Fortitude (fortitudo) is the affective disposition that accompanies virtue. Spinoza defines affects as “affections of the body by which the body’s power of acting is increased or diminished, aided or restrained, and at the same time, ideas of these affections” (E3def3). Affects express changes, for better or for worse, in our body’s power.

Unfinished and overshadowed by the Ethics and the TTP, Spinoza’s TP is nevertheless a major work. The TP establishes the basic principles of Spinoza’s political thought, identifies “the highest end” at which a commonwealth can aim, and outlines the institutional structure most conducive to security and peace for several regime types. It is somewhat surprising that the TP is relatively neglected by commentators, given that, as Edwin Curley observes, it “offers us the materials for a much deeper understanding of Spinoza’s political philosophy than we could gain from his other works” (2016a, 491). Given that it was Spinoza’s final work, cut short by his untimely death, it contains his most mature philosophical views on the subject of politics. Pierre-François Moreau, editor of several French editions of Spinoza’s writings, claims that it is also his most “autonomous” work, comprising the views that are most his own, developed independently of the natural law traditions and Cartesianism (2005, 79).

By bondage or servitude (servitudo), Spinoza understands subjection to external causes that oppose our striving to exercise those capacities characteristic of our natures, such as the ability to reason. We may distinguish heuristically between two notions of servitude in Spinoza: ethical and political.

Spinoza’s remarks on women are disappointing. In his TP, he declares that daughters should never be permitted to assume the throne (TP6.37). In democracies, Spinoza insists, women, like servants or criminals, should be excluded from civic participation (TP11.3–4). Some commentators interpret him to exclude women only by virtue of their social conditioning or historical circumstances (Lloyd 1994; Lord 2011). Yet, Spinoza defends his exclusion of women at some length, arguing, in contrast to his feminist contemporaries, that women’s inferiority must be explained by nature rather than custom. Other interpreters thus contend that Spinoza unequivocally denies women’s equality, although this appears to contradict his understanding of human nature and rationality (Gullan-Wuhr 2008; Sharp 2012).