Spinoza and Deep Ecology

ETHICS & THE ENVIRONMENT, 18(1) 2013 ISSN: 1085-6633©Indiana University Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.Direct all correspondence to: Journals Manager, Indiana University Press, Office of Scholarly PublishingHerman B Wells Library/350, 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, IN 47405 USA [email protected]

For they Do Not Agree iN NAtureSpiNozA AND Deep ecology

Gal KObER

In the Ethics, Spinoza presents a rigorous naturalistic view of humans and their non-unique position in nature, as an inherent part of nature, subjects of the very same domain as all other objects and beings, gov-erned by the same laws. This approach seems open to interpretations close to those of Deep Ecology, and indeed such connections have been made between the two views. This paper considers Spinoza’s view, clari-fies what is meant by humans being a part of nature, assesses whether this entails a Deep Ecology-like commitment towards other beings, and finally considers what precisely is entailed by Spinoza’s view, and whether its licensing of the use of other beings is necessarily entailed.

In the Ethics,1 Spinoza presents a rigorous naturalistic view of man and nature. Man is a part of nature, a subject of the same domain—not a domain separate from it, nor a domain within that of nature. Man can-not act against nature or in an unnatural way; in comparison with any other part or creature of nature, man is not special, more important or qualitatively different. All general laws of nature apply equally to animals, inanimate objects, humans, God, the mind, and the affects. Nature can be explicated based on necessary causes, and there are no extra-natural fac-tors that affect it or anything in it: no supernatural power or metaphysical

ETHICS & THE ENVIRONMENT, 18(1) 201344

principles create or regulate it, and no separate methods of explanation are needed.

In light of that, one might expect to find in Spinoza’s writing an ap-proach to nature and its inhabitants close in spirit to the view and move-ment that have come to be called Deep Ecology. According to this view, humans are an equal and inherent part of nature, which should not be considered anthropocentrically, and has intrinsic value apart from its use-fulness to humans. It seems plausible that based on the equal natural sta-tus they share, humans, animals and natural resources will be regarded as deeply connected, respectful of one another, sharing in a pan-natural fraternity, from which a commitment could perhaps be derived towards the life and existence of one another.

In this paper I discuss Spinoza’s view of nature, and try to ascertain whether such a view and that kind of commitment to nature indeed follow from it. I start by explaining what is meant by ‘man is a part of nature’ and the naturalistic approach from which this dictum is derived. I then go on to evaluate some of the main points on which the Deep Ecology view is based in light of Spinoza’s concept of nature, and evaluate their compat-ibility with Spinoza’s system. I then go on to explain how the license to use nature for human benefit is justified. Finally, I try to assess whether these positions—that humans are a part of nature, and that nature can be used for human benefit—are incompatible, or in what way the seeming tension between them could be reconciled.

1. Part of Nature

The Ethics opens with a series of definitions and axioms which ground the key concepts and their relations to one another. I will now try to fol-low the thread leading to the concept of nature and man within it.

Spinoza defines substance as what exists in itself, and is conceived with-out requiring a concept of anything else (I D3). A substance has attributes, which are what the intellect perceives as the essence of a substance (I D4), such as thought or extension. As a matter of fact, a substance cannot be perceived by any intellect without its attributes.2 A substance also has modes, which are affections of the substance, and are conceived through other concepts, they are derived from one another (I D5). “A substance is prior in nature to its affections” ( I P1), which follows from the defini-tions: a substance does not require anything else to exist, it is independent of any other concept or thing, while its affections—its modes—presup-

gAl kober For they Do Not Agree iN NAture 45

pose the existence of a substance. Hence it is clear that substance indeed precedes its affections.

Two things that are different and separate would either have differ-ent attributes, that is, the perceived essence of them as substances would be different (by definition), or they would differ in their affections (I P4). That is the case, since “whatever is, is either in itself or in another” (I A1), and attributes are the impression in the intellect of a substance’s essence which is outside the intellect,3 and so, of what is not in the intellect but outside it, the other distinguishing criterion would be affections (the sub-stances could be different as well, but that would be noticeable through their different attributes, and in any case cannot be observed otherwise, which leaves these as one of the two effective measures, along with af-fections). Since two substances could differ either by their affections or by their attributes, and affections (modes) are inessential and contingent while attributes are essential and testify to the nature of the substance of which they are, it should be the attributes that determine the difference; and so if two substances display the same attribute(s), they are one and the same substance, even if the perceived affections differ—“A true idea must agree with its object” (E I A6). Hence, there can only be one sub-stance of the same nature and thus of the same attribute (I P5).

God is defined as a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each expressing an infinite and eternal essence of this substance (I D6). Since things that have nothing in common cannot be the cause of one another (I A5, A6, P3), and no two substances can have something in common, “one substance cannot be produced by another substance” (I P6). As in nature there are only substances and their affections, and substances precede af-fections so they could not possibly be caused by them, and no substance is caused by another substance, it must be the case that substance is its own cause. By I D1, the essence of what is its own cause necessarily involves existence—that is, its nature is conceived as necessarily existing, and hence substance, which is its own cause, necessarily exists (I P7).

Substance cannot be finite, because that would mean it is limited by something else of the same nature (D2), which cannot be the case since that would mean the other substance also exists necessarily, and no two substances can share the same attribute. So “[e]very substance is neces-sarily infinite” (I P8), and has infinitely many “attributes which express necessity, or eternity, and infinity” (I P10 S).4 Since such a substance neces-sarily exists, as was shown above, and no two substances with the same


attribute could exist, then this one substance with infinite attributes and necessary existence is the only substance which exists. God, by defini-tion, is precisely that kind of substance, and thus God is substance and exists necessarily (I P11). Such a substance is indivisible, since if it could be divided into finite parts it would mean it is finite, and it could cease to exist, which is contradictory to its nature (it cannot be divided into infinite parts, since there could be only one infinite substance). And so, “[e]xcept God, no substance can be or be conceived” (I P14), and since no other substance could exist, nor any modes or attributes of another substance, it follows that “[w]hatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God” (I P15).

From the infinity of infinite attributes of God follows an infinity of modes (I P16), since God is the only substance, and everything else is a mode of this one substance (by I P15), and thus God is the efficient cause of everything, it is their necessary cause, and is thus the absolute first cause (I P16). Since infinite things follow from the necessary nature of God, and everything is in God and nothing could be conceived without it (P15), it follows that there is nothing outside it, and thus nothing that does not operate under the same laws of the nature of God, and if there is nothing outside it, there is also nothing that could determine it, limit it, or set laws of acting or operating for it. Hence, “God acts from the laws of his nature alone” (I P17). Nothing compels God to act except his own nature. Thus God is again seen to be causa sui, and since it is the only thing that exists based solely on the necessity of its own nature—because existence is in its nature, and it is the only substance—and since it is free in its actions as they are not determined by anything else but itself, God is a free cause, and the only one at that.

Since modes are always conceived through another and are in an-other (by definition), their essence cannot include existence, otherwise they would exist in themselves and necessarily. Thus “the essence of things produced by God does not involve existence” (I P24). God is therefore “the cause of the being of things” (ibid. C). And since nothing could be conceived without God, God is not only the efficient cause of the exist-ence of things, but also of their essence (which could not have been con-ceived without God). Given that everything that exists is in God, must be conceived through him (P15), and is caused by him (P16), it follows that “God is the immanent, not the transitive, cause of all things” (I P18).


“[A]ny thing which is finite and has a determinate existence…is de-termined to exist and produce an effect by another cause, which is also finite and has a determinate existence; and again… and so on, to infinity” (I P28). Everything is caused by something; all finite things are caused by other finite things, put into existence by finite modes derived from God’s infinite attributes (I P25C), for finite things cannot be produced directly by absolute and infinite things, such as God and his attributes. Every thing that exists is caused by something, and even those that are not caused directly (‘immediately’) by God, are still caused by him, for nothing could exist or be conceived without God. “In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way” (I P29).

1.1 Naturalism

As demonstrated above, God’s essence involves existence, he cannot be conceived as non-existent, and is the cause of itself. Even God who is the cause of all things and necessarily exists, is presented as being caused.5 Spinoza presents here a strong naturalistic view: for everything there is an explanation within nature, there is no external foundation on which nature is based; all accounts of the world and its natural makeup can be given in the same theoretical terms. No supernatural powers or explana-tions are required in order to account for anything natural. For everything that exists there is a causal explanation, every effect could be traced back to a determinate and definite cause, and these are all bound as a whole system, brought into existence and set into motion by an immanent first cause, governed and operating by immanent laws emanating from the first cause (I P16). Since nothing exists outside of God (I P15), there is no tran-scendent source for anything, no non-physical or meta-physical source of nature or any occurrence within it. Explanations that refer to any such things are false6 and senseless, as they simply lack a reference.7

Furthermore, the same laws apply uniformly to everything that exists: “the laws and rules of Nature, according to which all things happen…are always and everywhere the same. So the way of understanding the nature of anything, of whatever kind, must also be the same, namely, through the universal laws and rules of Nature” (III, preface). From that follows another important principle: not only could anything in nature be fully explained without any reference to a supernatural source or force, but it


is also clear that everything in it is subject to exactly the same laws, that is, no part of it could be said to be operating according to any other rules, opposing or simply different from those which apply to everything else. Specifically, Spinoza makes this point regarding human beings in compari-son with the rest of nature: many who have written about humans and nature, he says, “seem to conceive man in Nature as a dominion within a dominion” (III, preface). But that is not possible, as he has proven, since everything in nature abides by the same causal laws which have one and the same source. Man is no different from any other object in nature, is subject to the same causal laws, and has no special status in relation to the laws of nature. This uniformity with which the laws of nature apply to all things reinforces the naturalistic character of Spinoza’s view: everything is subject to the same rules in the same way, thus everything is accounted for by these general rules of nature, and hence, again, no supernatural foundation, source of causation or of explanation needs to be assumed or evoked. All beings and all things are parts of nature, equally subjected to its laws, mankind included: “It is impossible that a man should not be a part of Nature” (IV P4), just as it is impossible that water, the angle at which a body is reflected from a surface it hits, or the smell of guavas would not be a part of nature. 8

1.2 Deus Sive Physical Nature

Spinoza establishes the nature of substance step by step as unique, infinite, eternal, cause of itself, the cause of all things, and so forth, and shows how substance is in fact tantamount to God. He then proceeds to use the term ‘God or Nature’, but at no point in the Ethics does he explic-itly derive the identification of God directly with Nature as a whole,9 and particularly not with physical nature. There are, however, good reasons to indeed take this as what Spinoza intends to do.

In I P5 Nature is first referred to, as that within which things exist, specifically as something within which no two substances of the same kind could not exist. As a name for the totality of what exists, it goes on being used (e.g. I P8S2IV, I P10S, I Appx.). The identification of substance, God and Nature is not made explicitly, but could be inferred. First, if indeed in Nature there could not be two substances of the same kind, and it has been established that there exists only one substance, which is infinite, then there is a single substance that exists in Nature. And since it


was established that “[e]xcept God, no substance can be or be conceived” (I P14), then it follows that the only substance which exists in Nature is God. And since there exists only one substance, no other substance could exist, nor any modes or attributes of another substance, and it follows that “[w]hatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God” (I P15). Hence whatever there is in Nature, is in God; hence sub-stance, God and Nature are one and the same.

But what allows the identification of God, substance and Nature as Spinoza describes them with physical nature? Curley claims that under direct influence of Descartes, “[t]here are places in Spinoza where he does speak as if his one substance were to be identified with the whole of na-ture” as was just demonstrated above, “and this fits in naturally with the view that the one extended substance is to be identified with the totality of physical things” (1988, 33). Evidence for that seems to be found in Eth-ics I P15S, where Spinoza tries to refute positions which try to “remove corporeal, or extended, substance itself from the divine nature”. But since the fact that extended substance is one of God’s infinite attributes (as was shown in P14C2), Spinoza claims there is no reason “why [matter] would be unworthy of the divine nature. For (by P14) apart from God there can be no substance by which [the divine nature] would be acted on.” Since God is all that exists, and all that exists is in God, it seems to almost trivially follow that extended subject, physical nature, would indeed be included in God.

In the preface to book IV, Spinoza says: “That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts from the same necessity from which he exists.” This indeed has been shown, but it was demonstrated in relation to God; it was never before attributed directly to nature. “For we have shown (IP16) that the necessity of nature from which he acts is the same as that from which he exists,”10 as is indeed demonstrated in IP16. “The reason, therefore, or cause, why God, or Nature, acts, and the reason why he exists, are one and the same” (Preface to IV).

1.3 Part and Whole, Man and Nature

The laws of Nature, then, apply equally to everything, since all that exists is in God, and God’s laws apply to all within it. Humans, too, exist as part of the totality of nature. They do differ from other animals in some particular ways, as Spinoza himself notes.11 But nonetheless, “men,


like the rest, are only a part of nature” (letter XXX12). What is meant by that? What does it mean for something to be a part of nature? What is the relation between a part and the whole which is nature? In what sense can anything be referred to as a part of nature, given that, by virtue of being infinite, Nature is indivisible?13

“I do not know how each part of nature agrees with the whole and how it coheres with the rest” (ibid.), Spinoza goes on to say; the idea of parts that cohere with each other so as to create a whole seems to imply a teleology: every part has a certain place and a role in relation to the other parts and to the whole, and thus some kind of necessary position or function that they have in relation to the ‘operation’ of the whole, or in its creation towards some purpose or a final form. On this view, man would have a special role in nature, a specific designated function in it (as would all other creatures and objects in it).

A weaker sense of relation between parts and wholes could be a phys-ical totality/continuum, a spatio-temporal continuity in which every sin-gular part makes up a piece of some greater body, but with no necessary relations to the other parts. Another loose sense of parts and wholes is that in which the parts are an extension of a whole, such as all the things to which a certain rule or system of laws apply. On that understanding of part-whole relations, man would be one of the many bodies to which the laws of nature extend in exactly the same way as to all others.

As could be deduced from what was described above, “Particular things are nothing but affections of God’s attributes, or modes by which God’s attributes are expressed in a certain and determinate way” (I P25C). The whole, based on that, is God, the totality of what exists;14 particular things, the parts, are dependent on the whole: they derive their existence from it. But the whole does not depend on its parts in any way; It precedes them (“A substance is prior in nature to its affections” (E I P1)). Since the whole is infinite, it could not be the case that it is made up of parts that are definite. Since modes are definite, and bodies are modes, the whole in no way is defined by its parts, nor could they be seen as having a neces-sary function in its makeup. The whole is not a telos of these parts. “From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinitely many things in infinitely many modes (i.e. anything which can fall under an infinite intellect)” (I P16). God, the whole of Nature, is the efficient cause of eve-rything,15 not a final cause; it brings things into existence, sets a causal chain in motion, but is not an end to which they are supposed to amount:


“all final causes are nothing but human fictions” (I, Appendix, section II). Only from a limited human point of view, unaware of the causes as they really are, can one regard particular bodies, which are but finite modes, to be ends created by God. It cannot be that God creates things as ends, for a few reasons. First, because even for God there is no free will to choose what is created; God acts from the necessity of his nature. Second, if God were to create something as an end, it would imply that he had been lacking something—which is impossible, since God is by definition the most perfect thing. Third, as the most perfect thing which is the efficient cause of everything, God causes things whose effects go on to cause more things, in infinite causal chains; the more immediately a thing is caused by God, the closer it is to perfection, and its level of perfection diminishes the more mediating causes there are between it and God (in reversed order). If it were true that such created things are ends, then they would have been more perfect than the ones more immediately created by God, as they would become closer and closer to the final, perfect, form. Fourth, it cannot be that God creates things as ends, since God is its own cause, and whatever it creates is for its own sake. In sum, “this doctrine concerning the end turns Nature completely upside down. For what is really a cause, it considers as an effect, and conversely [NS: what is an effect it considers as a cause]” (I App., part II). It has been established then, that the parts of nature do not amount to a teleological whole. In what way then are they parts in relation to a whole?

In physical nature, these parts are bodies. These are finite, and they determine and limit each other. Spinoza describes the ways in which they operate on one another and limit one another as motion and rest (since they are finite modes of the infinite attribute of extension). “Bodies…are singular things which…are distinguished from one another by reason of motion and rest; and so…each must be determined necessarily to motion or rest by another singular thing, namely…by another body…and this [body] again (by the same reasoning) by another, and so on, to infinity” (IIP13L3Dem). The whole of physical nature, the whole made up of these bodies, would then be a continuum of bodies, all affecting each other. Not only are all bodies in nature subject to the same necessary laws, we now see that they are always interacting with other bodies that determine them, which also follows from their being finite modes, and these are al-ways determined ‘through another.’ The human body is no different from any other physical body: “The human body, to be preserved, requires a


great many other bodies, by which it is, as it were, continually regener-ated” (II P13L7 postulate IV). Its very existence depends not only on God that will cause it, but also continually on other bodies. “[T]he human body is composed of a great many parts of different natures” (IVP45S). The whole would then be a continuum of bodies, all connected and af-fecting each other, some inside one another, and inside them more bodies and so on. What Spinoza means by the parts being connected is explained in a letter to Henry Oldenburg: “By connection of the parts, then, I mean nothing else than that the laws, or nature, of one part adapt themselves to the laws, or nature, of another part in such a way as to produce the least possible opposition” (Letter XXXII).16

If all parts are connected, and are within the whole of nature which is one, how is it then that they can be perceived as separate parts at all? And as separate bodies interacting, how do they come together as larger bodies? Spinoza describes different bodies as coming together to create what would be seen as a whole, another body, when these bodies can be in close proximity and function together, that is, when their natures, their particular characteristics, allow them to operate together: “With regard to whole and parts, I consider things as parts of some whole, in so far as their natures are mutually adapted so that they are in accord among them-selves, as far as possible” (ibid.). But even parts that can affect each other in this way as to not interrupt and amount to another whole don’t lose their status as separate: “but in so far as things differ among themselves, each produces an idea in our mind, which is distinct from the others, and is therefore considered to be a whole, not a part” (ibid.). That is, our intel-lect can perceive the characteristics of a certain body and see it as a whole in itself, and it can also perceive it as a part of another whole, when it accords with other bodies to form another body. For instance, water and grains of sand come together as mud; insofar as we perceive that as mud, water, and grains of sand are parts of something else. But insofar as we can distinguish them and perceive them as separate things, water would be considered a whole, as would sand. Other examples of this are a lawn and the leaves of grass of which it is made up, and a rock, which might be a piece of a bigger rock, or seen as a whole constituting of molecules of different minerals, metals, and salts. Spinoza demonstrates that with the example of the different components of blood. In summary, the rela-tions between the different bodies that make up physical nature are what


determines and defines them. Certain bodies come together with other bodies with the nature of which they ‘agree’, to form new bodies, new wholes. These in turn combine with others to form other wholes, and so on. These infinitely many wholes, one within another and one next to the other make up the totality of Nature. Each body is a part of the whole of nature, but also on a smaller scale is a part of smaller wholes, and is also a whole consisting of smaller parts.

“Now, all bodies of nature can and should be conceived in the same way as we have here conceived the blood: for all bodies are sur-rounded by others, and are mutually determined to exist and to act in a definite and determined manner… Hence it follows that every body, in so far as it exists modified in a certain way, must be considered to be a part of the whole universe, to be in accord with the whole of it, and to be connected with the other parts. … But I conceive that in regard to substance each part has a closer union with its whole.” (letter XXXII)17

It now becomes clearer in what way the human body is a part of nature. It, too, is part of this vast system of interconnections between parts and wholes, and like them it abides fully by the laws of nature. But Spinoza in fact extends this to the mind as well: “You see, then, in what way I think that the human Body is a part of Nature. As regards the human Mind I think it too is a part of Nature” (letter XXXII).18 The human mind is a finite mode of the infinite attribute of thought. It is con-stituted by a singular idea (II P11), is part of an infinite intellect (II P11C), but perceives only a finite part, the human body (II P13).19 Anything that happens in the body, is perceived in the mind (II P12). “Of each thing there is necessarily an idea of God, of which God is the cause in the same way as he is of the idea of the human body. And so, whatever we have said of the idea of the human body must also be said of the idea of any thing” (II P13s). This seems to suggest a parallel between modes of extension and modes of thought, where for every mode of extension there would be a corresponding idea; “from these [propositions] we understand not only that the human mind is united to the body, but also what should be under-stood by the union of mind and body” (ibid.). Not only is the human body a part of nature, in that it abides by the laws of nature in exactly the same way as any other part of nature, but also the human mind, united with the human body, is thus a part of nature in the very same way. Man, then, is a


part of nature in the sense that it is just one of the infinitely man bodies in it, finite modes that like anything else follow necessarily from the nature of God and are subject to the same rules as anything else in nature: “for the things we have shown so far are completely general and do not pertain more to man than to other individuals” (II P13S).

I now turn to the view of nature which claims to be derived from that of Spinoza’s, and will try to discuss its actual relations to it, and the valid-ity of the conclusions drawn from it.

2. DeeP ecology aND SPiNoziStic theMeS

Deep Ecology is a movement of ecological activism the members and founders of which subscribe to a set of views that postulate a moral obli-gation of humans to nature, derived from their being an immanent part of it. The idea of ‘deep’ ecology is put in contrast to what is called by Deep Ecology adherents ‘Shallow Ecology.’ The latter is an approach calling for policies of preservation of the natural environment, conservation of non-renewable resources, protection of endangered species and of habi-tats based on the possible benefit to human society resulting from it, or the harm that would be caused by neglecting to do so, such as the depletion of natural resources, the dwindling variety in the ecosystem, or the pol-lution of the environment, which affects foodstuffs or water. The central objective of this kind of ecological awareness is “the health and affluence of people in developed countries” (Næss 1973, 95). As opposed to that ap-proach, Deep Ecology is the idea that nature should be protected and re-spected by humans for its intrinsic value, not for its usefulness. The focus is turned from an anthropocentric to an ecocentric point of view. Humans are perceived as having an ethical obligation towards nature, and as being an immanent and equal part of it. The whole of the biosphere is con-sidered to constitute a totality, an all-encompassing network of intrinsic relations. In this thoroughly connected system all such related things are equally important and equally central. Man is then not regarded as having any priority over other beings a special member of nature; it is a part of it equal to any other. And at least in principle all components of that system are egalitarian, insofar as they do not exploit or eat some of the others for vital purposes; there is no hierarchy of organisms, and they all have an “equal right to live and blossom” (Næss 1973, 96). All creatures in nature are inter-connected and inter-dependent; no one of them is by nature su-perior to any other, and thus none is entitled to ‘enslaving’ any of the other


inhabitants of the bio-system, plant or animal. Ecological equilibrium is thus considered to be of central importance, and diversity, complexity and the well-being of all natural creatures should be protected. That is best done by cutting down human population expansion and use of natural resources, stopping the exploitation of plants and animals by humans, and establishing partnership and symbiosis with animals and the ecosystem.

This framework of ecological thought (or ecological philosophy, as some of its advocates regard it, ecosophy as termed by Næss) has often been associated with certain interpretations of Spinoza, and was sometimes presented as a theory that, if not based on his views, is at least compatible with them. The conception of nature as “[a]ll inclusive, creative (as natura naturans), infinitely diverse, and alive in the broad sense of panpsychism, but also manifesting structure, the so-called laws of nature” (Næss 1977, 46) seems on the face of it to have some points in common with Spinoza’s view of nature, or at least recall some of them. I will now follow the main points of similarity as outlined by Næss (1977; 1980), and will consider their actual similarity or compatibility with Spinoza’s views as presented above. I will then try to determine whether or not the conclusions drawn by Næss could indeed be derived from Spinoza’s view.

Deep ecology takes nature to be a complete whole, within which hu-mans have no preferred standing. As was discussed above, this is indeed compatible with Spinoza’s view; nature is an infinite totality, all within God and subject to the same laws of nature. Man is a part of nature just as much as any other thing in it is. Metaphysically, man has no preferred po-sition in nature. The interconnectedness of everything in nature, its being “a network of cause-effect relations connecting everything with every-thing” (Næss 1977, 48) also seems to be in keeping with Spinoza’s views.

The view according to which nature does not exist for the sake of human utility, which is at the core of the Deep Ecology perception, is also quite compatible; nature definitely does not exist for the sake of humans or their utility. Being only a part of nature, as described above, humans, like anything else in nature, are derived from the whole, as they are but fi-nite modes of it (of substance, God). They are derivative of a whole which is self caused, necessarily in existence, eternal, and infinite. As Spinoza shows (in the appendix to book I), it is not the case that all things in na-ture operate for the sake of ends that would benefit man, since God has created nature to function in this way, nor is it the case that man was cre-ated in order to worship God. The source of these views, Spinoza says, is


that men are ignorant of the real causes of things, and having found many things to be useful for them, since these things did not seem to have been self-created, nor were they created by men, they assumed they were cre-ated by some ruler of nature, and since their benefit of these things seemed so obvious to them, they assumed those things were created for them by this ruler or nature. As is made clear throughout book I and repeated in the appendix, to consider things that were created by God as purposes of any kind, as created for some ends, is an upside-down view of nature. The particular things observable in nature, whether useful to man or not, were necessary effects of necessary causes, all proceeding from God, who I accept this correction as-is is the most perfect. These particulars are out-comes of the ‘eternal necessity of Nature.’ and their level of perfection di-minishes as the chain of causes which brought them about gets longer, the farther they are from God as the immediate cause. Had they been an end for the sake of which things are made, they would have had to be more perfect than what precedes them. This is the opposite from the actual case. Another reason why it could not be that things in nature were created for some ends, is that God is the most perfect entity, by definition, and al-though he brings about the existence of other things, he does not do so for any end, otherwise it would have been clear that he is lacking something which he wanted to supplement himself with. It is then fully compatible with Spinoza’s views to claim that nature is not for the sake of humans.

The complexity of an organism, or its level of evolvement, do not en-tail superiority or added importance in the view of Deep Ecology. It also holds that there is no hierarchy in nature in terms of beauty, morality, or perfection. In letter XXXII, Spinoza writes: “I do not attribute to Nature beauty or ugliness, order or confusion.”20 It is only human imagination which attributes these properties to things in nature. From God’s point of view, or that of Spinoza’s, beauty or ugliness are not qualities that are at all found in nature. As explained above, humans, like any other object or organism, are parts of nature with exactly the same status. Nothing grants superior standing of any kind. As to perfection, though, things do differ in a way: the more immediately caused by God they are, the closer they are to perfection; but perfection is not taken by Spinoza to mean anything even remotely moral, or as a value judgment. The closer to perfection something is, the more real it is (E II D6), since it has more attributes, is caused by modes that are less derivative from the infinite ones, and so on. Still, this does not imply a hierarchy of worth or value.


Deep Ecology holds that the distinction between mind and matter, or between soul and body, is irrelevant. It also maintains that regarding these dyads as having different values, where the latter ones are consid-ered inferior to the former, or cruder than they are, does not hold. Indeed for Spinoza that would not be a relevant distinction, and doubly so: firstly, ‘the idea of the human body is the mind,’21 these are simply two aspects of the same thing. Thus the mind or ‘soul’ attributed to some objects of na-ture would have no role in granting them any preferred standing in rela-tion to others. Secondly—assigning different values to these is not simply irrelevant (given that there is no pertinent distinction between them), but is also something he explicitly opposes, on the same grounds as he does the assigning of beauty, ugliness etc.

Næss writes: “every being strives to preserve and develop its specific essence or nature” (ibid.). This rings similar to Ethics III P6: “Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being”. Since singular things are modes expressing God’s attributes, and are determinate expressions of God’s power, unless they are destroyed or terminated by another thing, they will not cease to exist. As long as it is not interrupted, every thing will endure. Many principles on which ecological thinking of the ‘deep’ kind is based are indeed very similar to, or at least compatible with, Spinoza’s view of nature. But it is not at all clear that the imperatives Næss and other deep ecologists derive from them are valid Spinozistic conclusions.

The unity of man with nature, or man’s being an integral part of na-ture was indeed established above as following from Spinoza’s depiction. “We are ourselves part of nature, with no privileged position that would allow us to claim exemption from its necessities” (Lloyd, 1994, 155). All particular things are manifold expressions of nature, of God. For Spinoza, that is all they are, modes, expressions of the power of God. “The more we understand singular things, the more we understand God” (V P24). All parts of nature are equally important, and are equally pertinent to the understanding of it. But Deep Ecology would take that a step further, and would derive from it a certain commitment between these parts. The notion that there is kinship between all creatures is quite senseless for Spinoza, especially if that kinship is to be derived from the interconnect-edness of nature. It is a logical fact, but with no moral implications. That everything strives to persevere is yet another such fact; for Næss this is taken as grounds for refraining from harming any natural being or object.


For Spinoza this is again only an added detail regarding the finite modes, or the nature of substance. That is precisely why, despite the similar basic assumptions regarding nature and man’s place in it, the conclusions of Deep Ecology cannot be derived from Spinoza’s Ethics. Metaphysically, there could be total agreement, but where Deep Ecology seeks to derive moral obligation or commitment, it fails to adhere to Spinoza, and in fact strays away from him in essential ways. For Spinoza no ‘ought’ could be posed; not only does he not derive any such imperatives himself,22 but because this is not anything his system allows for. If nature is all inter-connected bodies with equal stature, it is because of the necessity of the nature of God; these things are necessary,23 not a product of choice, and there is no scale for their evaluation, moral or other24.

Deep Ecology presents an ecocentric point of view which is to be preferred over the anthropocentric one. Such a distinction involves a few presuppositions. First, it must be assumed that man is somehow separate from nature, or could posit himself separately from it, and chose a focus, whether himself or the ecosystem. It has become clear from all that was said above that this is not at all an option in Spinoza’s view. He writes explicitly against the anthropocentric view of nature (in the appendix to I) as mistaken view, based on ignorance of real causes. Further, for Spinoza, man cannot be seen as separate from nature, but a part of it; but that is not to say that thus the view of nature has to be ecocentric; in fact, the distinction between these two positions seems nonsensical within Spino-za’s worldview. Man, animals, and the rest of the biosphere are all nothing in themselves but modes of the attributes of God. Within the Spinozistic nature, all creatures are equally central or marginal. It is God, Nature, substance, which is the first and efficient cause, the source of all that ex-ists, and eternal, and thus the only worthy center of the ‘world’, or at least of attention, if anything is to be that.

A similar problem arises with the view of man as exploiting nature, resources or animals. Since the Spinozistic nature is a system of inter-dependencies between bodies, an all-encompassing network of neces-sary causal relations, it is hard to see how any value could be assigned to certain relations between these bodies, and what could be a source for evaluating these relations. It is also impossible to attribute different classification to certain acts or operations as ‘natural’ versus ‘artificial’, or ‘against nature’ if all phenomena are necessarily caused and abiding


by the same natural laws. Calling something ‘artificial’ establishes a dis-tinction between what is naturally caused and what is made by man, but not only is there no human free will, there also is no causation in nature that is not necessary and originating in God; the distinction thus cannot be made at all. The fully naturalistic system which Spinoza presents also effectively does not allow for any moral discourse; just like “truth is its own standard”(II P43s), there is no sense in talking about any parts of the causal chain as bearing value; there is nothing in this system to ground a standard of values like that.

Næss writes: “Every life form has in principle the right to live and blossom. As the world is made, of course, we have to kill in order to eat, but there is a basic intuition in deep ecology that we have no right to destroy other living beings without sufficient reason. …we will grieve when living beings, including landscapes, are destroyed.… For deep ecology, there is a core democracy in the biosphere.” (Næss 1993a, 184–85)

Somewhat surprisingly, the implication that everything in nature is animate is not that far-fetched in relation to Spinoza. It could be claimed that because of the unity of body and mind everything is equally animate or inanimate. Spinoza says, in his discussion of minds and bodies: “the things we have shown so far are completely general and do not pertain more to man than to other individuals, all of which though in different degrees, are nevertheless animate” (II P13S). The same laws of nature hold for everything, and animation is attributed to anything of which there is an idea (a mind). The different degrees reflect the distance from the effi-cient cause, the degrees to which it is removed from the individual object. The first problem which arises here is the notion of ‘right’—there is noth-ing to ground a right of any sort. Since everything in nature is necessary, the most that could be said is that things are simply as they are; nothing beyond a description of states of affairs could be given. There is no tran-scendent source of value, right or morality. Even God is not transcendent, and the Spinozistic God is not one that occupies himself with any such issues altogether. The notion of ‘democracy in the biosphere’ seems to as-sume a certain equality between the components of this sphere, which as said above, might be said to exist. But if a democracy of that sort implies any sort of freedom or of choice, then this is again a nonsensical claim in the Spinozistic world view, where “the will cannot be called a free cause,


but only a necessary one” (I P32) since it, too, like motion and rest or any other natural phenomenon, follows necessarily from God.

Although the general view of Nature on which Deep Ecology grounds itself is quite compatible with that of Spinoza’s, and is sometimes that very same view, Spinoza does not arrive at the same conclusions at which Deep Ecology does. As discussed above, these conclusions do not quite follow directly from the view of nature they are based on, and some added no-tions are necessarily added to them, some that would no longer be in keeping with Spinoza’s thought, such as moral obligations, imperatives, or rights and values that follow from the state of necessarily caused things. I will now turn to Spinoza’s own views regarding man’s relation to other animals, and try to evaluate what moral standing towards nature could be derived from them, and whether or not they are consistent with his view of man as a part of nature.

3. at your DiSPoSal: SPiNoza’S relatioN to aNiMalS

Spinoza describes what is commonly referred to as moral behavior—altruism, compassion, help and so on—as grounded in utility and self-ben-efit. Helping one another is a useful way for people to “provide themselves much more easily with the things they require” (IVP35S). The more one seeks one’s own advantage,25 the greater one’s power of acting is, and the more one is useful to others (IV P35C2). But that only applies in relation to other human beings. “[W]hat is most useful to man is what most agrees with his nature” (IV P35C1), and that is other human beings.

Animals can feel, but their feelings differ from those of man inasmuch as their natures are different; “we cannot in any way doubt that the lower animals feel things” (IIIp57s), but this does not oblige us to any form of behavior towards the feeling creatures. In fact, there is actually no good reason to refrain from killing animals, or using anything in nature in any way we might wish to do so:

“Apart from men we know no singular thing in nature whose Mind we can enjoy, and which we can join ourselves in friendship, or some kind of association. And so whatever there is in nature apart from men, the principle of seeking our own advantage does not demand that we preserve it. Instead, it teaches us to preserve or destroy it ac-cording to its use, or to adapt it to our use in any way whatever.” (IV, Appendix XXVI)


Our commitment is only towards what is like us, and since animals do differ from humans in their nature, we need not regard them as any-thing but potentially useful objects. Nothing can be considered good for us, “except insofar as it agrees with our nature” (IV P31C); and so, “[t]he rational principle of seeking our own advantage teaches us to establish a bond with men, but not with the lower animals, or with things whose nature is different from human nature” (IV P37S1). Refraining from kill-ing animals is thus not reasonable, but only based on “empty superstition and unmanly compassion” (ibid.). Humans’ right to act is “defined by his virtue or power” (ibid.),26 thus a greater ability to act entails a greater right to act; and “men have far greater right against the lower animals than they have against men” (ibid.), because humans have reason, which allows them to understand more of nature; in comparison with animals they understand more and can do more. In addition to that, our power of acting can’t be affected by something whose nature is completely different from ours (IV P29).27 It is not that animals are completely different from us; had that been the case, we would also not have been able to act on them at all. But they are different enough to license their use by humans. Spinoza says he does not deny “that the lower animals have sensations. But I do deny that we are therefore not permitted to consider our own ad-vantage, use them at our pleasure, and treat them as is most convenient to us. For they do not agree in nature with us, and their affects are different in nature from human affects” (IV P37S1). That difference is enough to set us apart from animals. Although they are not completely different such that we would not be able to acknowledge their feelings, their natures are different enough from ours so that we do not need to consider them the same. Certain feelings we can have are only considered inasmuch as they are felt towards humans (e.g. hate, E IVP45S). Even though we can identify feelings in animals, there is no imperative to be compassionate. Pity is irrational and useless (IV P50), one should help if one can, instead of feeling pity. But that, again, is true only in relation to humans. And if that could be said in relation to animals, it of course applies even more strongly to the rest of nature than is not taken to be sentient.

Spinoza claims that animals can feel, very differently from Descartes’s view on the matter. 28 They are different from humans, but it is more of a quantitative difference than it is one of quality; their feelings are also different from us, but are still legible to us insofar as we are similar. Given


Spinoza’s account of the unity of body and mind, there is no ground for assuming a sharp divide between the feelings of humans and those of other creatures, as they are still both subject to the same laws of nature, created necessarily of the same initial cause, and are both modes of the same at-tributes and substance. “All this means that the possession of reason does not separate human beings out from the rest of nature. Rather, it makes us aware of our integration with it” (Lloyd 1994, 155). Still, this integration with nature does not entail a moral obligation of any kind to the rest of nature. Lloyd (1980) tries to account for this seeming tension by introduc-ing the idea of a moral community of humans, within which such obliga-tions could exist, but which excludes non-humans. Animals may feel, but as their sensations are different, they cannot be seen as fully agreeing with our nature, and thus they are not part of the human moral community inside which humans are acting in a way that is useful to one another in order to secure their own benefits. In relation to animals and the rest of nature, humans can attain their benefits without needing to take others’ considerations into account. While some rights may be derived from each creature’s striving to exist and power to act, moral rights are a separate level of rights, species-relative, ones that apply within a moral community of creatures who collaborate with each other in the pursuit of reason in a way which is particular and common only to humans.29 Spinoza’s ac-knowledgement of the fact that animals could feel, is then by no means a basis for concern for the well-being of animals or of nature.

As Næss (1980) points out, concepts as ‘moral right’, ‘moral commu-nity’ and the like are foreign to Spinoza’s system. Thus, as he points out, Lloyd’s account does not quite reconcile Spinoza’s derivation of animals’ equal stature in nature and their having feelings with the differentiating approach to their well-being. As he shows, since humans and animals are not said to be altogether different, but in fact do have some traits in com-mon, that at least does not preclude humans’ acting for the benefit of animals (Næss 1980, 318), in a manner similar to that of people acting for the benefit of humans who do not share in their reason: babies, the in-sane, and the debilitated. As Næss concludes, despite the fact that Spinoza presented a speciesist view, his system does not necessarily entail such a position. (Næss 1980, 323).


NoteS

1 All references to Spinoza’s work are to the Ethics, unless otherwise noted; all quotations from the Ethics are from Spinoza 1994.

2 Curley 1988, 12–15. 3 It is disputed whether attributes are objective facts regarding the substance or

whether they are subjective perceptions of it, some intra-intellectual reflection of the substance’s essence, as was pointed out e.g. by Garrtett (2003, 23); it seems less consistent with the rest of Spinoza’s views that it would be the lat-ter. I take them to mean something perceived by the intellect in direct relation to the objective trait of the substance (by I A6).

4 ‘Infinitely many attributes’ is understood as ‘all possible attributes’ in order for these inferences to hold; this is indeed the common way of understanding it (Curley 1988, 10)

5 Garrett 2003, 24. 6 E I A6 : “A true idea must agree with its object”, and these ideas would agree

with no object. 7 Garrett 2003, 30. 8 Garrett 2003, 30; Bennett 1984, 29. See below for a discussion of man as part

of nature. 9 In the earlier non-geometric draft of the Ethics, Spinoza does equate the two,

nature and God, explicitly: “[S]ince Nature or God is one being…it is neces-sary that…there is…an infinite idea which contains in itself objectively the whole of Nature” Short Treatise, Second Appendix, (in A Spinoza Reader, p. 59).

10 ‘He’ here seems to refer to God, as in the original proposition. 11 They have reason and more power/virtue; I return to that later. 12 Letter XXX, to H. Oldenburg, Sept. or Oct. 1665. Spinoza 1966, 205. 13 I P13 14 “By reality and perfection I understand the same thing” (II D6). 15 I P16C1 16 Letter XXXII, to H. Oldenburg, Nov. 20 1665, Spinoza 1966, 210. 17 Ibid., pp. 211–12. 18 Ibid., Spinoza 1966, 212. 19 Also Spinoza 1966, 212. 20 Spinoza 1966, 210. 21 II P13, Spinoza 1966, 212. 22 On Spinoza’s view regarding the relation to animals and nature see below. 23 Nothing is contingent in nature (I P29); even the will is not free, but a nec-

essary cause (I P32), because everything is caused by the necessity of God’s nature.

24 Spinoza 1966, 210.


25 That is, its own preservation, as best as possible: “[e]ach thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being” (III P6)

26 One’s virtue and power to act are expressions of one’s essence, and are equal to one’s striving to persevere and preserve oneself by acting (IV D8, III P7).

27 The reasoning is similar to the way in which bodies (or even, hypothetically, substances) can limit and define one another but cannot determine something with which they have nothing in common.

28 That animals are automata, purely mechanical, with no mind associated with their bodies. They cannot feel, nor do they have any trace of reason whatso-ever. (Discourse on Method, AT VI 58–59). Indeed, as pointed out by Sessions (1977), this difference stems from a far more fundamental one: Contrary to Descartes (as well as Bacon, Leibniz, and the entire project of Enlightenment) Spinoza’s inquiry was intended primarily to promote self-knowledge and knowledge of God as nature, rather than towards a mastery of this nature as a means for human progress.

29 Lloyd 1980, 296–97, 301, 303.

refereNceS

Bennett, Jonathan. 1984. A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett.Curley, Edwin M. 1988. Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza’s

Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Descartes, René. 1988 [1637]. Discourse on Method. In The Philosophical Writ-

ings Of Descartes, Volume 1, translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 20–56 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Garrett, Aaron V. 2003. Meaning in Spinoza’s Method. Cambridge, UK: Cam-bridge University Press.

Lloyd, Genevieve. 1980. “Spinoza’s Environmental Ethics.” Inquiry 23: 293–311.———. 1994. Part of Nature: Self-Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press.———. 1996. Spinoza and the Ethics. London, UK: Routledge.Næss, Arne. 1973. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement:

A Summary.” Inquiry 16: 95–100. ———. 1977. “Spinoza and Ecology.” Philosophia 7: 45–54.———. 1980. “Environmental Ethics and Spinoza’s Ethics: Comments on Genevieve

Lloyd’s Article.” Inquiry 23: 313–25.———. 1989. Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, Re-

vised edition. Translated by D. Rothenberg. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

———. 1993. “Simple in Means, Rich in Ends.” In Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology edited by M. Zimmerman, J.B. Calli-cott, G. Sessions, K.J. Warren, J. Clark, 182–92. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.


———. 1993a. “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects.” In Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology edited by M. Zimmerman, J.B. Callicott, G. Sessions, K.J. Warren, J. Clark, 193–212. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Sessions, George. 1977. “Spinoza and Jeffers on Man in Nature,” Inquiry, 20: 481–528.

———. 1993.“Deep Ecology: Introduction.” In Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology edited by M. Zimmerman, J.B. Callicott, G. Sessions, K.J. Warren, J. Clark, 161–70. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Spinoza, Benedict. [1677] 1994. Ethics. In A Spinoza Reader, translated and ed-ited by Edwin M. Curley, 85–276. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

———. 1966. The correspondence of Spinoza. Translated and edited by A. Wolf. NY: Russel and Russel.

Wilson, Margaret Dauler. 1999. “’For They Do Not Agree in Nature With Us’: Spinoza on the Lower Animals.” In Wilson, M.D., Ideas and Mechanism: Es-says on Early Modern Philosophy, 178–95. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

ETHICS & THE ENVIRONMENT, 18(1) 2013 ISSN: 1085-6633

NOTES ON CONTRIbuTORS

Katy Fulfer recently completed a PhD in philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, where she is also a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy. As of August, she will be the Libman Professor of the Hu-manities at Hood College. She specializes in feminist applied ethics. Katy’s work is particularly interested in the intersection between globalization politics, reproductive ethics, and justice towards the environment. E-mail: [email protected]

John Hadley is Research Lecturer in Philosophy in the School of Humani-ties and Communication Arts at the University of Western Sydney. He was formerly Lecturer in Communication Ethics in the School of Communica-tion and a lecturer in philosophy in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University. E-mail: [email protected]

Myra J. Hird is Professor and Queen’s National Scholar in the School of Environmental Studies, Queen’s University, Canada (www.myrahird.com). Professor Hird is Director of the genera Research Group (gRG), an interdisciplinary research network of collaborating natural, social, and humanities scholars, and Director of Waste Flow, an interdisciplinary re-search project focused on waste as a global scientific-technical and socio-ethical issue (www.wasteflow.ca). Hird has published eight books and over fifty articles and book chapters on a diversity of topics relating to science studies. E-mail: [email protected]

Gal Kober is an assistant professor in the department of philosophy at Bridgewater State University. Her work is centered mostly in Applied Eth-ics and in Philosophy of Biology. She graduated from Boston University in 2010, having completed a dissertation on the concept species in evolution-ary biology and its dysfunction. E-mail: [email protected]

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