LISTEN. In Environmental Ethics today we finish Hope Jahren's Story of More, after first turning to Spinoza in CoPhi.
Jahren's last lines, in her Acknowledgements, have me thinking she may just be a Spinozist. She thanks the anonymous graffiti-ist who inscribed our species' indictment for excessive energy consumption on "the electrical box at the corner of Blindernveien and Apelveien with: 'We worship an invisible god and slaughter a visible nature--without realizing that this nature we slaughter is the invisible god we worship.' It got me to thinking," she concludes... (continues)
“The word ‘God’ is for me nothing but the expression and product of human weaknesses; the Bible a collection of venerable but still rather primitive legends...” Einstein does not refer here to God as a cosmic designer. Rather, he expresses his lifelong disbelief in a personal god—one that controls the lives of individuals. In 1929 Rabbi Herbert Goldstein sent him a telegram asking “Do you believe in God?” In response Einstein made an even clearer distinction between the awe humans feel when faced with the vastness, complexity and harmony of nature, and the belief in a god that monitors ethical behavior and punishes the wicked. He admired the Dutch Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and wrote: “I believe in Spinoza’s god, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” SciAm
The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that a change in attitude is the first requirement of dealing effectively with the climate crisis. We need to change our thinking, and then act accordingly. So let us concede (for a moment) that Spinoza is not the best man in the lineup to drive home the winning run. But a winning team is just that; i.e., a team. And if I am the GM and am building a philosophical climate change team, I want him on it. Spinoza broke with prior thinking and held that what we call volition is just a mode of thinking; just another moment in the causal chain. But isn’t a mode of thinking about climate change based on rational thought a necessary prerequisite for willful action; a necessary moment in the causal chain?
ReplyDeleteWho else would I want to acquire? Probably Wm James (although I’ve got a lot to learn here). Correct me here: James’s big moment was when he chose to believe in free will. His thinking was changed after reading Renouvier’s definition that free will is the sustaining of a thought because I choose to when I might have other thoughts. Was he not just adopting a different mode of thinking, `a la Spinoza? Maybe James can be our designated hitter, and Spinoza the motivational coach?