A few poor reflections relating Spinoza’s Ethics to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and Plato:
- It is the nature of being to exist.
- In de-essentialized/Darwinized terms, we can call being that which persists. Anything we identify as existing (having being) has some persistence through time.
- According to that nature, anything that exists strives to continue to exist; For if it did not, it would be contrary to the nature of being.
- This ceaseless striving for continued existence is the will common to all.
- Given this nature, anything that increases the power of a thing to exist is for that thing good.
- Likewise, anything that decreases the power of a thing to exist is for that thing bad.
- Given this common will, everything seeks what it perceives as good and avoids what it perceives as bad.
- This avoidance of bad and attraction to good in order to increase a thing’s power to exist is the will to power common to all.
- Beings with intellect can be mistaken about that which is for it good or bad.
- In such cases, vice and evil is attributable to ignorance.