Will, Sovereignty, and the Self in the Ethics and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

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Abstract In chapter IV of the Tractatus theologico-politicus (TTP), Spinoza distinguishes between two kinds of law, one that “depends … on a necessity of nature,” the other “on a human decision.” This chapter considers the relation of these two kinds of law to each other and to the ground of sovereign authority. Although Spinoza attacks the idea of a free will, he insists that we treat the second kind of law as if it resulted from a free decision of the human sovereign. His view that it is a practical necessity to hold the second view—a quasi-free-will—has consequences for his later work, particularly the structure of the Ethics. Achieving the highest good is no longer simply a matter of using reason to correct the mistaken notion of the free will. Instead, we must recognize that the quasi-free will is itself part of the process of ethical self-improvement. Spinoza uses a concept that is explicit in his early works—a “being of reason”—to make sense of the human will, the sovereign will, and the product of those acts.