Ethics and Reason (original) (raw)

2010, The Routledge Companion to Ethics, edited by John Skorupski

Descartes (1596-1650), Spinoza (1632-77), and Leibniz (1646-1716) are commonly , and rightly, considered to belong to a single school of thought in metaphysics and epistemology. Although they arrive at different conclusions, they share a set of concerns and methodological principles. Each is interested in proving the existence of God and describing God's relation to the world; in giving an account of the human being; and in describing the nature and limits of knowledge. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz differ among themselves about what the most basic principles of reason are and how they are rightly applied. However , it is also generally true that each approaches these subjects as ones that can be understood better by means of human reason rather than by uncritical trust in the senses. For these purposes, then, the label "rationalist" can be a useful and tolerably accurate one. That label is probably not as useful in ethics. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz do hold some ethical views in common. Moreover, some of their most interesting differences do arise from their positions in metaphysical and epistemological debates. These philosophers' aims and influences in ethics also vary in many respects, however, and it would be misleading to underemphasize this point here. Descartes's moral theory shows the influence of Stoicism, and recasts ancient views about the passions and their control in light of his own account of the human being, human physiology, and psychology. The views that Descartes expresses are tempered by a reverence for ecclesiastical and civil authority together with a well-justified concern that his enemies would be very likely to find in a complete ethical theory, and, in particular, in a detailed normative ethics, effective means of damaging his reputation and security. As a result, even his most complete moral work, The Passions of the Soul, leaves one with the sense that some important consequences of the theory are left unwritten. Spinoza addresses Descartes and the Stoics in his own account of the passions and their control in the Ethics. However, Spinoza also clearly addresses a number of authors, notably Hobbes, Maimonides, and Aristotle. The themes of Spinoza's moral theory include Cartesian themes, but only as an important part of the whole view. Spinoza, moreover, states his view in a bold, uncompromising, and thorough treatise: his moral theory is much better developed than the views of either Descartes or Leibniz. Leibniz, although his remarks on ethics show careful attention to Spinoza and Descartes, addresses other traditions as well, especially the tradition of natural law theory. Leibniz does give accounts of virtue, happiness, and perfection that, while quite short and unsystematic, clearly respond to concerns of the sort that also moved Descartes and Spinoza. His most distinctive and important ethical ideas, however, the notions of charity and of the moral community of minds, which he calls the City of God, address a moral concern – how we should act toward others – that is only a passing concern for Spinoza and that Descartes entrusts to higher authorities. There is, then, a common set of themes addressed in these theories. The authors’ various concerns and perspectives suggest, however, that these similarities amount to an interesting development of the tradition of virtue ethics rather than to a single, readily defined school of rationalist ethical thought.