Moral Transformation and Self-Transcendence

Abstract

This chapter shows how Spinoza’s ethics completes his conceptualist metaphysics, arguing that Spinoza privileges some of the plentiful ways of conceiving things over others on broadly practical grounds. It is in the self-interest of agents to conceive other things, as well as themselves, in the broadest, most inclusive ways. Spinoza thinks that the way to become a more virtuous agent is to reconceive oneself, a process that results in fundamental changes in an agent’s self-identity. Drawing on parallel contemporary work by Harry Frankfurt, it argues that Spinoza’s call to moral transformation is ultimately a call to a new self-identity, one that is far more powerful and stable, and perhaps even eternal. Although Spinoza holds out hope for our salvific transformation, he remains deeply pessimistic that we will ever enjoy much of it.