#title Lloyd and Naess on Spinoza as Eco-Philosopher #author John Clark #date 1998 #source Philosophical Dialogues: Arne Naess and the Progress of Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), pp. 102–106. <[[https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/philosophical-dialogues-9781461640769/][www.bloomsbury.com]]> & <[[https://www.academia.edu/8759123/_Lloyd_and_Naess_on_Spinoza_as_Eco_philosopher_][www.academia.edu]]> #isbn 9781461640769 #lang en #pubdate 2026-01-15T11:08:27 #topics philosophy, Spinoza, environmentalism, Genevieve Lloyd and Arne Naess take widely divergent approaches to the problem of assessing Spinoza’s contribution to ecological thought. For Lloyd, it is a matter of weighing the ecological against the non-ecological aspects of the philosopher’s position. After putting both on the scales, she finds too much weight on the non-ecological side to make Spinoza a suitable “patron” for ecologists. Naess adopts, I would argue, a more reasonable methodology. He examines Spinoza’s system as a whole, in order to determine its contribution to the development of ecological thought. While he wisely dismisses the suggestion that the great heretic be named anyone’s “patron,” he finds the philosopher’s system to be an abundant source of inspiration for ecological thinking. The case for Spinoza’s relevance to ecology is, I think, as least as strong as Naess claims it to be. If we consider Spinoza in the context of the history of Western philosophies of nature, this becomes quite apparent. The dominant tendencies in modern European thought have pointed in directions that are far from hospitable to an ecological perspective. On the one hand, a pervasive dualism has prevailed, separating humanity from nature, spirit from matter, mind from body, and fact from value. On the other hand, there have been diverse attempts to overcome this dualism by privileging one or the other side of these oppositions, resulting in reductionist forms of materialism and idealism. Spinoza is one of the foremost exponents in modern thought of a long tradition of holistic ontology, which seeks to avoid such dualisms and reductionisms, and which forms the philosophical heritage of much of contemporary ecological thought. In Spinoza’s holistic metaphysics, nature (and perhaps we should say nature/spirit) is seen as a dynamic, all-inclusive, self-creating system—natura naturans. This conception clearly has many affinities with important trends in contemporary ecological thinking. In his concept of the universe as a system of “motion-and-rest,” Spinoza anticipates the post-Newtonian physics that has influenced ecological thought so profoundly through its conception of all things as configurations in a universal field of energy. There are also rather clear links between Spinoza’s thought and systems philosophy, another important influence on contemporary ecological thinking. Spinoza’s rejection of individual substances and his idea of the Divine Substance as a self-creative, self-manifesting power tie him to contemporary process philosophy, another important tendency in recent ecological thought. It is not difficult to find echoes in contemporary ecological discourse of Spinoza’s discussion of a “coherence of parts” in which “the laws or nature of one part adapts itself to the laws or nature of another part in such wise that there is the least possible opposition between them,” and his description of things constituting “parts of a whole to the extent that their natures adapt themselves to one another so that they are in the closest possible agreement.”[1] In view of his many affinities with contemporary holistic ecological thought, it should not be surprising that many eco-philosophers look back to Spinoza, if not as a “patron,” certainly as an honored forebear. In her assessment of Spinoza, Lloyd concedes that certain aspects of Spinoza’s thought have such ecological implications. She mentions, in particular, his attitude of reverence for nature, his anti-anthropocentrism, and his situating of humanity metaphysically within a larger system of nature. Yet she sees other aspects--which she seems to grant equal significance in his system--as fundamentally anti-ecological. She includes in this category his supposedly anthropocentric ethics, his speciesism, and his purported refusal to grant intrinsic value to beings other than humans. She concludes that Spinoza’s thought lacks the basis for even an ecologically-backward “stewardship” conception of humanity’s relationship to nature, much less for an authentically ecological one.[2] In view of her method of comparing Spinoza’s individual statements to those of contemporary eco-philosophers, such a conclusion follows, one is tempted to say, by necessity. But despite this negative judgment on Spinoza as an eco-philosopher, Lloyd in fact summarizes his relevance to ecological thought quite accurately. Spinoza’s contribution, she says, consists “of transcending a distorted perception of our true position in nature; not of treating the non-human as bearers of rights or values in relation to which human rights and values should be curtailed.”[3] To use Naess’s terminology, Spinoza’s contribution to ecological thought is therefore on the “deep” level of a fundamental questioning of our concepts of humanity and nature, rather than on the “shallow” level of specific conclusions about humanity and nature as understood in existing “environmental” discourse. Spinoza’s ecological significance lies in this depth of questioning, not in every detail of his system--unless one confuses taking inspiration from Spinoza with establishing a Spinozistic orthodoxy (which neither Naess nor any other admirer of Spinoza wishes to do today). As Naess points out, much of Lloyd’s evidence for the “non-ecological” quality of Spinoza’s thought depends on his failure to express himself in terms of contemporary problematics that are fundamentally alien to his own. Certainly, one will not find in Spinoza a defense of the “rights of the non-human,” an inclusion of “the non-human” in the “moral community,” or an attempt at “extension” of “the range of ‘right-bearer.’”[4] In fact, some of these concepts whose absence in Spinoza’s thought is taken as evidence of his inadequately ecological outlook are themselves far from ecological ones. For example, there is rather wide agreement among eco-philosophers today that the sort of “moral extensionism” that Lloyd often takes as an “ecological” standard by which to measure Spinoza is a fundamentally non-ecological approach to ethics. While it might be argued (correctly, I think, as does Naess) that Spinoza should have given more attention to animal welfare, nevertheless, granting “moral consideration” or “rights” to individual animals is in no way indicative of an ecological outlook (though a failure to give adequate ontological and ethical consideration to their place in nature would conflict with an ecological outlook). Lloyd claims that “environmental philosophers” are “looking for ... a basis for the judgment that some activities that are regarded as good for human beings should be curtailed because they are bad for other parts of nature.”[5] Naess correctly rejects the view that such a quest is essential to ecological ethics or eco-philosophy, for their principles can be expressed quite adequately in terms of the attainment of certain cardinal virtues or of an ideal way of life (as has been done since ancient times in various Buddhist and Taoist traditions, for example). Lloyd’s formulation seems narrowly tied to the view--perhaps most notably associated with Kant--that morality is essentially a constraint on the moral agent, a concept with roots in a dualistic, and ultimately repressive, view of human nature. Such a view is certainly not a necessary element of an ecological philosophy. Indeed, we might consider whether the anti-dualistic intent of a fully ecological outlook is even compatible with such a conception. Such an idea of constraint might make sense if Spinoza’s ethics were really “centred in self-preservation, in the survival of human beings”[6] as Lloyd contends. But it would be difficult for even the most naive ethical system, much less Spinoza’s quite sophisticated one, to be focused on mere “survival.” Naess corrects Lloyd’s one-sided reading of Hobbesian, egoistic implications into many of Spinoza’s statements. As Naess points out, this interpretation overlooks the psychological subtlety of Spinoza’s ethics, with its goal of self-realization through philosophical wisdom and the development of the active emotions. Spinoza’s life of “self-preservation” must be understood within the context of an overall non-dominating sensibility in which “persevering in one’s essence” implies a reconciliation with nature, rather than any “war of all against all” in which one seeks to assert ones will against other beings. It is this sensibility that Spinoza calls “blessedness” at the end of the Ethics. Ironically, Lloyd seems to give Spinoza more credit in areas in which he is less deserving, while underestimating some of his most distinctive contributions to ecological thought. While the critique of teleology and final causes that she cites is certainly non-anthropocentric, the rejection of a privileged place in the cosmos for humanity does not in itself make a view ecological. For example, a mechanistic materialism or an ethical nihilism could adhere to such non-anthropocentrism while having no eco-philosophical implications at all. It is not this dimension of Spinoza’s thought, but another, rather obvious one, that is most crucial ecologically. The central concept in Spinoza’s ideal for humanity, far from being any kind of domination of nature or exploitation of other beings in nature, is rather the “intellectual love of God.” By this he means a love arising out of wisdom, and directed toward nature itself, and in particular, nature seen as the dynamic, self-creating whole (natura naturans). In Part V, Proposition 35 of the Ethics he describes “the mind’s intellectual love towards God” as “part of the infinite love wherewith God loves himself.”[7] While he deduces from this principle the idea that we should equate our own “intellectual love of God,” with “the love of God towards men,” we may also validly deduce from his principles that it is equivalent to God’s “infinite love” of “himself.” Stated otherwise, it is equivalent to the love of nature. This is the conclusion that Naess draws when he states that it is implied in Spinoza’s system that “all things acquire value in themselves,”[8] since we may reasonably presume that what is loved is perceived as having great value. Lloyd in fact recognizes that the “ultimate expression” of human perfection is for Spinoza the intellectual love of God, and that this goal has practical consequences with distinctly ecological implications (though she typically specifies these in terms of treatment of animals, rather than of a general sensibility toward nature).[9] Naess draws out these implications by considering the centrality to Spinoza’s ethics of such virtues as “generosity, fortitude and love.” In envisioning a life in which these ideals are realized, Spinoza’s ethics not only transcends “anthropocentrism,” but, more concretely, constitutes a determinate practice aimed at dissolving a kind of egoism that is fundamental to the human project of control and domination of nature. In considering this context, Naess makes a good case for the view that Spinoza’s “harsh” statements about animals are at odds with the most fundamental aspects of his system. As Naess states it, “nothing is indifferent to Spinoza, because everything is a necessary expression of God or Nature.”[10] The inescapable implication of Spinoza’s metaphysics is that our deepest concern must extend outward toward the whole of nature. Spinoza forms part of a long tradition that asks us to see ourselves as part of a cosmic process in which the whole, conceived of as the larger Self, as the Divine, or as active Nature, knows itself, enjoys itself, realizes itself, or, in Spinoza’s words, “loves itself.” Like Arne Naess, I cannot imagine any view with more profound implications for ecological thinking and for the development of an ecological ethos. ; Notes [1] From Letter 32 in Spinoza, The Ethics and Selected Letters, trans. Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publ. Co., 1982), pp. 244–45. [2] Genevieve Lloyd, “Spinoza’s Environmental Ethics,” in Inquiry 23 (1980): 301. [3] Ibid., p. 308. [4] Ibid., pp. 294, 295, 303. [5] Ibid., p. 302. [6] Ibid., p. 304. [7] Spinoza, p. 221. [8] Arne Naess, “Environmental Ethics and Spinoza’s Ethics. Comments on Genevieve Lloyd’s Article,” in Inquiry 23 (1980): 321. [9] Lloyd, p. 304. [10] Naess, p. 321.