Dilemma of Naturalism and Moralism in Spinoza’s Understanding of Moral Principles

Abstract

The idea of nature holds an important place in moral doctrine of Spinoza being often identified with the fundamental principles of his system – God and substance. The concept of nature is the most significant term of his philosophical discourse in the field of metaphysics and moral philosophy. The notion of a naturalistic character of Spinoza's methodology is shared by many scholars of his work. Meanwhile, he proposed a kind of moral exegesis of some important events of sacred history in Bible improving that naturalistic disposition does not always respond to the moral purposes of his doctrine. It can be argued that the ethical doctrine of Spinoza carries a certain collision between naturalism and morality which is founded on the semantic ambiguity of the concepts of nature used by Spinoza. It embraces the metaphysical, theological, naturalistic, ethical, geometrical and many other meanings.