Right, Power, Reason

Spinoza correlates Right with Power, though the ascription to him of the popular formulation, 'Might is Right', tends to ignore that he also conceives Power to be a function of Reason, i. e. the possession of adequate ideas, as is explained in a variety of places in the Ethics, e. g. IV, def. viii; III, def. i; and III, i.  Now, his attribution of Right to even irrational behavior, e. g. Political Treatise, II, 4, is based on the premise that the existence of every Mode is an expression of God's Power, to which correlates a 'divine' Right.  However, as has been previously discussed, the concept of Right is inapplicable in the case of an isolated entity, e. g. his God, without which, there is, therefore, no Right to irrational behavior.  An example illustrates why this criticism of his concept of Right could appeal to Spinoza.  For, the Right to persist in one's being is, in effect, the Right to self-defense, which, unconditioned by Rationality, endorses killing in presumed 'self-defense' even in the case of a mus-perceived 'threat', e. g. racial prejudice.  Even the U. S. jurisprudential system recognizes some criteria for such perceptions.