The dehumanization of nature and the naturalization of the human: A study of Spinoza and Nietzsche

Abstract

In this dissertation, I shall argue that Spinoza and Nietzsche alike were committed to a twofold task: that of dehumanizing nature and naturalizing the human. I will further argue that this is an ethical task insofar as their ultimate objective was to discover the real basis for human excellence. The versions of naturalism articulated, respectively, by these two philosophers, have been given considerable notice, especially in more recent commentaries on their work, but there is scarcely any mention of the ethical underpinnings of that naturalism. One of the central aims of this dissertation is to show that their commitment to a naturalistic rendering of all aspects of human life is itself ethically motivated. It arises out of a prior conviction that in and by means of its naturalization, humanity will rediscover itself, albeit in a new incarnation. To complete this twofold task, both Spinoza and Nietzsche unmask that type of anthropocentrism that first, sets humanity at a remove from nature and, second, divests the latter of all value. Both question the veracity of a cluster of ideas—including freedom of the will, teleology, and the moral world order—which are largely responsible for the intractable delusion that human beings occupy a privileged position in nature. However, the task of naturalizing the human is not accomplished merely in exposing lies as lies but requires that, as Nietzsche claims, humanity itself be brought “to reason,” to the real significance of its naturalness. This shift from dehumanizing nature to naturalizing the human also marks a shift from their revaluation of values to their positing of a new, naturalized ethics. I will propose that it is an ethics of love—a love of the self that is simultaneously a love of the whole of which one is a part. As I intend to show, Spinoza’s amor dei and Nietzsche’s amor fati are different renderings of this same idea.