Health and Morality

In Spinoza's doctrine, the highest value is Health, the interplay of the Parts of a dynamic active Whole. Thus, Health is implicitly Good-in-itself, while 'Good' and 'Evil' signify what is conducive or not, respectively, to Health. What is Healthful is relative to the specific constitution of a Mode, from which generalization, e. g. to all members of a species, is derivative.  Hence, in at least some cases, what is Healthful is relative to an individual Mode, as Aristotle recognizes, but, in others, it is common.  However, and it is unclear if Spinoza recognizes this, insofar as a collective constitutes a Mode, e. g. a species, then inter-Modal relations are themselves subject to Holist evaluation.  And, indeed, insofar as a Mode is a part of Nature, then Nature is the Whole, and Health is ultimately Ecological, i. e. a condition of the Ecosystem, of which an individual human is a part.  Regardless of these indeterminacies of his doctrine, his Philosophical insight is that the deliberate pursuit of Health is itself an activity, and, hence, is itself Healthful, from which it follows that the determination and application of Knowledge of what is Healthful, e. g. Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, etc., is itself Healthful.  Indeed, Philosophy itself can be Healthful, in two respects.  So, Spinoza's doctrine is well beyond the range of each of the two dominant Moral doctrines of the era--Kantianism, with its Supernatural concept of Good, and Utilitarianism, which privileges passive, phenomena.