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Full Idea
I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or deformed, ordered or confused.
Gist of Idea
Whether nature is beautiful or orderly is entirely in relation to human imagination
Source
Baruch de Spinoza (Letters to Oldenburg [1665], 1665?)
Book Ref
Spinoza,Benedict de: 'Ethics, Improvement of Understanding, Letters', ed/tr. Elwes,R [Dover 1955], p.290
A Reaction
This is clearly a statement of Hume's famous later opinion that there are no values ('ought') in nature ('is'). It is a rejection of Aristotelian and Greek teleology. It is hard to argue with, but I have strong sales resistance, rooted in virtue theory.
| 4867 | Whether nature is beautiful or orderly is entirely in relation to human imagination [Spinoza] |
| 7163 | Morality is merely interpretations, which are extra-moral in origin [Nietzsche] |
| 18311 | Philosophers hate values having an origin, and want values to be self-sufficient [Nietzsche] |
| 18324 | There are no moral facts, and moralists believe in realities which do not exist [Nietzsche] |
| 22485 | Non-cognitivists give the conditions of use of moral sentences as facts about the speaker [Foot] |
| 4761 | The 'error theory' of morals says there is no moral knowledge, because there are no moral facts [Mackie, by Engel] |
| 22454 | We tolerate inconsistency in ethics but not in other beliefs (which reflect an independent order) [Williams,B, by Foot] |
| 22453 | Moral conflicts have a different feeling and structure from belief conflicts [Williams,B, by Foot] |
| 22450 | If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Williams,B, by Foot] |
| 23688 | Noncognitivism tries to avoid both naturalism and mysterious morality [Hacker-Wright] |