What did Descartes do to virtue?

✍ Scribed by Paul C. Santilli

• Book ID: 104638849
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 862 KB
• Volume: 26
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5363
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00140937

✦ Synopsis

A common view of the "provisional morality" which Descartes describes for us in the third part of the Discourse on Method is that of a fairly sensible, conservative code of conduct, borrowed largely from the Stoics, which he uses to settle practical and public affairs while in private, through the instrument of radical doubt, he undertakes a revolutionary transformation of metaphysics and science. Descartes' moral philosophy has been generally ignored by Anglo-American journals, anthologies, and histories of ethics; and, in contrast to the prestige usually accorded him as the father of modem philosophy, he has virtually no reputation as an interesting moral theorist. This prevailing view of Descartes is, I think, mistaken, and it will be a task of this paper to show by a study of his theory of virtue that Descartes deserves serious consideration as an important, indeed radical, moral philosopher, who contributes to the overthrow of Afistotelianism in morality as well as in metaphysics and who anticipates several of the central concerns of modem ethics.

Descartes' major work in moral philosophy is the Discourse on Method. The Discourse is a narrative which presents us with a portrayal of what a good and happy life for a human being is and of the attributes and actions one needs to attain such a life. It is a narrative first, because it tells us a story in which Descartes himself is the leading character, the hero, if you will; second, this story is centrally a justification of Descartes' life; and third, it depicts this life as one worthy of emulation, not on all points, Descartes warns us, but still as one which could lead mankind to genuine happiness and success. 1 Although it is a "fable" of sorts, it is one to which we are to give more credence than other fables about the good for the human being, such as those of the Aristotelians, the Schoolmen, and the Churches. 2 We today may be uneasy about taking the Discourse as a work in moral philosophy for philosophers no longer present their arguments in a narrative mode and are used to distinguishing the normative concerns of ethics from the descriptive tasks of history. Indeed, a good case could be