1. The former paper may be found inSpinoza: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. M. Grene (Garden City [N.Y.], Doubleday, 1973), pp. 354–76; the latter, inSpinoza: Essays in Interpretation, ed. M. Mandelbaum and E. Freeman (LaSalle [Ill], Open Court, 1975), pp. 85–100. More particularly, like Curley and Frankena themselves, I am concerned to understand the view(s), presented by Spinoza in Part IV of hisEthics and, even more particularly, in the Preface and Definitions for that Part—materials which do constitute the “heart” of Spinoza's metaethical theory. Accordingly, I shall make nosystematic attempt to relate Spinoza's views there to views advanced by him elsewhere, much less to arrive at an interpretation of the former views by seeing them “in the light” of such other passages. Upon occasion, however, I shall find it helpful to compare what Spinoza is saying in (that portion of) theEthics with the views which he advances in certain other works. Throughout I use the W.H. White translation of theEthics, unless otherwise noted. I quote also from Wolf's translation of theShort Treatise, and from my own (unpublished) translation of theTreatise on the Improvement of the Understanding.
2. Cf. C.D. Broad'sFive Types of Ethical Theory (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1930), Ch. II.
3. In order not to make this paper unduly complicated, and in order tofocus my disagreements with Curley and with Frankena concerning the interpretation of Spinoza. I shall not question their (implied) view that the most plausible alternative to a “naturalistic ethics” is one of the sort now associated most commonly with Hare. In fact, however, Hare's view has been subjected to very basic and telling criticisms, and rather more “sophisticated” metaethical positions have been advanced than those which Curley and Frankena cite. In any case, I shall not here question the Harean view that ‘good’ and ‘ought’ have sufficient similarities to warrant one's classifying them together simply as “value-words” (cf.The Language of Morals [Oxford, 1952], p. 153). That is, I shall ignore the point— raised so forcibly earlier in this century by, e.g., Ross and developed by certain more recent thinkers— that the “logic” of so-called deontic terms may be fundamentally different from that of genuinely evaluative ones, and, hence (though this latter is certainly no part of Ross view), that it is quite possible that the former terms are not to be analyzed naturalistically whereas the latter are correctly so analyzed. Nor shall I question Hare's view that the primary linguistic function of all “value-words”, (including, for him, deontic terms) is commendation. My concluding remarks about the role of commendings or commendations in Spinoza's positive account of ethics should, therefore, be understood as being designedly somewhat “loose.” Such a procedure may not be altogethercommendable, but I do think it justified by the reasons already indicated!
4. One might all too easily get sidetracked, when one attempts to determine whether that account fits Spinoza's actual procedure or squares with his own brief metaethical remarks, by questioning whether, in Spinoza's own view, the “facts” of ethics areempirically ascertainable. It is, surely, true that Spinoza is no empiricist, and true also that the entireEthics is written from the standpoint of what Spinoza calls “reason” (or, maybe, even “intuitive science”) rather than from that inferior standpoint which he dismisses as that of “vague experience” (cf. Part II, Prop. XL., Schol. 2). Instead of trying to determine whether Spinoza recognizes a kind ofexperience which is not vague, it would seem more profitable, at least in the present context, to rephrase the second Frankenian account, once again, so that it does not beg or even appear to beg the rationalist/empiricist question. Let us then say that the ethical naturalist takes the meaning of (typical) ethical judgments or utterances to consist, at least primarily, in the statement or the description of (alleged) facts which are ascertainable in whatever way(s) he supposes the facts that provide the data for (his) metaphysics, epistemology, or psychology are ascertained or are ascertainable. Following Moore (but not exactly!), we may dub the latter ways “naturalistic” — that is, we may emplop ‘naturalistic’ as such a technical term (for the moment disregarding its ordinary meanings or associations). Hence, we may label any ethicist as a naturalist provided thata) he holds that the primary business of (typical) ethical judgments or utterances is indeed to state or describe (alleged) facts, andb) holds that the ascertainment of those facts requires in principle no means other than those which, on his view, are required for the ascertainment of the facts with which those other domains of philosophy deal. If one happens to be an empiricist as well as an ethical naturalist, then, of course, one will hold that the ethical “facts” in question are empirically ascertainable.
5. It needs to be added that, as the context of the former passage (from Part I) makes clear, Spinoza means to be talking there about a thing's ability to exist (as manifested in its actual existence) from its own internal resources, as it were, and not merely insofar as it is kept going by other things (over which it itself has no control).