Substance, essence and attribute in Spinoza, Ethics I

Both Descartes before Spinoza and Leibniz after him continued the medieval Aristotelian tradition of 'supernaturalizing' Aristotle's conception of God as first substance, and of treating God as the creator of natural substances. Because Spinoza adopts the terminology of that tradition, while identifying Nature with God, he is widely taken to supernaturalize Nature. This presupposes that he conceives his metaphysical axioms as the medievals did theirs, as true of all logically possible worlds, and per se nota to the human intellect. Unlike them, however, he holds that the "mechanical principles of nature," while per se nota, are true only of the actual world. This suggests that his conception of what is per se no tum in metaphysics is holistic, and presumes experience of the actual world. Assuming this, it is shown that his theory of substance in Ethics I must be elucidated on naturalist lines. The objection raised by de Vries to ElplOs, that really distinct attributes cannot, as Spinoza maintains, constitute one and the same substance (or essence of a substance), is shown to be valid on the 'supernaturalizing' interpretation of Spinoza's theory, and Spinoza's replies to it in Ep9 and ElplOs are shown to be question-begging. However, on the naturalist interpretation of it, Spinoza's doctrine in ElplOs is shown to be defensible. Pollock's explanation of why his arguments in ElplOs and Eplld are incompatible with the naturalist interpretation is adopted

Morality, Property and Slavery

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1981, given by Alan Donagan (1925-1991)

Lifespan extension and the doctrine of double effect

Recent developments in biogerontology—the study of the biology of ageing—suggest that it may eventually be possible to intervene in the human ageing process. This, in turn, offers the prospect of significantly postponing the onset of age-related diseases. The biogerontological project, however, has met with strong resistance, especially by deontologists. They consider the act of intervening in the ageing process impermissible on the grounds that it would (most probably) bring about an extended maximum lifespan—a state of affairs that they deem intrinsically bad. In a bid to convince their deontological opponents of the permissibility of this act, proponents of biogerontology invoke an argument which is grounded in the doctrine of double effect. Surprisingly, their argument, which we refer to as the ‘double effect argument’, has gone unnoticed. This article exposes and critically evaluates this ‘double effect argument’. To this end, we first review a series of excerpts from the ethical debate on biogerontology in order to substantiate the presence of double effect reasoning. Next, we attempt to determine the role that the ‘double effect argument’ is meant to fulfil within this debate. Finally, we assess whether the act of intervening in ageing actually can be justified using double effect reasoning

Existence and the ontological proof

In the lines, 'This was the Noblest Roman of them all All the Conspirators save onely hee, Did that they did, in envy of great Caesar:' occur expressions the functions of which, though distinct, are often confounded. In the first line, the word 'this' is used to point something out; in the third, the word 'that' refers to an action. These words may be used to point out or refer to any thing, event, quality, state or relation you choose. Other words and expressions have similar functions: 'there' may be used to point out a place, and 'thither' a direction; 'here' to refer to where the speaker is, 'hither' to the direction in which he is. 'How' and 'then' are used in analogous ways. Such uses have been felt to pose various problems. How can an expression point out now one thing, now another, without changing in meaning? This question reveals a confusion between the meaning of an expression and what it is employed to do on a particular occasion