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In this article I explore the usefulness of Spinoza's ethics for feminism by considering ways in which it allows feminists to rethink privacy. I draw upon some of Spinoza's central ideas to address the following question: when should information be classed as private and when should it be communicated? This is a question that is considered by the common law courts. Attempts to find a moral underpinning for such a tortious action against invasions of privacy have tended to draw upon Kant's categorical imperative. In contrast, I want to consider how Spinoza provides an immanent ethics that reconfigures how privacy is understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay contends that Spinoza provides a valuable analysis of the “affective” damage to a social body caused by fear, anxiety, and “superstition.” Far from being primarily an external threat, this essay argues that terrorism and the promulgation of fear by the current administration in the United States pose a threat to internal social cohesion. The capacity to respond in constructive and ameliorative ways to current global conflicts is radically undermined by amplifying corrosive relationships of anxiety, suspicion and hatred among citizens. Spinoza presents a portrait of natural and political existence as deeply relational and “affective” such that human freedom and power depend upon the concern for the affective and passionate dispositions of human bodies and minds. In order for democracy, the power of the many, to exist effectively, the social body must be ruled by “joyful passions” rather than “sad passions,” which are destructive and debilitating by nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this section were given as a panel on Religious Naturalism at the American Academy of Religion in Denver in November 2001. The panelists included Jerome Stone, Gordon Kaufman, Ursula Goodenough, Charley Hardwick, and Donald Crosby. This introduction briefly describes the panelists, lists three questions the panelists were asked to consider, and names other current and past religious naturalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]