section_path: Theories of moral goodness/Western philosophy/Spinoza
section_name: Spinoza
paragraph_text: Spinoza
  
  Benedict de Spinoza states:
  
  1. By good, I understand that which we certainly know is useful to us. 2. By evil, on the contrary I understand that which we certainly know hinders us from possessing anything that is good.
  
  Spinoza assumes a quasi-mathematical style and states these further propositions which he purports to prove or demonstrate from the above definitions in part IV of his Ethics :