Law as Adequate Emotion: Spinoza’s Legacy
Abstract
Spinoza might solve the Body-Mind problem with parallelism: physical events are correlated instantly by mental events, which are ideas. Everyone has a force (Conatus) needing a direction (Emotion) to create a motion (Action). With adequate knowledge (Reason), we can reallocate the Emotion adequately to empower us. Modern Spinozism can be summed up as: full naturalism, radical determinism, theoretical antihumanism, denunciation of methodological individualism, and pure relational approach of human realities. Bringing Spinoza in nowadays analysis of law unfolds two paths of study: law is institutions that redirect emotions; law is a tool for emancipation of passions. This leads to four major consequences: legal power is factual power; normativity is based on positive emotions more than on negative ones such as coercion; legal rules are a factor of autonomy and empowerment; jurisprudence can be a causal science.
Keywords
Spinoza | Legal theory | Conatus | Emotion | Free will | Determinism | Naturalism | Emancipation | Normativity | Epigenetic epistemology