Editing Evil (section)

===Spinoza===
[[Baruch Spinoza]] states
{{Blockquote|{{olist |By good, I understand that which we certainly know is useful to us. |By evil, on the contrary, I understand that which we certainly know hinders us from possessing anything that is good.<ref name="ebgb">{{cite book|first=Benedict|last=de Spinoza|author-link=Benedict de Spinoza|title=Ethics|chapter=Of Human Bondage or of the Strength of the Affects|translator-first=W.H.|translator-last=White|orig-year=1677|year=2017|publisher=[[Penguin Classics]]|location=New York|asin=B00DO8NRDC|page=424}}</ref>}}}}
Spinoza assumes a [[formal system|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 (Spinoza)|Ethics]]'':<ref name="ebgb"/>
* Proposition 8 "Knowledge of good or evil is nothing but affect of joy or sorrow in so far as we are conscious of it."
* Proposition 30 "Nothing can be evil through that which it possesses in common with our nature, but in so far as a thing is evil to us it is contrary to us."
* Proposition 64 "The knowledge of evil is inadequate knowledge."
** Corollary "Hence it follows that if the human mind had none but adequate ideas, it would form no notion of evil."
* Proposition 65 "According to the guidance of reason, of two things which are good, we shall follow the greater good, and of two evils, [[Lesser of two evils principle|follow the less]]."
* Proposition 68 "If men were born free, they would form no conception of good and evil so long as they were free."