas must engender active desires that overcome their
opposing passionate desires.
Since forming adequate ideas alone does not mean that we will act on them, it
follows that merely forming adequate ideas is not sufficient for hum an freedom.
Remember, Spinoza defines the free man as the one "led by reason" versus one "who is
led only by an affect."311 Only when we are led to act by adequate ideas or, more
accurately, active desire, are we free. Unfortunately, Spinoza does not explain the
details of how hum an action results from our ideas and desires. Here is a Spinozist
speculation about how hum an action occurs.
When two desires oppose one another and one is more powerful, the stronger
will win out and determine our action. At this point, one may wonder how the
strongest desire determines our action, given that Spinoza has no account of intention
formation. Spinoza has provided the necessary framework for answering this question.
Remember, the mind forms ideas and nothing else, all of which are affirmative.
Further, each idea has, or may have, an affective aspect. The strength of this affect
relative to opposing affects in the mind determines whether or not it will be efficacious
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in any given situation. Only those desires with enough strength at the end of the day,
so to speak, will result in hum an action.
Consider again the mind that contains desires A and B, both of which aim at
something perceived to be good for us. Further, these desires, A and B, are opposed in
some way and B is stronger than A. Now say that the mind considers these desires at
the same time, such that the power of B is diminished, but the power of A is eliminated.
If the two desires were the same in power, then the mind would vacillate between the
two. If, after opposing A, desire B still retains more power, then B becomes an executive
desire. That is, desire B will be sufficient to cause the hum an mind to form ideas
involved in pursing B's object. These ideas will be parallel to events in the body that
bring the body toward B's object.
Other scholars have noted that Stoic psychology resembles Spinoza's in several
ways.312 Like Spinoza, many Stoics do not affirm the existence of an independent
faculty of will that forms volitions to act.313 Both Spinoza and these Stoics, then, must
provide an alternative explanation for how ideas and desires bring about human action.
Though Spinoza provides no details in his account, the Stoics do. In fact, their account
of action is surprisingly consistent with Spinoza's own moral psychology. According to
these Stoics, we act from the conclusion of a process of practical reason. The premises
and conclusion of a process of practical reason are each an impulse [horme], which
involves a representation of something as good or evil for us. These representational
impulses involved in an instance of practical reasoning end at some concluding impulse.
This final impulse on which our mind rests becomes an executive impulse.314 This is
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similar to the view we attribute to Spinoza above, where one of our affects becomes an
executive affect.
For example, say that I have an idea that represents some sushi in the
refrigerator. Further, say that this (complex) idea represents my eating the sushi as
being pleasurable or useful. Affectively speaking, I want some sushi from the fridge.
However, I also have an idea of remaining at my desk and continuing my work, an idea
which represents that state of affairs as being useful also. Therefore, I also have a desire
to remain seated at my desk. If the desire for the sushi is strong enough to overcome
my desire to stay seated, my desire for the sushi will become an executive desire and
lead me to get up and get it. The last desire standing after their conflict will be
executive and will therefore result in hum an action, as long as it is sufficient to
overcome my desire to remain in my current state, in this case, seated at my desk.
And so, any practical judgment can become an intention, as long as its related
desire is strong enough to defeat its competitors and overcome our natural inertia. Yet
this result should not surprise us. After all, we have already shown that all ideas are
not only representations and affects, but also volitions. Each idea, or affect, has the
potential to be a deciding volition leading to action, as long as it is the strongest desire
or volition in the mind at the moment.
Another way to put this is as follows. Modes of mind express propositions that
are logically related in chains of practical reasoning. In this regard, modes of mind are
cognitions, or ideas. But modes of mind are also related causally, in that they interact in
the spiritual automaton to bring about action. In this regard, modes of mind are affects.
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Given that the affective aspect of an idea is a function of its power, it is reasonable to
assert that modes of mind are causally efficacious only insofar as they are affective, not
cognitive.
This description resembles in certain ways at least one formulation of a m odem
causal theory of action. So Dennis Stampe says,
So this practical syllogism represents the causal (psychological) process of rational decision
making, or intention-formation, by means of a configuration of logically related propositions,
representing logically connected states of affairs contained in those causally related states of
mind.315
In other words, propositions logically related by practical syllogism are represented by
mental states of affairs, which in turn are causally related states of mind. This is not to
say that Spinoza's action theory is a m odem causal theory or that it resembles Stampe's
account in other ways. Indeed, in almost all of its detail, Spinoza's psychology differs
from these views. Yet in its outlines, its commitment to naturalism, and its distinction
between the causal/affective and representational/cognitive dimensions of mental
modes, Spinoza's system bears an interesting resemblance to Stampe's.
According to the explanation just presented, an intention is nothing but a
judgment or desire of sufficient strength to move us. But can this be correct? What
about when we sneeze, say? Surely this is not an intentional action.
On the other hand, this event does not involve a judgm ent/desire. But it is a
movement in the body and so, one would think, would require a parallel movement in
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209
the mind. And such a movement in the mind would be an idea and affect -- that is, it
would be a judgment or desire, according to Spinoza.
But this is an overly simplistic account of Spinoza's parallelism. For the human
mind does not consciously represent every event that occurs in the body as an idea or
desire, such as digestion or a sneeze. Unfortunately, Spinoza does not give us an
account of consciousness. So let me simply write an IOU for such an account, the likes of
which would require far more space than I have here. In short, then, there is a subset of
our ideas/affects that qualify as conscious judgments/desires. Only those conscious
judgm ent/desires can lead to intentional action.
Let us state this Spinozist account of intentional action in some more detail here,
so that we can better evaluate it.
An agent S forms an intention I to act if and only if S has a conscious belief and
desire D that is sufficiently strong to overcome any competing belief/desires as
well as our natural inertia.
Many questions need to be answered in order to flesh out the details of this sketch, of
course, especially the use of the concept of a conscious belief or desire. Regardless of
whether we attribute such a theory of intentional action to Spinoza or simply recognize
that executive desires may fulfill a similar function, hoever, the Spinozist has the
wherewithal to distinguish intentional from unintentional action.
4.2.3. Against Our Better Judgment
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The second condition for an agent's action to be strictly akratic is for the agent to
perform it against his better judgment. This condition is less an obstacle for Spinoza
than the previous one. All we need to do is establish some criterion by which some
judgments are considered better than others.
For Spinoza, various desire, or judgments, may compete in an agent's mind. A
desire or judgment D functions as an intention if and only if D is stronger than any
competing desires or judgments and D is strong enough to move us to act. D is strong
enough to move us to act if and only if D is stronger than our natural inertia. In other
words, that desire that is stronger than any competitor, as well as being stronger than
our inertia, functions as an intention in the Spinozist psychology.
We may form judgments, and thus feel desires, for a variety of things. These
desires may compete, in the sense that they may aim at mutually incompatible states of
affairs, such that we cannot do both. According to the Spinozist, when a judgment
involves inadequate ideas, our judgment is inadequate and thus our desire is irrational.
In most cases, these inadequate judgments concern only a partially understood
particular that is perceived through sensation. And when our judgment involves an
adequate idea, our judgment is adequate and our desire rational. These adequate
judgments usually are based on universal truths and carry a degree of certainty with
them. In other words, those beliefs grounded in reason and those judgments reached
rationally will involve rational desires and those beliefs that lack justification and those
judgments reached only through the misuse (or lack of use) of reason will involve
irrational desires.
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Our better judgments are those that are made rationally. These judgments are
made based on universal principles that are known sub specie aeternitatis and, as such,
generally aim at the best (i.e., what is best for the agent), not merely focusing on this
particular thing at this moment in time. But the strength of our motivation to act is
determined by the strength of the cause of our beliefs and desires and not by our choice.
So, sometimes, we may form a rational judgment, that is, a better judgment, yet we may
not act on it, because a competing irrational judgment may have a stronger motivational
force. After we subtract the opposing strength of the rational desire, the irrational desire,
being stronger, will still retain some of its force. Now, if that remaining force is
sufficient to overcome our natural inertia, then we will intentionally act on that irrational
desire against our better judgment. However, if the force of the irrational desire exceeds
the competing rational desire but NOT the overall strength of the agent, then the desire
could have been resisted, had the agent attempted to do so. Thus the irrational action is done
freely. Thus, Spinoza's theory of akrasia is a well-developed account of action done
freely, intentionally, and against our better judgment.
4.3. An Evaluation of Spinoza's Account of Akrasia
Spinoza's account of strict akratic action meets the criteria of being free,
intentional, and against our better judgment. In this regard his account is conceptually
satisfactory. His account also manages to incorporate our most convincing intuitions on
this issue. Unlike the strong internalists, Spinoza does not deny our intuition that strict
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akratic action is possible. Indeed, the challenge of explaining akrasia plays a major role
in his psychological theory.
Spinoza also accommodates the intuition that practical judgments entail
motivation. Unlike the externalist, who denies this connection, Spinoza and the other
internalists accept that our judging a course of action to be best results in our desiring to
pursue that course of action. The internalists may claim that when we judge that
something would benefit us and bring us pleasure, we have therefore have at least some
motivation to pursue that thing - a claim the externalist must reject.
The title of this subsection describes Spinoza's view as unique. Whether or not
Spinoza's theory is entirely unique, it is at the very least highly unusual. And one way
to see how this is so is to compare briefly Spinoza's views with those held by
metaethicists on the topics of judgment intemalism and non-cognitivism. Russ Shafer-
Landau argues that, nowadays, most internalists are non-cognitivists and most cognitivists
are externalists.316 Shafer-Landau offers the following as the general reason why
intemalism usually leads to non-cognitivism. He says:
1. Necessarily, if one sincerely judges an action right, then one is motivated to
some extent to act in accordance w ith that judgment.
2. When taken by themselves, beliefs neither motivate nor entail any
motivationally efficacious states.
3. Therefore moral judgments are not beliefs. (Shafer-Landau, 270)
(1) is weak judgment intemalism and (3) is moral non-cognitivism. Humean
sentimentalists and expressivists are satisfied by this result, of course. But it is not
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Spinoza's view. For Spinoza denies (2), which most people would take as a
straightforward observation of fact.
The Spinozist should deny (2) because it presents a false dichotomy. On the
Spinozist view, all beliefs are judgments of a sort and so the divide between judgment
and belief is misleading. Instead, we ought to talk of practical beliefs versus non-
practical beliefs. Practical beliefs - i.e., beliefs concerning what is in one's interest -
motivate, while non-practical beliefs do not.
If we adopt this understanding of belief and judgment, then (3) does not follow,
because moral judgments are cognitive, just as our other beliefs are. The only difference
is that those things that are generally called moral judgments concern beliefs about
benefits and harms to us.
One reason that Spinoza is able to combine moral judgment and belief is his
reductive ethical egoism. He reduces good and bad, which are moral concepts, to
beneficial and harmful, which are factual concepts. So moral judgment reduces to
practical judgment. And practical judgments are judgments concerning matters of fact
that are relevant to our well-being. Of course, Shafer-Landau discusses and rejects
judgment intemalism with regard only to moral judgments, not to practical judgments,
which is, in effect, Spinoza's view. As such, Shafer-Landau's arguments are not
directed against a view like Spinoza's, which is not really a view about moral
judgments at all. Indeed, Shafer-Landau's argument for externalism is based on the
virtues of cognitivism, which he takes not to be easily compatible with intemalism.
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And so, though Shafer-Landau's arguments against intemalism cut deeply against non-
cognitive internalists, they do not really undermine Spinoza's view.
Here are some considerations that add some plausibility to this view of belief
and judgment. First of all, belief is generally taken to be involuntary, in most everyday
cases. I do not choose to believe that I am writing at the moment - 1 simply do believe it.
Of course, if I make a conscious effort, I may be able to withhold affirmation to some
things. Similarly, when presented with certain evidence, I cannot but judge in favor of
one result over another, in most cases. Say I am judging what to eat and I survey the
contents of my fridge. Upon doing so, one things looks most desirable and it is healthy
to boot. I will therefore judge it to be best and it is hard for me to judge otherwise. Of
course, there may be other considerations, but when the evidence points at one
judgment it is difficult to avoid. In fact, I would argue, this normally automatic nature
of judgment and belief suggest that we form the two in a similar fashion. When
provided with the right data or stimuli, we simply do believe or judge things to be a
certain way, in most cases.
Second of all, some beliefs can act as practical judgments in some cases and not
in others. Consider the following: a man comes to believe that there is a vial of anti
venom in his medicine cabinet. This representation is not at one time motivating,
because he has no need for anti-venom. As such, it is nothing but a belief. After having
been bitten by a poisonous snake, however, this belief relates to his well-being and, as
such, this belief is practical. And if we follow Spinoza in rejecting a power of assent
that is distinct from our power to form beliefs, then the practical belief, by its very
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practicality, is motivating. And so, the same mental state is at one time called a belief,
but at another time called a motivating practical judgment.
The above considerations have been suggested only to show what it is Spinoza
says and to lend that view some plausibility. To establish this view as entirely
successful would require significantly more and different work from what has been
offered here. Nevertheless, this Spinozist view is interesting, especially because it
seems to reconcile two attractive positions that are usually seen as being irreconcilable,
namely, moral cognitivism and motivational judgment intemalism.
In fact, Spinoza's view is unusual in another regard. Most judgment internalists,
Shafer-Landau says, "defend the idea that moral judgments, which in their eyes are just
moral beliefs, are capable of motivating agents without the existence of antecedently
existing desires. However, motivational judgment internalists need to show that moral
beliefs must motivate, not (just) that they can."317 Spinoza the judgment internalist does
have an argument for why practical judgments, which he equates with moral judgments,
must motivate. And that argument is, of course, his identification of practical judgment
and desire. Because practical judgments are identical with desires, it follows that, if we
make such a judgment, we must feel some desire - that is, we m ust be motivated to
some extent. And this is just the argument Shafer-Landau claims is absent from most
contemporary internalist views.318
Spinoza's view must be defended from another, related argument. Some
externalists justify their extemalism by pointing to a thought-experimental character
called the amoralist. The amoralist, these externalists say, makes genuine moral
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judgments, but feels no motivation to act morally. If this kind of person is possible,
then intemalism is false, because moral judgment is not modally connected to
motivation. Internalists often reply that the amoralist does not, in fact, make genuine
moral judgments, but instead makes only inverted-commas moral judgments. In other
words, for the internalist, the amoralist simply isn 't using the normative concepts, but
some other ones, perhaps based on social convention or law. Many people find some
initial plausibility to the amoralist case, however. This amoralist may be a challenge for
most kinds of intemalism. But Spinoza's is unusual in that his moral judgments are
really self-interested judgments. For Spinoza, x is a good action for S to do iff doing x will
increase S's power. That is, Spinoza is an ethical egoist. Though it may be quite easy to
imagine the amoralist that externalists often cite, it is not so easy to imagine a Spinozist
amoralist. That would be someone who judges that x would most benefit him, but
nonetheless feels no desire to do x. That is hard to conceive. And an egoist internalist
can plausibly deny such a figure.
And so, Spinoza can accommodate the internalist intuition that evaluation is
connected to motivation while avoiding the externalist critique of that view. W hat's
more, Spinoza even can adhere to the intuition at the heart of extemalism. For the
internalists, reasons, or practical judgments, cause actions, because reasons engender
motivations to act. Hume and the externalists believe this to be false, for emotions and
ideas do not have this "direction of fit." That is, ideas simply represent things; they try
to mirror themselves to the world. Ideas do not try to make the world mirror them. It
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is desire and affect that does that, Hume claims. For Hume, it is not reasons but affects
that cause action.
Spinoza would agree with the spirit of this externalist intuition, for he believes
that it is not our beliefs that cause action, but our desires. So, Spinoza is like Hume in
identifying emotion, not representation, as the cause of action. For Spinoza, active
affects explain hum an action when we act rationally and passive affects explain hum an
action when we act irrationally. Akrasia occurs when the irrational desires overpower
the rational ones. All cases of hum an action, however, akratic and continent, all result
from some affective desire or other. Though each of these desires is also a judgment, it
is the affective aspect of this mental state that explains action, not the cognitive aspect.
And in this regard, Spinoza presages Hume.
This is what I have described as the Janus-faced nature of Spinoza's psychology.
He incorporates the rationalist view that we should attempt to act from reason, not
passion, and that we succeed in doing so through gaining more knowledge. According
to the rationalist side of Spinoza's theory, when we have more inadequate ideas, we are
in greater bondage and thus more likely to suffer akrasia. This aspect of Spinoza's
psychological theory looks backward to the ancient Greeks and his other predecessors.
Another aspect of Spinoza's psychology, however, is quite different. In his
affective psychology, Spinoza looks forward to Hume and other sentimentalist thinkers.
For Spinoza also believes that affect and desire explain hum an action in a way
knowledge and belief cannot. Because the mind is a mechanism, as is the body, we
must explain mental phenomena in a way analogous to bodily ones. In this regard,
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then, Spinoza resembles Hume. And in this great synthesis may lie Spinoza's genius.
He can accommodate the primary intuitions of the weak internalist as well as those of
the externalist. In so doing, he presents a psychological theory that includes both
Humean and more rationalist aspects. This theory of his depends upon several key
assertions, which are:
(1) A cognitivist theory of the emotions: affects and judgments are two aspects of
one mental mode.
(2) Doctrine of incommensurable desires: desires are motivational affective states
that are conditioned by their objects; as such, they may be incommensurable.
These two allow Spinoza to hold the following principle, which involves his theory of
akrasia:
(3) Spinozist theory of hum an nature: Irrationality is a fundamental aspect of the
human mind; we are able to affirm contradictory judgments and feel opposing
desires at the same time and, sometimes, the irrational desires are stronger than
and thus overpower the rational ones.
In summary, let us consider these three fundamental assertions. Spinoza's cognitivist
theory of the emotions precludes Spinoza from truly being an externalist, because
practical judgments will always be accompanied by motivation. And his theory of
desire precludes his ever being a strong internalist, because we can have conflicting and
irreducible desires. And finally, because Spinoza allows that hum an beings can affirm
adequate and inadequate ideas at the same time about the same things, Spinoza
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encounters no conceptual difficulties in affirming the reality of strict, or synchronic,
akrasia.
Spinoza's theory of desire is not unusual; indeed, those who reject it and instead
posit that all desires are reducible to one fundamental desire, as Socrates does, are in the
minority. Spinoza's peculiar theory of the relation between affects and judgments is
unique, to be sure, but in its function it is quite similar to cognitivist theories of the
emotions, such as Robert Solomon's, who holds that emotions are a certain kind of
judgment.
Finally, the claim that human beings are irrational is not at all difficult to accept
for many people. Specifically, Spinoza believes that we are able to affirm contradictory
judgments at the same time. This will be difficult to accept for some. Consider again
Spinoza's example of the sun, however:
for example, when we look at the sun, we imagine it to be about 200 feet away
from us, In this we are deceived so long as we are ignorant of its true distance;
but when its distance is known, the error is removed, not the imagination, i.e.,
the idea of the sun, which explains its nature only so far as the Body is affected
by it. And so, though we come to know the true distance, we shall nevertheless
imagine it as near us. (4pls; Curley, 547-8; Geb 11/211)
In other words, the human mind makes judgments just when it is caused to do so. And
when the causes of our judgments persist, our judgments will persist as well. And
when those judgments are contradictory yet caused by two distinct, coexisting states of
affairs, then we will simultaneously affirm two contradictory judgments.
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Let us state this another way. Spinoza believes that we may sometimes hold two
contradictory judgments, one of which may be rational and the other irrational. So, for
example, I may at the very same time find the piece of cake before me attractive and
desirable, because it looks quite tasty, and also find it undesirable, because I know what
it will do to my weigh-in tomorrow, as well as to my self-satisfaction. Thus, I can
simultaneously judge the cake to be desirable and undesirable, good to eat and bad to
eat. I can hold these two simultaneously because the cake, being a complex thing, can
affect me in a complex way, since I too am a complex thing. I have various
incommensurable desires, after all, and one aspect of the cake may satisfy one desire
while another aspect of the cake may foil another of my desires. In this case, the
apparent sweetness of the icing appeals to my desire for sweets, but the probable high
fat content of the cake contravenes my desire to diet. And so, my two desires speak up
and the one that speaks the loudest will prevail. Further, I am a being capable of reason,
so I may evaluate these competing desires and judge that, in the long run, I am best
served by refraining. This judgment accompanies my desire to refrain and, if it is
strong enough, it will overpower my desire to eat the cake. Indeed, I may even have an
additional desire to be strong-willed and consistent; perhaps I made a promise to
someone to diet and I desire to keep my promise. Regardless, after all the desires on
each side have spoken up, the side with the heavier weight, or loudest voices, wins.
From where I stand, this account captures the heart of what happens in strict
akrasia. And this is, roughly, Spinoza's thesis that we can affirm contradictory
judgments and feel conflicting desires. And so, strict akrasia is easily explainable. Of
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course, it is still irrational, because it involves acting against our better judgment which,
for Spinoza, means acting against our universal principles in favor of some
inadequately known particular.
Thus, once we excavate Spinoza's account of akrasia from its surroundings, we
find a plausible and commonsensical account. Indeed, we find one that captures all of
our important intuitions on the issue: we experience strict akrasia, practical judgment
has some connection to motivation, and desire has the right direction of fit to explain
action. Only Spinoza's theory of akrasia can accommodate all three of these quite
plausible intuitions.
And when we review Spinoza's account of akrasia in its philosophical context, we
find a rich and unique metaphysical and ethical account of akrasia, one according to
which akrasia is a special case of bondage to the passions. If we can gain more
knowledge, especially self-knowledge, and follow certain of Spinoza's cognitive
therapies, we gain freedom and reduce our vulnerability to akrasia. And so, considered
in isolation or in its philosophical context, Spinoza's theory of akrasia is fascinating and
compelling indeed.
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1 Jonathan Bennett, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics ([Indianapolis, IN]: Hackett Pub. Co., 1984), chapter 14,
Michael Della Rocca, "Spinoza's Metaphysical Psychology," in The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed.
Don Garrett (New York: Cambridge Univ Pr, 1996), Don Garrett, "Spinoza's Ethical Theory," in The
Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, ed. Don Garrett (New York: Cambridge Univ Pr, 1996), Olli Koistinen,
"Weakness of Will in Spinoza's Theory of Human Motivation," in North American Spinoza Society
Monograph (1996), Martin Lin, "Memory and Personal Identity in Spinoza," Canadian Journal of Philosophy
(forthcoming), Anthony Savile, "Spinoza, Medea, and Irrationality in Action," Dialogue: Canadian
Philosophical Review 42, no. 4 (2003).
2 For general overviews that are consistent with my work here, see Henry E. Allison, Benedict De Spinoza :
A n Introduction, Rev. ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), chapter 5, Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza
and Other Heretics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), chapter 6.
3 Della Rocca, "Spinoza's Metaphysical Psychology."
4 Martin Lin, "Spinoza's Account of Akrasia," Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (2006).
5 4p60; Curley, 580; Geb 11/255.
6 Koistinen, "Weakness of Will in Spinoza's Theory of Human Motivation."
Notes to Chapter One
7 For a critical survey of recent work on the problem of weakness of will, see Arthur F. Walker, "The
Problem of Weakness of Will," Nous.
8 Alfred Mele, Irrationality: An Essay on Akrasia, Self-Deception and Self-Control (New York: New York
University Press, 1987).
9 For one of several good accounts of Socrates' views on akrasia, see James J. Walsh, "The Socratic Denial
of Akrasia.” Another useful source is
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10 This is a somewhat controversial interpretation of Socrates, however. I take this interpretation from
Terry Penner. See Terry Penner, "Socrates on the Strength of Knowledge: Protagoras 351b-357e," Archiv
fiir Geschichte der Philosophie 79, no. 2 (1997).
11 Another question concerns whether, as Penner holds, we aim for the actual good, whatever it may be,
or, as others hold, we aim merely for the perceived good. I will not address this issue. See Santas [1979]
12 Meno, 78b4-6. This translation is Terry Penner's. See also Plato, Plato: Complete Works, John Cooper ed.
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), 877.
13 For a discussion of akrasia in Plato, see Christopher Bobonich, "Akrasia and Agency in Plato's Laws and
Republic," Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie 76, no. 1 (1994).