Summary: Ethics (page 9)

One solution is for men to renounce their natural right and agree together not to harm one another by entering into society.

Since an affect can only be countered by a stronger affect, one affect—such as the desire to rob someone—will be resisted by another affect, namely the fear of greater harm: in this case, punishment by society.

It is worth recalling that Part IV is devoted to explaining the reasons for human servitude—man being subject to the power of the affects. Yet, even here, Spinoza introduces the means by which we can achieve freedom: by resisting the power of the affects.

It is enough to harness the power of the affects themselves, turning some of them against others and allowing them to neutralise each other.

Spinoza presents a second path to liberation: For all the actions to which we are determined by an affect that is a passion, we can also be determined without it—by reason ¹.

Reason is capable of generating certain desires within us, and these desires, insofar as they arise from reason, will lead us to pursue what is best for us—that is, what is adequately conceived by man's essence alone ². Indeed, a desire that is born of reason cannot be excessive ³.

We can therefore free ourselves from the grip of the affects by using reason to cultivate others that are more fitting or more beneficial.

Fear is not among the reasonable affects: Whoever is led by fear and does good only to avoid evil is not led by reason ⁴.

To act according to reason is to act out of joy or desire. It is the superstitious who seek to hold evil at bay through fear of death. The wise man, by contrast, is one who has overcome this fear and no longer gives it any thought:

The free man thinks of nothing less than death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death, but on life ⁵.

Ultimately, we must bear with equanimity whatever befalls us—including painful events that we could not avoid given the limits of our power: Man's power is extremely limited and infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes ⁶. This final point bears a strong resemblance to Stoicism: accepting events as they come, without giving way to negative passions such as sadness, fear, or envy.

Part V: On the Power of the Intellect, in Other Words, Human Freedom

This part of the Ethics is devoted to its second major theme: the path that leads to freedom ⁷.

Spinoza has demonstrated the power of the affects—unlike the Stoics, he does not believe that we have absolute control over them: We do not hold absolute dominion over our affects ⁸.

He also criticises Descartes' theory of the pineal gland and animal spirits, as developed in The Passions of the Soul. True human freedom, then, does not lie in Cartesian free will.

We must look elsewhere for the means by which we can free ourselves from the power of the affects.

Every affect is always linked to the idea of an external cause. If we succeed in removing from our minds the idea of this external cause, we free ourselves from the affect associated with it: If we take away an emotion from the soul—in other words, an affect from the thought of an external cause—and connect it to other thoughts, then the love or hatred towards that external cause, as well as the fluctuations of the soul arising from these affects, will be destroyed ⁹.

Since love or hatred arise from joy or sadness accompanied by the idea of an external cause, ceasing to dwell on that cause—whether a person we love without return, or someone we hate—is enough to loosen the grip of these negative passions.

¹ IV, prop. 59
² IV, prop. 61, demonstration
³ IV, prop. 61
⁴ IV, prop. 63
⁵ IV, prop. 67
⁶ IV, appendix, chap.32
⁷ V, preface
⁸ ibid.
⁹ V, prop. 2