I would now like to discuss the question of evil, as Spinoza (1632-1677) presents it in his works and correspondence.

But be warned, this is a complex and controversial topic, and the goal here is simply to understand, once again, his way of thinking in order to better grasp what guides him, i.e. the quest for freedom.

As we have seen, not believing in free will or in any kind of finalism in nature very quickly raises the problem of the existence of evil in our daily lives.

In other words, the question is whether "evil" exists in nature, and whether humans are responsible for the harm they cause.

Ancient philosophers believed that evil did not exist in nature, and Socrates (470-399 B.C.), for example, taught that "evil is nothing". According to him, a wicked person was not wicked by nature, and in a way was simply mistaken about the nature of good.

But the scholastic tradition, notably that of Saint Augustine (354-430), which still influences Christian morality today, argued that evil not only exists, that it is a reality, but that it can be explained because people are free, because they are capable of making a choice between good and evil, and that the evil they cause is therefore entirely their own responsibility.

And even if responsibility for the harm caused by an earthquake, a deadly virus or the fact that a child is born blind should not be attributed to people, this way of thinking persists by giving nature a moral intention that makes them responsible. For example, by considering that if an earthquake has occurred, it's precisely because people have behaved badly.

This is the idea defended by the religious people that humans are born sinners, guilty of original sin.

Of course, as you can imagine, this idea is torn to shreds by Spinoza, who considers that, since Nature, or God or fortune as he puts it, is not endowed with intention, and since people do not have free will, the responsibility for "evil" attributed to them is completely illusory.

"Nothing happens in nature that can be attributed to a vice existing in it", writes Spinoza in the Ethics, and according to him, we would therefore be mistaken in considering, for example, the blindness of a newborn baby as "evil" since when born blind, a baby is no more deprived of sight than a stone would be.

And if we think that the blind lack sight, it's only from the point of view of those who see.

Spinoza thus takes up the idea that evil does not exist in nature, but his originality, which makes it a revolutionary philosophy, is to consider that evil does not exist and neither does "good".

And this is why he speaks of ethics rather than morality, not reflecting on what is right or wrong, since these are all relative and subjective notions, but rather in terms of what is "good" or "bad" for our natural need to "persevere in our being", he says. In other words, to live and grow. To flourish as human beings.

What's more, we've already seen that Spinoza's view of the responsibility of people who behave badly by committing a crime, is clearly not intended to excuse them. For people, even if they do not know the true causes that determine them to commit a crime, are always aware of what they are doing and are therefore, as such, responsible before morality and the Law.

Clearly, the actions of a criminal are always connected to family, social, economic or even medical determinism, if his crimes can be explained by a physical or mental condition. And this is the role of justice, which goes beyond criminal law to take into account the fact that certain crimes must not only be punished, but also treated, taking into account the offender's family, social and psychological background.

This is why the Spinozist Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) explains that ethics is a kind of ethology, i.e. a practical science of ways of being, or, as he puts it, "the art of making good encounters".

In other words, freedom, according to Spinoza, consists in directing our existence towards that which "increases our power to act" and, always looking optimistically to the future, seeing the world as it is rather than imagining it as we'd like to see it.

And therein lies the genius of Spinoza's demonstration, as he fights against the doctors of ignorance and against all those who claim that it is good to be ignorant.

On the contrary, Spinoza studies human passions, even the most irrational, heartbreak, madness, sadness or melancholy, in the manner of geometers, "more geometrico", as one would study points, lines, surfaces and volumes.

This is the theory of affects that he develops in the third part of his Ethics, and which I suggest you study now.

Thanks for your attention.