more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
People had to make a firm decision to decide everything by the sole dictates of reason (which no one dares contradict openly). They had to curb their appetites if it would hurt someone else, and not do to others what they did not want done to themselves.
Gist of Idea
Forming a society meant following reason, and giving up dangerous appetites and mutual harm
Source
Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.05)
Book Ref
Spinoza,Benedict de: 'Theological-Political Treatise', ed/tr. Israel,Jonathan [CUP 2007], p.198
A Reaction
The last bit invokes the Golden Rule. Being in society does indeed meaning curbing appetites, such as envy and lust.
Related Idea
Idea 19917 Without reason and human help, human life is misery [Spinoza]
| 2369 | If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights [Hobbes] |
| 19918 | Forming a society meant following reason, and giving up dangerous appetites and mutual harm [Spinoza] |
| 19919 | People only give up their rights, and keep promises, if they hope for some greater good [Spinoza] |
| 19921 | Once you have given up your rights, there is no going back [Spinoza] |
| 19925 | In democracy we don't abandon our rights, but transfer them to the majority of us [Spinoza] |
| 19928 | No one, in giving up their power and right, ceases to be a human being [Spinoza] |
| 19929 | Everyone who gives up their rights must fear the recipients of them [Spinoza] |
| 19932 | The early Hebrews, following Moses, gave up their rights to God alone [Spinoza] |
| 19873 | We all own our bodies, and the work we do is our own [Locke] |
| 19884 | There is only a civil society if the members give up all of their natural executive rights [Locke] |
| 19794 | If we all give up all of our rights together to the community, we will always support one another [Rousseau] |
| 7241 | In society man loses natural liberty, but gains a right to civil liberty and property [Rousseau] |
| 19806 | We alienate to society only what society needs - but society judges that, not us [Rousseau] |
| 21084 | In the contract people lose their rights, but immediately regain them, in the new commonwealth [Kant] |
| 21065 | You can't make a contract renouncing your right to make contracts! [Kant] |