Moral Transformation and Self-Transcendence
Oxford Scholarship Online July 19, 2018 Samuel Newlands
Spinoza's ethics completes his conceptualist metaphysics by privileging certain ways of conceiving things over others on practical grounds. It is in agents' self-interest to conceive themselves and other things in the broadest, most inclusive ways. Becoming more virtuous requires reconceiving oneself, leading to fundamental changes in self-identity. Drawing on Harry Frankfurt's work, the chapter argues that Spinoza's moral transformation is a call to a new, more powerful and stable self-identity, possibly eternal. Spinoza holds out hope for salvific transformation but remains pessimistic that people will achieve much of it.