BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
They would, however, have had no hope of achieving this had they
con¢ned themselves only to the promptings of desire ^ for, by the laws of
appetite, everyone is drawn in di¡erent directions.Thus, they had to make
a ¢rm decision, and reach agreement, to decide everything by the sole
dictate of reason (which no one dares contradict openly for fear of appearing
perfectly mindless). They had to curb their appetites so far as their
desires suggested things which would hurt someone else, and refrain from
doing anything to anyone they did not want done to themselves. Finally,
they were obliged to defend other people’s rights as their own.
[6] Now we must consider how this agreement has to be made if it is to
be accepted and endure. For it is a universal law of human nature that no
one neglects anything that they deem good unless they hope for a greater
192 good or fear a greater loss, and no one puts up with anything bad except
to avoid something worse or because he hopes for something better.
That is, of two good things every single person will choose the one
which he himself judges to be the greater good, and of two bad things he
will choose that which he deems to be less bad. 3 I say expressly what
appears to him the greater or lesser good when he makes this choice,
since the real situation is not necessarily as he judges it to be. This law is
so ¢rmly inscribed in human nature that it may be included among the
eternal truths that no one can fail to know. It necessarily follows that no
one will promise without deception 4 to give up his right to all things,
and absolutely no one will keep his promises except from fear of a greater
ill or hope of a greater good.
To understand this better, imagine that a highwayman forces me to
promise to give him all I have, at his demand. Since my natural right is
determined by my power alone, as I have already shown, it is certain that if
I can free myself from him by deceit, by promising whatever he wants,
I may by the law of nature do so, i.e., I may fraudulently agree to whatever
he demands. Or suppose that I have made a promise to someone in good
faith not to taste food or any sustenance for a space of twenty days and only
later realize that my promise was stupid and that I cannot keep it without
doing myself a great deal of harm. Since I am obliged by natural right to
choose the lesser of two evils, I have a sovereign right to break the bond of
3 This doctrine, developed more fully in Spinoza’s Ethics, functions consistently throughout his work
as a fundamental principle of his psychology, his moral philosophy and his political thought.
4 Spinoza’s footnote: see Annotation 32.
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