I am still a bit puzzled that you treat "power" and "benefit" as equivalent, though.
You're right to point this out - they're not exactly synonymous, although power acquisition is always beneficial. Having power reserves is always beneficial. As long as power is used in a proper fashion, like you pointed out, it will always create benefits for an individual. I would argue that what constitutes a wise use of power is something that in return generates more power reserves. This might be a point where we have a difference of an opinion and I would very much like to explore it further.
Let me spell out what I think our disagreement is.
You think self-improvement is an infinite concept and that power never stops improving our ability to affect our internal and external reality.
I think self-improvement is an unending process, but that power improves our ability to affect our internal and external reality
with diminishing returns.
Let me explain. If Spinoza's is the sword that beheads the king of moral relativity, Aristotle's are the tools that till the soil afterward. Spinoza crafted a beautiful argument for the fundamental virtue that all other ethics can build from. Aristotle engaged in practical theorizing about individuals (particular virtues, rational thought, human excellence) and groups (forms of government, proper political engagement). One of Aristotle's tools was the
Doctrine of the Mean: "every virtue is a state that lies between two vices, one of excess and the other of deficiency." To be a courageous person is to be the proper distance between a cowardly person (deficiency) and a reckless/impetuous person (excess). To be "properly cooperative" (I don't know a better word) you must be the proper distance between a scrooge (deficiency) and an altruistic fool (excess).
We must continually exert effort to keep ourselves in the fertile valley nestled between deficiency and excess. In that sense self-improvement is a continual and unending process that we engage in for our entire lives, analogous with eating healthy and working out.
Take your example of the business owner. He might be able to entertain any number of possibilities for enhancing his business and he must continually strive to be virtuous (act with integrity, courage, proper cooperation, etc.) in his business so that he makes the best product possible given his goals, fosters the proper relationships with his clients (and/or suppliers), and so on—but these things are
means between vices. He must exert the proper amount of effort to act with integrity, and then no more—for any further and he strays into excess. After a certain point expending more energy is not useful. Outside of this analogy, money has diminishing utility as we acquire more of it. A certain amount lets us purchase the things we need (shelter, food, etc.) and a certain amount more allows us to be comfortable in the pursuit of our hobbies, but there is a point where more money does not help you acquire the things you need or can reasonably want, and so spending time acquiring that money is
excessive. It is an example of a vice (greed).
In other words, we have to continually maintain the proper amount of power so that we can affect our internal and external reality
to the extent that affecting it is useful to us.
The practical consequence of this is that someone who is vicious (cowardly, cruel, lacking a sense of justice, etc.) will have to spend a lot more time and effort moving themselves to the means between deficiency and excess. In your words, I think, they will have to dedicate a lot more of their time to the acquisition of power; their inner character is equivalent to that of a person in poverty who cannot afford for their own basic needs, let alone the things they want.
Aristotelian virtues are habits, or ways of being, not singular actions. To be a courageous person is to be
naturally inclined to act courageously due to an internalized rule of behavior. It is to always be drifting toward the mean between vices. This frees a courageous person up to occupy their mind with other things, as they do not, in typical everyday circumstances, need to
exert a large amount of effort to be courageous. Though, of course, there are more or less trying circumstances even for properly courageous people. In any case, once you are naturally inclined to act courageously, you ought to expend the effort required to maintain that (e.g. not to allow yourself to entertain cowardly desires or to act on those desires) and no more.
I can see now why so many smart people are drawn to Spinoza. Everything you wrote here makes complete sense and my rationalistic side agrees with all of it thoroughly.
I'm sure what I'm about to write comes as something you have no doubt pondered yourself previously and I'd like to hear your thought process on it. To me it seems this ideal of a virtuous man doesn't seem entirely adoptable to contemporary reality. Spinoza has a very beautifully hopeful and optimistic view on the nature of men that was characteristic for the thinkers of the enlightenment period. If Spinoza'a view on the nature of human beings and nature in general was factually correct, I would have absolutely zero criticisms for his concept of a virtuous man. However the Darwinian revolution changed philosophy forever. There is no return to Spinoza's optimistic notions, to his view that people are fundamentally driven by reason. So in order for a virtuous man to live in a contemporary setting, he needs to adapt to the fact that people are merely a couple of steps further from being chimps. A virtuous man is very unlikely to find a collective of equally virtuous chimp 2.0s that will reciprocate his virtuous behavior in a mutually beneficial way. I don't claim it's impossible, but it's very unlikely.
I would argue that the logical EVOLUTION (pun intended) of Spinoza's virtuous man is something like a men who is driven by will to power - not necessarily in a Nietzschean way, but in a way we've discussed on this thread. A man who doesn't merely adapt to a virtuous commune but rather creates it into his own image. Someone who uses his power in a wise way to his own and his commune's benefit. Someone who uses power to surpass the devious nature of our feral ancestry.
What is your view on this? Where does a virtuous man get his virtues when human nature turned out to be something far more devious and ugly than what Spinoza believed?
I do not think Spinoza's view of human nature is particularly beautiful. It is essentially egoism. We pursue our own advantage. That is all.
The beauty of Spinoza is how he argues for psychological and moral eogism and then marries it
with reason to explore its contingencies. There are better and worse ways to pursue our own advantage. Ten reasonable people working together are going to be more powerful than one reasonable person working alone—a simple conclusion, but a beautiful argument. As for the odds of finding equally virtuous chimp 2.0's... I agree that forming a society of people all motivated by pursuing their own advantage as directed by reason is unlikely to happen during our lives or ever, but nevertheless that
would be the ideal society. As far as forming groups of friends, or inculcating in your children the virtue to operate as a functional unit with other reasonable people, I do not find that so unlikely. There are enough virtuous people out there that you can form a group that supports each member's advantage.
On the idea you bring up, Spinoza himself writes:
Scholium to
Proposition 36, IV
[...] Yet it is rarely the case that men live by the guidance of reason; their condition is such that they are generally disposed to envy and mutual dislike. Nevertheless they find solitary life scarcely endurable, so that for most people the definition 'man is a social animal' meets with strong approval. And the fact of the matter is that the social organization of man shows a balance of much more profit than loss. So let satirists deride as much as they like the doings of mankind, let theologians revile them, and let the misanthropists heap praise on the life of rude rusticity, despising men and admiring beasts. Men will still discover from experience that they can much more easily meet their needs by mutual help and can ward off ever-threatening perils only by joining forces, not to mention that it is a much more excellent thing and worthy of our knowledge to study the deeds of men than the deeds of beasts. [...]
Another interesting comment he makes in
Scholium to
Proposition 37, IV
[...] From this it is clear that the requirement to refrain from slaughtering beasts is founded on groundless superstition and womanish compassion rather than on sound reason. The principle of seeking our own advantage teaches us to be in close relationship with men, not with beasts or things whose nature is different from human nature, and that we have the same right over them as they over us. [...]
Proposition 46, IV
He who lives by the guidance of reason endeavors as far as he can to repay with love or nobility another's hatred, anger, contempt, etc. towards himself.
Proof
All emotions of hatred [for other humans] are bad (Cor.1 Pr.45), and thus he who lives by the guidance of reason will endeavor as far as he can not to be assailed by emotions of hatred (Pr.19,IV), and consequently (Pr.37,IV) he will also endeavor that another should not suffer these same emotions. [...]
Scholium
He who wishes to avenge injuries through reciprocal hatred lives a miserable life indeed. But he who strives to overcome hatred with love is surely fighting a happy and carefree battle. He resists several opponents as easily as one, and stands in least need of fortune's help. Those whom he conquers yield gladly, not through failure of strength but through its increase.
I have mentioned proposition 46 as it suggests the person who pursues his own advantage as reason dictates will use their own strength to change their society.
). Many, many fond memories. Just about a month ago I played some meh prison co-op thing on the XboxOne which I would never touch, but it was a great time with my dad having some drinks and shooting the shit. 
) out of playing games online. 
