Women and Servants in Spinozist Democracy

Was Spinoza merely a victim of the prevailing prejudices of his time when he chose to exclude women and servants from his theory of democracy? In this essay, Matheron shows that this explanation is insufficient. On the contrary, a glaring translation error has led generations of translators and interpreters to claim that Spinoza’s theory of democracy excludes servants on the basis of their ‘servile’ occupations. Matheron conclusively shows that if servants, construed broadly, appear to be excluded from democracy, it is not therefore due to the moral standing of their occupation, but because such individuals would necessarily be constrained to hold the same views as their masters for otherwise, they risk losing their means of subsistence. As for women, a similar argument applies. There is nothing essential about women that requires they be excluded from democratic participation, but rather, their exclusion is everywhere the result of men subject to passions. Men whose minds are dominated by inadequate ideas will necessarily destroy a democracy that includes women since they will compete over the attention of the most beautiful women. For Spinoza then, such exclusions appeared necessary due to the irrationality of human beings, in particular, men, dominated by the passions.