Spinoza was similarly dismissive of the notion of a natural law. He turned his intense intellect to the very notion of final causes and dismissed them with relish. Humans, Spinoza argued, designed a God who had made the universe especially for mankind, and reasoned in circular fashion that God had crafted a human purpose. Like Hobbes, this leads Spinoza to disparage the very notion of “good” or “bad.”9 And like Hobbes, this led Spinoza to a sort of rational egotism as the nature of man: human beings want to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The best way to do this, according to Spinoza, is through
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