ABSTRACT
The source of this paradox which so shocked Schopenhauer-that Spinoza the pantheist, the philosophical saint of all who love nature, took no account of animal welfare-lies in a tension which runs right through his ethical thinking. On the one hand, there is Spinoza the lover of understanding: the essence of the human mind is to understand clearly, it is this towards which our conatus drives us (thus described under the attribute of thought; under the attribute of extension this is a drive to interact more with more of nature, more effectively and sensitively). On this view, it is the truth of our ideas that is the good. To the extent that we have a genuine knowledge of what mice are in themselves, we will know that they are higher in the order of nature than cheese is; insofar as we rejoice in that understanding, we will love them in due measure-i.e. not as much as people, but more than cheese.
