> I have agreed to give the sovereign the means to execute all those
>condemned to death, eventually including my father, but I have
>acquitted myself of all obligations on this point by paying my taxes
> -- thanks to which the sovereign can recruit his executioners." Heh.
>
>I guess that would suggest the removal of impediments to sovereign power
>that you mentioned, Eric?
Yeah, but one of the more passive ones: the kinder, gentler Hobbes.
>Spinoza, otoh, being denounced as a heretic
>for having the audacity to insist that God is not a person, but that
>humans arrive at an idea of God as a person; that there is no purpose to
>the divine; that no one has a monopoly on 'divine speech'; et cetera.
And for critiquing many an authority's overly broad claims to, and applications of, "natural law." I think Spinoza's extensive proofs that most such declamations are inflated versions of human-conceived law could be read as a direct response to Hobbes's sweeping, unelaborated generalizations about the state of nature--the nasty-brutish-short business. Either way, his distinction is quite an antiauthoritarian one. It's also consistent with his one-substance metaphysic.
>Balibar notes, "Hobbes ... maintained the contrary: that men can believe
>whatever they want provided they move their lips in the same movement as
>the sovereign ... Spinoza does not attack this from a moral standpoint.
>He shows that it is dangerous because it is physically impossible."
I think Balibar is mostly right on this last part. Though Spinoza did ultimately show how difficult and "useless" it is to attempt to completely coerce subjects, he didn't think it "impossible": "Though it may be impossible to govern the mind as completely as the tongue, nevertheless minds are, to a certain extent, under the control of the sovereign, for he can in many ways bring about that the greatest part of his subjects should follow his wishes in their beliefs, their loves, and their hates. Though such emotions do not arise at the express command of the sovereign, they often result...from the authority of his power and from his direction."
Also, I think Spinoza did in fact use a moral attack. Of sorts. But it's too late to get into that right now.
Eric