Blackwell Reference Online

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Descartes is not widely recognized for his ethical thought. Indeed, some might be surprised to learn that Descartes had any thoughts at all about moral philosophy. While Descartes's writings do not include any systematic and definitive presentation of this area of philosophy, his writings are permeated with a concern for the conduct of life, and they do include some developed pieces that can guide us as we try to figure out just in what Descartes's moral philosophy consists. In this chapter, I draw on both these elements of Descartes's writings to show he is best understood as a kind of virtue ethi-cist. A virtue ethics takes the good to consist in virtue; virtue consists in a disposition to act in the right ways for the right reasons in any given set of circumstances. By contrast, a deontological ethics takes the good to consist in a set of rules or duties; a eudaimonist ethics holds that the good is just happiness; and a consequentialist ethics holds that the good consists in performing actions with the best outcomes.I begin my discussion by considering how to relate Descartes's more general concern with the conduct of life to the metaphysics and epistemology in the foreground of his philosophical project. I then turn to the texts in which Descartes offers his developed ethical thought and present the case for Descartes as a virtue ethicist. My argument emerges from seeing that ... log in or subscribe to read full text