De bespreking van Spinoza's politieke filosofie vond ik wat beknopt en vroeg me af of het allemaal klopt. Met name deze paragraaf:
"b. Sovereign
Presumably the obligations and the rights of the sovereign (there is here no presupposition as to the preferred form of government—that topic is discussed later—so that by “sovereign” one could mean a democracy, monarchy, oligarchy, etc.) is subject to similar analysis as the obligations and rights of the citizens. Since the citizens’ “rights” are coextensive with their power, the sovereign’s “obligations” to the citizens are limited only by the power of both parties. On the other hand, the sovereign’s “rights” are also only limited by the powers of the respective parties. Hence, the sovereign has the right to do whatever it wants, and wherever it meets the counterforce of the citizens, there lay its obligations. Furthermore, Spinoza is also clear that the sovereign’s power is not limited by laws, but only by its intellectual and physical abilities. There are no constitutional limitations to the sovereign’s actions.
Needless to say, these are devastating implications from the point of view of individual freedom, but Spinoza is quick to point out that both the citizens and the sovereign are constrained by the Conatus Principle as well. Therefore, a sovereign concerned to advance its being will rarely impose “irrational” commands toward the citizens, because…”they are bound to consult their own interests, and retain their power by consulting the public good and acting according to the dictates of reason…(TP:XVI:205). Presumably, similar things can be asserted about the citizenry, given the caveat that they also act in accordance with the dictates of reason. However, the problem with this sort of argument is that we have already seen Spinoza’s reservations regarding the ability of humans to act in accordance with the dictates of reason, and even if this was plausible, the force of Spinoza’s argument
here is purely speculative. In other words, Spinoza is not making a principled point but arguing, instead, that the kinds of irrational commands (perhaps “tyrannical” would be better) would not likely occur since the sovereign will act in accordance with his or her best interests. But this sort of argument can surely only be assessed through empirical means by consulting the available historical record regarding the purported rationality of sovereigns’ behavior,
and such a record has not been kind to Spinoza’s speculative point.
These kinds of considerations demonstrate, among other things, Spinoza’s unorthodox and perhaps incoherent use of the concepts like “rights,” “obligations,” and even “contract.” After all, what exactly does the social contract that Spinoza employs accomplish since its force does not come from the contract itself but rather from the kind of cost-benefit analysis carried out by the psychological axiom? What exactly would be lost from Spinoza’s political philosophy if the notion of contract and its correlative notions were simply omitted?"
Bron:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/spin-pol/#SH4b