HoP 472 Less Cheer, More Knowledge: Descartes’ Ethics
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Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at historyofphilosophy.net. Today's episode, Less Cheer, More Knowledge, Descartes' Ethics.

We tend to assume that the great philosophers had something original and important to say on all of the central areas of the subject. From Plato and Aristotle, who wrote on metaphysics, to soul, knowledge, ethics, and political philosophy, down to Kant, who followed up the epistemological inquiry of his Critique of Pure Reason with two further critiques on morality and aesthetics, many of the most famous thinkers have been systematic generalists.

But this isn't always the case. Confucius, or Kongzi, has some claim to be the most influential philosopher of Chinese history. Yet the Analects mostly stick to ethical questions. It was left to the Neo-Confucians to extend the project to cosmology and metaphysics. My personal favorite philosopher, Avicenna, was the reverse. Spectacularly innovative in logic, psychology, and metaphysics, he wrote little about ethics, and what he did write was, by his standards, rather derivative.

Descartes is often seen in similar terms. By far the most well-known and widely discussed parts of his work are those we've discussed so far—his physics, his skeptical method, his cogito argument, and his arguments for God's existence, and of course his dualism. By comparison, he said very little about ethical issues.

This is something he admitted himself. In a letter to Pierre Chanut, Descartes explains that he has deliberately steered clear of this topic since it would have attracted even more controversy than his daring views on physics. Chanut served as a go-between for Descartes, helping to arrange an invitation for him to the court of Queen Christina in Sweden.

While exchanging letters with Chenute, Descartes prudently allowed that it is for monarchs, like the queen, to dictate on matters of morality, which is why he has not written on the topic. At other times, though, Descartes makes it sound like his philosophy could and even does support a robust theory of ethics. A couple of years earlier, another letter to Chenute boldly states that Descartes' inquiries into physics have allowed him to "establish sure foundations in moral philosophy,

This fits with his famous image comparing philosophy to a tree whose roots are metaphysics and whose trunk is physics, while its branches are medicine, mechanics, and morals. I already quoted that passage in the episode on Descartes' Life and Works, but will remind you now that it ends by saying that moral philosophy presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom. This doesn't sound like someone who wants to leave moral theory to kings and queens.

As we also learned in that previous episode, Descartes was indeed reluctant to publish controversial ideas, especially if they were not yet ripened. Perhaps he simply didn't get around to composing a work setting out his complete moral system, insofar as he ever developed one. The closest he managed was a work on the Passions, the last philosophical work published during his lifetime. We'll discuss it in depth later on, once we've been properly introduced to Elizabeth of Bohemia, who encouraged him to write about the Passions.

For now, I want to bring together his ideas on more general topics in moral philosophy, especially free will and virtue. One good place to begin is a passage from his early work, which opens part three of Discourse on the Method. As we know, the discourse urges that we should suspend judgment about things that are uncertain. In this passage, though, Descartes outlines a kind of plan B, which he compares to temporary housing where we can live while our real home is being built on secure foundations.

By this, he means a set of rules to get on in life while he is working on a philosophical theory that would provide full and comprehensive certainty. These rules are described using the French phrase morale par provision, which is usually translated provisional morality, though it may have the somewhat different connotation of a moral code that is reliable, but still only partial.

In light of the metaphor about the temporary house, it seems clear at least that this provisional morality is not intended to be the last word on ethical questions. The provisional morality has three maxims, as Descartes calls them. First, in the absence of any better guideline, to follow the laws and customs of his own community, including on matters of religion. Second, to follow his best moral judgment wherever it might lead, even while realizing that this judgment is fallible.

Third, Descartes says, to master myself rather than fortune and change my desires rather than the order of the world. It is in light of these maxims that Descartes has dedicated himself to the cause of knowledge, which he takes to be the greatest of goods. There's a lot to be said here, beginning with that first maxim.

It may seem incredible that Descartes, of all people, would be happy simply to follow the beliefs he grew up with. His famously critical approach is shown even in this passage, which concludes by saying that apart from the maxims of the provisional morality, he determined to abandon all other opinions he found himself holding. So we might suspect that the provisional morality is accepted only because when it comes to questions of how to live, one cannot just suspend judgment, one has to follow some policy or other.

Common sense morality and even the Catholic faith provide him with such a policy, but only for lack of something better, and only until he finds that something better. Had Descartes been born in China, the first maxim would have led to his adopting Confucian beliefs and the typical values of Chinese society. As it happens, he was instead raised Catholic and in France, so he muddles on with the opinions bequeathed to him by this upbringing. That makes it sound like this is not so much a Plan B as a Plan B-.

Yet, Descartes would remain within the Catholic fold and would continue to invoke the dictates of the provisional morality later in his career, for instance when writing to Elizabeth. He tells her to follow custom, albeit critically, siding with whatever seems the most probable, so that we may never be irresolute when we need to act. So, that matches maxim 1 of the provisional morality. He also emphasizes to her the importance of adhering to one's best judgment, which is maxim 2.

Even if we go astray, we should never feel regret, so long as we have sincerely tried to do what seemed best. As for the third maxim about mastering oneself rather than fortune, this too remains a leitmotif of Cartesian ethics. His interest in medicine notwithstanding, he points out that "It is easier to learn not to fear death than to preserve life." We should never lament the lack of anything external, since these things ultimately lie outside our control.

As he puts it in Discourse on the Method, we might as well be upset about not owning the kingdom of China or Mexico. All this suggests that the provisional morality weighs pretty strongly with Descartes. Its maxims are not to be discarded lightly, even the first maxim about following the beliefs of one's community. Descartes is enough of a snob to hold common opinion at arm's length.

In his work on the passions, he says that the common people judge badly. If we do go along with them anyway, at least concerning the external aspect of our actions, this is just to avoid trouble. But he apparently considers many of the beliefs circulating in society to be reliable, since they have grown from what Descartes calls the seeds of rationality.

This helps to explain why Descartes, so bold and provocative in matters of physics and metaphysics, was fairly conservative when it came to ethics, politics, and religion. Given the innate tendency of human reason to gravitate towards the truth, moral orthodoxy is at least more likely to be right than wrong, so following it is a lot better than just adopting a random set of beliefs. A good comparison here might be to the "confused information delivered by the senses."

They offer a starting point for doing science, indeed the only one we have, but they are still only a starting point, calling for the clarification or analysis that gets us to the foundations of the sciences. If the first maxim is more reliable than it may look, then the second and third seem to have Descartes' full confidence. These maxims were that one should follow one's best judgment and avoid being distraught over things one cannot control. Now, these two principles only go so far.

Even the best judgment can go wrong, and we need to know what is valuable in addition to knowing that external things are not valuable. So more needs to be said to arrive at a complete ethical theory. Still, these two ideas remain at the core of Descartes' ethical teaching. In this respect, Descartes fits into a larger development that stemmed from the Renaissance recovery of ancient ethical works.

As we saw in the series on philosophy in the 16th century, figures like Lepsius and Montaigne had been reviving Stoicism as a source of consolation in the midst of unsettled times. This tendency makes itself felt in Descartes' provisional morality, especially the third maxim, which seems to be about as Stoic as it gets: "Worldly goods should be treated as matters of indifference, even if all else being equal, one may still reasonably prefer wealth to poverty or health to illness."

As Descartes told Queen Christina, such apparent goods are to be esteemed, but not honored or praised. So Leibniz was on pretty firm ground when he commented that Descartes' ethics was a composite of the opinions of the Stoics and Epicureans, the Epicurean part being Descartes' emphasis on the contentment of mind that comes with adhering to one's best judgment. Stoicism seems to be by far the more relevant comparison, though, since Descartes puts so much emphasis on virtue as correct use of the will.

Mention of the will brings us back to more metaphysical territory, and more specifically, to Descartes' mind-body dualism. Up until now, we've spoken about the soul only as a thinking thing, so you could be forgiven for assuming that all it does is reason, for instance by doing science. But in fact, Descartes holds that the soul's capacity for thought involves two different functions, intellection and volition.

Science would be a good example of intellection, whereas volition covers such things as desire, aversion, denial, and doubt. Both functions are involved when we form a judgment. The intellectual aspect of the mind comes up with candidate judgments, but it is volition that chooses to endorse them. This is what happens at the start of the meditations, where Descartes makes a concerted effort to doubt everything he has always assumed to be true.

When judgments concern practical affairs, the acceptance of those judgments has a further effect. The volition acts upon the brain, activating the pineal gland so as to initiate the chosen motions. So, Descartes seems to be saying that we are free, and that thanks to the volitional aspect of our souls or minds, we can act without any constraint, in accordance with our best judgment.

Indeed, he writes in a letter to Queen Christina that, "...free will is the noblest thing we have, since it makes us in a way equal to God, and seems to exempt us from being his subjects, and so its correct use is the greatest of all the goods we possess." In a more satirical mode, in the replies to Gassandi's Objections to the Meditations, Descartes teases Gassandi for his skepticism regarding free will, "...then do not be free if it seems that way to you."

A remark that gains extra irony from the fact that Descartes is offering him the choice whether or not to believe in choice. Unfortunately, it seems that Descartes himself cannot so easily make sense of genuinely free volition. The issue is not, as it would have been for the ancient Stoics, that he is a physical determinist. As just mentioned, our minds can intervene in the physical world by initiating motions in our brains.

What ensues in terms of motions inside our body and out in the world around us will be subject to deterministic physical laws, but the triggering motion in the brain is up to the will, which can never be constrained. Yet, determinism lurks as a threat nonetheless, because of God. Even if he is not causing everything to happen in the world, a possibility I mentioned in the episode on Descartes' physics, God must presumably know what we will choose to do beforehand.

This traditional problem of divine foreknowledge puzzles Descartes to the point that he says he is not sure how it can be resolved. Even setting God aside, though, there may be cases where we exercise our will without having any alternative possibilities open to us. These cases would occur when our intellect grasps something clearly and distinctly. Can you really decide not to assent to a proposition like 2 plus 3 equals 5?

Descartes sometimes denies that this is possible, sometimes says that it is, as when he remarks that we might suspend judgment even about a matter of utmost clarity just in order to prove to ourselves that we are free to do so. In the Meditations, he does manage to doubt things like simple mathematical truths, but he needs to invoke skeptical scenarios like the evil demon hypothesis. He doesn't just say that he's decided to doubt these things by a sheer act of will.

There might, though, be another way for the world to avoid accepting obvious truths. Such truths are obvious only when we think about them, so a possible escape route would be to avoid thinking about them. Just consider that every day, children all over the world stop themselves from assenting to simple mathematical propositions just by skipping math class. Similarly, when it comes to ethical decisions,

Those children presumably know they shouldn't skip class, but they avoid that inconvenient judgment by thinking about something else, like how much fun it would be to stay home playing video games instead. In this indirect way, even assent to clear and distinct ideas remains optional. Then again, perhaps Descartes didn't think that alternative options are needed if one is to exercise free will, making him what modern-day philosophers would call a compatibilist.

In one of the strongest pieces of evidence for this interpretation, he says that we are actually more free when we are compelled to accept something that is fully clear and distinct. In any case, nothing is more important in life than the good use of the will, forming judgments about what is best and then sticking to those decisions. Virtue is just this, says Descartes, nothing more and nothing less.

As moral theories go, this one may seem rather unsatisfying. It's not much help to be told to be virtuous by using the will to make good judgments without getting any guidance as to which judgments are the right ones. Part of the answer here may be the not-much-more-satisfying point that as we've already seen, the main thing is to judge as well as one can regardless of whether one judges rightly. But what we really want is an indication of some genuine goods in light of which we can make those judgments.

And we do get such indications from Descartes. One thing he clearly values is knowledge, the goal he decided to pursue as the upshot of his provisional morality. This priority fits well with his philosophy more broadly. The mind is superior to the body, and knowledge is the perfection of the mind. So it is the best thing we can attain, better than physical or emotional satisfaction. As Descartes puts it, "It is better to have less cheer and more knowledge."

Something else that is genuinely valuable is God. In fact, He is the supreme good, outranking any good in this world. Descartes wrote a letter about this to Queen Christina, explaining that the best passion we can experience is love for God. This love may be prompted by reflecting that God too is a mind, possessed of intellect and will, but a mind infinitely greater than our own. So if we value ourselves and other humans, then all the more should we value God. Moreover, we should indeed value ourselves.

Appropriate self-esteem is crucial to a virtue Descartes calls "générosité," which we may as well translate "generosity," even though he means something rather different by it. The "generous" have self-esteem not because of any achievements or outward traits, but simply because of the faculty of volition, which they know to be fully under their control. They also have sufficient resolution to use volition to do whatever they judge best. Descartes' definition of this crowning virtue should sound familiar.

It incorporates the second and third maxims of the provisional morality: the generous value volition which is truly theirs rather than external things which lie outside their power. The generous also possess the fortitude to stick to their judgments about what is good, come what may. But, as Lisa Shapiro has argued, there's more to generosity than this. It calls for the careful, reflective, and decisive use of the will. One shouldn't dither, but neither should one come to snap judgments.

Instead, it's acceptable, and even commendable, to remain irresolute, so that one has time to consider one's options. Error typically arises when we fail to do this, rashly endorsing a false belief presented by one's own mind. We can use the example of generosity to consider how Cartesian ethics compares to Aristotelian virtue theory, something he would have learned at the feet of the Jesuits.

Descartes is less like Aristotle and more like a Stoic, such as Epictetus, in making the will the central site of our self-control and self-mastery. Also unlike Aristotle is his point that we should never regret anything so long as we did what we judged best. Aristotle would say that even the best-intentioned action could be regrettable, for instance if it was done in a situation of ignorance and led to an undesirable result.

But the idea that generosity means being neither too quick nor too slow to judge sounds like an application of Aristotle's theory of the mean. Then too, Descartes' point that generosity would involve experiencing a feeling of self-esteem makes it similar to an Aristotelian virtue. Generosity is, or at least involves, an emotion, or passion, of legitimate self-regard. This is why his treatment of this important virtue is found in his Treatise on the Passions.

Did Descartes manage to stick to his own rather strict guidelines for morality? Well, not completely. Writing to one of his old teachers in 1645, he admitted that he was a man like any other and not one of those insensitive people who do not allow themselves to be affected by success. On the other hand, he added that he was eager for the reading public and the Jesuits in particular to accept the truths that he offered. He was still living out the consequences of his provisional morality, seeking knowledge and sharing it.

Descartes was able to stick to that resolution through thick and, more often, thin. As he mordently remarked to Queen Christina: "I have never wished to expect anything of Fortune, and I have tried to conduct my life in such a way that she has never had any power over me. This has, it seems, made Fortune jealous of me, for she never fails to disappoint me whenever she has any chance to do so." Still, even Descartes caught a break now and again.

His association with the queen was certainly not such a case, since the invitation to Sweden was followed in short order by his own death. But he had a far more fortunate relation with another royal, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. She's been coming up now and again in our story already, but next time, we'll give her the enthusiastic attention she deserves in an episode which it would be fair to describe as a Bohemian Rhapsody.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? No, it's the history of philosophy, without any gaps.