Descartes' Deontological Turn: Reason, Will, and Virtue in the Later Writings

by Noa Naaman-Zauderer

Overview

This book offers a new way of approaching the place of the will in Descartes' mature epistemology and ethics. Departing from the widely accepted view, Noa Naaman-Zauderer suggests that Descartes regards the will, rather than the intellect, as the most significant mark of human rationality, both intellectual and practical. Through a close reading of Cartesian texts from the Meditations onward, she brings to light a deontological and non-consequentialist dimension of Descartes' later thinking, which credits the proper use of free will with a constitutive, evaluative role. She shows that the right use of free will, to which Descartes assigns obligatory force, constitutes for him an end in its own right rather than merely a means for attaining any other end, however valuable. Her important study has significant implications for the unity of Descartes' thinking, and for the issue of responsibility, inviting scholars to reassess Descartes' philosophical legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521763301
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/04/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Noa Naaman-Zauderer is senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Tel-Aviv University. She is the author of Descartes: The Loneliness of a Philosopher (2007) and co-editor of Discourse and Dialogue: Multi-Perspective Philosophy (2003).

Table of Contents

Preface ix

List of abbreviations xii

Introduction 1

1 Looking inward: truth, falsehood, and clear and distinct ideas 10

1 Interpreting the nature of clear and distinct perceptions 12

2 Objective reality in the Third Meditation 17

3 Objective being and representation in the First Replies 22

4 True and false ideas 28

5 Clarity and distinctness 38

6 Materially false ideas 46

2 Error in judgment 61

1 Error as a misuse of free will 64

2 Error as privation 74

3 The dual metaphysical status of error 78

4 The causal analysis of error 79

5 The normative query: God and human proneness to error 86

6 Error as privation: alternative interpretations 89

7 Error and rationality 95

3 Free will 101

1 Free will in the Fourth Meditation 101

2 Cartesian indifference 104

3 The two-way power of the will 109

4 Descartes' conception of human freedom 115

5 Article 37 of the Principles 124

6 The 1645 letter to Mesland 126

4 Free will and the likeness to God 131

1 In the image and likeness of God 131

2 The dissimilarity thesis 132

3 The human experience of freedom and the incomprehensibility of God 137

4 The likeness to God revisited 144

5 From intellectual to practical reason 149

1 Descartes' apparent ambivalence 149

2 Judgments concerning matters of faith 154

3 The morale par provision 160

4 The four morale maxims 165

6 Descartes' deontological ethics of virtue 178

1 The unity of virtue 379

2 Virtue as the right use of the will 183

3 Virtue, the supreme good, and happiness 185

4 Virtue as self-mastery in the Passions of the Soul 191

5 Cartesian generosity 198

References 205

Index 213

Editorial Reviews

"....excellent new book.... this book is a very significant contribution to Cartesian studies — a "must read," in my opinion, for faculty or graduate students interested in the topics it addresses.... It exhibits a tight thematic unity despite dealing with a number of different issues.... individual chapters contain many more interesting details and so are worth reading as stand-alone explorations of their specific topics. They are impeccably researched and cogently argued, fully engaging both the primary texts and the relevant secondary literature. According to Naaman-Zauderer, her goal in the book is "to open up a new way of approaching a wide cluster of long-debated issues in Descartes' epistemology and ethics" (6). She not only makes a brilliant effort toward this goal, but achieves it."
—C. P. Ragland, Saint Louis University, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews


"....Noa Naaman-Zauderer’s book aims to bring to light the ethical underpinnings of Descartes’ system.... This book’s uncovering of the deontological aspects of Descartes’ thought represents an original and worthwhile contribution to Cartesian scholarship. It is a rich, tightly argued and carefully researched book that accomplishes its proposed goals of inviting scholars to reconsider Descartes’ views in light of deontological considerations and of opening up fresh avenues and perspectives of inquiry...."
—Andreea Mihali, Wilfrid Laurier University, Philosophy in Review


"...Descartes’ Deontological Turn is a thorough piece of scholarship. The book is well researched and well written. Above all, Naaman-Zauderer has offered us an astute defense of many controversial interpretations of Descartes."
—Eric Stencil, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Journal of the History of Philosophy


"...Noa Naaman-Zauderer's Descartes' Deontological Turn is a well-focused and up-to-date contribution to a set of debates in Cartesian scholarship that reinserts Descartes' epistemological and metaphysical thought in the broader context of his theological and ethical preoccupations."
—Richard Davis, Universita degli Studi di Bergamo, Italy, Review of Metaphysics


"Noa Namann- Zauderer’s Descartes’s Deontological Turn is a brilliant book. It is lucid in explanation and elegantly written, achieving a level of originality and mastery of her subject that significantly reshapes our understanding of central aspects of Cartesian metaphysics and epistemology, as well as ethical theory, to a degree not seen since Margaret Wilson’s Descartes. The book is beautifully produced and edited by Cambridge University Press..."
—Tom Vinci, IYYUN: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly


"...DDT’s thorough presentation of current English-language Descartes scholarship on a wide range of topics and its careful collation of numerous passages relevant to the topics of error, freedom, and ethics should make the book useful to Descartes scholars and especially to graduate students."
—Sean Greenberg, University of California, Irvine, HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science

From the Publisher