Book contents
6 - Descartes' deontological ethics of virtue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
Summary
When Descartes becomes preoccupied with ethics in his later years, he is furnished with the metaphysics of the Meditations and the physics of the Principles. In the Preface to the 1647 French edition of the Principles, he specifies the tasks still remaining so as to complete his philosophical edifice:
[I]n order to bring the plan to its conclusion I should have to go on to explain in the same manner the nature of all the particular bodies which exist on the earth, namely minerals, plants, animals and, most importantly, man. And then to conclude, I should have to give an exact account of medicine, morals and mechanics. This is what I should have to do in order to give to mankind a body of philosophy that is quite complete.
(AT ixb 17: CSM i 188)Descartes realizes he will not be able to bring his philosophical enterprise to an end during his lifetime. Although he does not feel “so old, or so diffident about [his] powers, or so far away from knowledge of these remaining topics,” he recognizes that making all the scientific observations needed in order to back up and justify his arguments
would require great expense – too great for an individual like myself unless he were assisted by the public. And since I do not see that I can expect such assistance, I think that in future I should be content to study for my own private instruction and that future generations will forgive me if from now on I give up working on their behalf.
(AT ixb 17: CSM i 188)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Descartes' Deontological TurnReason, Will, and Virtue in the Later Writings, pp. 178 - 204Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010