Homini nihil homine utilius. Spinoza e la cura

Beginning with the concept of “vulnerability” as thought of in the area of “care ethics”, and with due attention to the differences between the two perspectives, this study looks at our Spinozian notion of pietas in order to demonstrate how the Dutch philosopher’s approach to ethics distinguishes between pietas from commiseration – a sad passion that implies passivity and inadequacy. The study begins with the concept of tenuitas that Spinoza applies to our necessary subjugation to our passions. Deleuze observes that Spinoza’s understanding of ethics is not the same as “morals”. Spinoza’s ethics is a philosophy of joy and power in which our “vulnerability” is not an expression of ontological defect, but rather and expression of the participation of each finite mode in the infinite power of the whole of which it is a particula. As such, virtue comes to be understood as effort (conatus) aimed at the preservation of one’s own being, which, if directed by reason, will not be separate from the practice of the common good.