Robert Purgert

PHL 302
Selfish Motivations Leading to Harmonious Results
In his Ethics, Spinoza puts forth an idea of body and mind in which body is a
mode of extended matter and the mind is a mode of thought. Still, the body and mind are one
unified thing, and since thought and extension are ordered in the same way there is a sort of
interaction between the mind and body. This is important because it means that if we are able to
train our minds to do something then our bodies will also follow this order. This is a critical point
for Spinoza, and it allows him to come to his final objective, which is to convince readers that if
they learn to control their emotions by using their minds, they will be able to live in harmony
with other living bodies, and living in harmony is desirable because it will help them to reach
their own selfish goals most effectively the greatest goal and greatest good being to know God.
Spinozas way of thinking is revolutionary, because it aims to create a society where motivation
is maximized because all actions are carried out through selfish interest, yet harmony is also
maximized because we know that harmony helps us to best serve our selfish interests. This paper
will aim to more clearly define mind, body, their relationship, and how we are able to master
emotions. Also, it will delve deeper into why the mastery of emotions is important for self
improvement and how this will help to improve society as a whole.
For Spinoza, the human body is a mode of the attribute of extended matter, an attribute
being an eternal thing that belongs to the only substance God. On a more individual level, the
body is a single thing composed of very many individual parts of different natures (page 76).
Since the body is a thing in extended nature, it is capable of being acted upon by external bodies,
and in turn it is capable of acting on other external bodies. The mind on the other hand, is a much
less concrete thing: That which constitutes the actual being of the human mind is basically

nothing else but the idea of an individual actually existing thing (70). This means that the mind
has no material aspect to it, rather the only thing keeping it in existence is that God chooses to
have an idea that a mind exists. However, this makes the mind no more dependent on God than
the body, because the body also only exists because God conceives of an extended thing in the
form of a body. In this way, they are unified as one individual thing, conceived now under the
attribute of thought and now under the attribute of extension (81).
One might argue that the mind and body are of two different attributes extension and
thought so how could they possibly interact with one another in any way? Spinoza can respond
to this by referring to proposition 7 in part II: The order and connection of ideas is the same as
the order and connection of things (66). In this way, there is a unification of the two, and a sort
of interaction between them, because for any thing that acts upon the body there is a
corresponding idea which simultaneously acts upon the mind, and vice versa. For example, any
time information is gathered by the body through sensory organs, there are also corresponding
ideas being taken in by the mind simultaneously because that is the way that the universe is
necessarily ordered. Also, when a thought rises up from the mind, there may be a corresponding
action that is brought forth by the body. From this, we can begin to see that when we control
emotions in our mind, we are able to keep our body from acting out in undesirable ways.
For every emotion that is experienced, there will be a thought of the emotion in the mind
and a corresponding action taken by the body. If we passively allow our emotions to govern us,
then there can often be very dangerous consequences. For example, when one experiences the
emotion of hate toward anther person, there is often a corresponding negative action, sometimes
something as extreme as murder. We, however, are not condemned to live a life of being
governed by passive emotions, because A passive emotion ceases to be a passive emotion as

soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it (204). We can form clear and distinct ideas of
emotions strictly through the mind, and as the idea of the emotion becomes less confused and
more distinct, the emotion will no longer be a passively experienced thing. We can know the
emotion, understand how it is acting on us, and then appropriately respond in an active way.
Furthermore, we know that we can master every emotion, because There is no affection of the
body of which we cannot form a clear and distinct conception (204). Since the emotion is an
idea of an affection of the body, it is able to be known to us. Because of this, every person has
the capacity to master their emotions. Now that we can see how emotions are able to be
mastered, I will demonstrate how this fits in to being to the advantage of each person.
First, we begin with the fact that the essence of every living thing is its conatus, the
desire to preserve itself (108). For every man, by the laws of his own nature, he necessarily seeks
what he judges to be good and avoids what he judges to be evil. In other words, he always seeks
what is best for himself and his survival. The better man is able to seek his own advantage, the
greater virtue he has (165). However, the only way that man can act from virtue is when he uses
reason, for this is the only way that he can know that he is succeeding in preserving his own
being. When man uses reason, he will see that nothing else is to his advantage expect what
conduces to understanding. Since God is the highest object a mind can understand, it is the
highest good to know God (168). Now, while this explanation of the highest good was long
winded, it was necessary to show the reason behind why all humans who use reason will
eventually seek the same thing. This is where emotions come into play. When humans desire the
same thing, many emotions are bound to arise because we naturally feel the need to be the sole
owner of the thing we desire. This is seen most clearly in our world by people who judge money
to be a good thing to seek. There is constant competition and each person wants to have more

than the other. When this competition arises, many emotions also arise within us emotions such
as hatred and anger. If these emotions are passively experienced and unclear within the mind,
they can often lead to catastrophic consequences such as robbery, murder, or even large scale
war. These same emotions can apply even when dealing with a less concrete idea, such as God.
Religions are in constant competition to show that their depiction of God is better than another
because they are guided by their emotions rather than reason, and because of this religion can be
one of the most common motivations for war. From this we can see that failure to master our
emotions not only hurts our conatus, it also takes away our freedom to seek God in peace, thus
taking us farther from the greatest good. It can now clearly be seen why mastery of our emotions
is of critical importance if we wish to come to know God most successfully.
This knowledge allows us to see the greatest beauty of the system that Spinoza has set up,
which is that to reach the highest good for society and for ourselves we never have to go against
our human nature that is, we still only need to seek what is best for ourselves. In other words,
we should strive to know God because it is the greatest good, but we should also strive to master
our emotions so that we may live in harmony. However, we do not strive to live in harmony for
some romantic notion of a greater good of all people but rather because it gives us the peace
we need to reach an understanding of God for ourselves. If all were to come to understand this
philosophy, then world peace would simply be an effortless byproduct of our existence. This
theoretical universe may be far fetched, but if this philosophy is practiced on a personal level,
one still has the opportunity to better oneself, and thus better the world in at least a small way.