Nero’s Ingratitude: Spinoza and the Naturalisation of Sin

Stephen Gaukroger has argued that failure is a fundamental driver in the history of philosophy, and that the inadequacies of one era motivate philosophical change. He sees this pattern at work in the shift from Classical to Christian to Enlightenment to contemporary approaches to mind, morality, and knowledge. Spinoza appears to present an anomalous case insofar as he expressed disdain for the idea that the theologians of his time were capable of philosophising and because he endorsed Stoical as well as Early Modern concepts and values. This chapter touches on a puzzle generated by Spinoza’s ethical stance, namely, how can normative judgment emerge from an immanent ontology. I explain how Spinoza both naturalises sin and yet offers solid ground on which to condemn odious acts, for example, Nero’s matricide. I conclude that Spinoza’s philosophical orientation sits well with Gaukroger’s claim that there is no linear path for the historian of ideas to re-trace and no progressive culmination in the present of two and a half millennia of philosophical thought. Even so, philosophy’s failings in one era may provide materials able to be repurposed in another and, in this sense at least, philosophy may be viewed as an enduring cultural resource for conceptual innovation and self-understanding.