(Grade 11)

Descartes, a renowned, philosophical man lived in the Pre-Enlightenment era. Most of the time, people are amazed by his skepticism and dualism, which are the climax of Descartes’ thoughts, somehow they are the pinnacle of human thoughts. “I think, therefore I am” (Gottlieb 10) are praised by a lot of people and are also prevailing nowadays. However, aside from those famous ideas raised by him, his opinions about ethics are underestimated. Once, Leibniz wrote: “Descartes has not much advanced the practice of morality” (Letter to Molanus). Perhaps, the reason why his ideas of ethics are not so famous, compared to his other ideas, in which he did not write a paper systematically talking about ethics. In fact, there is another possibility that the illumination of his skepticism and dualism is so dazzling that people may forget his contributions to ethics. Fortunately, some scholars found something about ethics in Descartes’s writings. They classified Descartes’ ethics into several parts based on his works done in different periods. This article is going to talk about ethics from Descartes’ early view.

Descartes did not give his clear and general definition of ethics. He also did not show his position of ethics explicitly, either. Nevertheless, he stated some attributes of ethics in one of his writings to show his deep interest in ethics, describing a structure of the philosophical interpretation on his own, which is the tree of philosophy. “The whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely, medicine, mechanics, and morals. By ‘morals’ I understand the highest and most perfect moral system, which presupposes a complete knowledge of the other sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom.” (Parvizian) Descartes claimed that his ultimate goal of philosophy was to establish a perfect moral system that should not be divided by natural science and metaphysics.

In Descartes’ great work Discourse, his idea has first been in touch with ethics. By raising a question: how one should live in the world when one has to acquire knowledge and suspense all the judgments. He laid out a method that helps the temporary skeptic still live and act in the world in order to avoid the critics from the classic apraxia objection, which indicates that a true skeptic can do nothing practical, to skepticism. That is the provisional morality.

Please think of a scene that you were rebuilding a house. You could not just build everything in a moment. There would be a lot of materials to process and plans to be drawn and confirmed. During this procedure, you had to provide a comfortable and convenient living place for yourself to spend the days. Back to the classic apraxia objection, it is really similar to the scene above. The skeptic is skeptical of everything in the world, but they still need a moral principle to support their actions through the world will be judged by themselves dubitably. From Descartes perspective, the provisional morality which can resolve the awkward circumstance of skepticism consists of three or four maxims:

“The First Maxim:
M1a: The moral agent ought to obey the laws and customs of her country.
M1b: The moral agent ought to follow their religion.
M1c: In all other matters not addressed by M1a and M1b, the moral agent ought to follow the most commonly accepted and sensible opinions of her community.

The Second Maxim:
M2: The moral agent ought to be firm and decisive in her actions, and to follow even doubtful opinions once they are adopted, with no less constancy than if they were certain.

The Third Maxim:
M3: The moral agent ought to master herself rather than fortune, and to change her desires rather than the order of the world.

The Fourth Maxim:
M4: The moral agent ought to devote their life to cultivating reason and acquiring knowledge of the truth, according to the method outlined in the Discourse.” (Parvizian)

Descartes claimed that when the skeptic feels lost in the world, at least they should follow the will of country laws, religion, and other social conventions that can support them with moral principles. At the same time, he also argued that the absolute method needs absolute actions under uncertain conditions. Still, please imagine a scene, you were a traveler in a forest. Suddenly, you got lost in the forest and you could not think of a way to find the way out. In this case, the only thing you could do in order to save yourself was to choose a route and keep straight on it persistently. The idea of M2 is very important because later he mentioned this a lot in his following writings about virtue: Although it is the remorse and regret brought by one’s persistence that stops the one from getting happiness, “sticking firmly and constantly to one’s moral judgments, even if they are not certain.” (Parvizian) In M3, Descartes concluded the idea in which the change of thought instead of the outside world. He thought this truth can lead the people in the right way to deal with the relationship between one’s desire and the surroundings. 

However, M4 holds a special position in Descartes’ provisional morality. It is the premise, or the underpinning to make sure that the previous rules can be perfectly achieved. And M4 is the ultimate expression of his perfect moral system. That is, to acquire “knowledge of the truth”. People should not be distorted by skepticism fully. In fact, they ought to keep acquiring the knowledge of the truth. 

In considering to the significance of his provisional morality, just as Leibniz wrote: “Descartes has not much advanced the practice of morality” (Letter to Molanus). He did not raise anything really interesting and meaningful in his provisional morality because although the primitive purpose to create a provisional morality is profound, the maxims he wrote are very common. The influence by his idea is much less than other philosophers’ ideas. But there is one point needs to be noticed, his tree of philosophy indicates that the ultimate goal of philosophy is to establish a perfect moral system, which is very important in his great works later.

In conclusion, Descartes’ ethics still should not be ignored when accessing the ideas of ethics in history. He did not show his clear attitude towards ethics. However, relating to his work of skepticism, he combined his thought about ethics with skepticism to resolve the objection, proposing a perfect moral system which is his ultimate goal of the tree of philosophy. The provisional morality is such an important idea that achieves his intention. In the four maxims he wrote in Discourse III, he indicated the importance of following the laws and social convention. Also, he stated the significance of sticking firmly and persistently in one’s decision. All in all, these maxims are built above M4, which is the basis of his provisional morality, to acquire the knowledge of the truth.

Works Cited

Descartes. “Letter to Molanus.” Received by Molanus.

Parvizian, Saja. “Rene Descartes: Ethics.” Inrernet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Coastal Carolina University, https://www.iep.utm.edu/desc-eth/

Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Enlightenment: the Rise of Modern Philosophy. Penguin Random House, 2017.