Descartes: A Biography

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 Descartes: A Biography

(iv.). While Descartes ‘strongly agrees’ with Seneca about that, he

also claims that Seneca’s proposal about living in conformity with nature

is rather obscure. It might mean following all one’s natural desires, even

though Seneca has already explained how such a policy could make one

miserable. The ancient philosopher must therefore have been using the

term ‘nature’ to mean something like the order established by God, and

‘living according to nature’ could then be translated, into Christian ter-

minology, as submitting oneself to the will of God (iv.).

This provides an opportunity for Descartes to comment on the con-

nection between the supreme good and the motivation required to seek

it. Descartes distinguishes among three different things in this context:

(a) the supreme good, (b) happiness, and (c) the final goal of all human

actions. Happiness is not itself the supreme good, but presupposes it,

because happiness is the inner contentment that results from possession

of the supreme good. However, one could think of either (a) or (b) as the

goal of all human actions. In one sense, the supreme good is the goal of

human actions, but the resulting happiness is the attraction that motivates

us to seek it, and it may therefore rightly be called the goal of human

actions.

At this point in their correspondence, Descartes’ letters and Elizabeth’s

replies followed so closely that the messengers who delivered them often

passed each other in opposite directions. Descartes accepted that some

illnesses take away the power of reasoning and consequently the ability to

enjoy the contentment of a rational mind.This led to a further admission,

that an indisposition of the body can result in a loss of free will. Descartes

draws the initially surprising conclusion that ‘it is worse to lose the use

of one’s reason than to lose one’s life’. The reason is as follows: ‘Even

without the teachings of the faith, natural philosophy alone gives the soul

reason to hope for a happier state, after death, than the one it currently

enjoys. It makes it fear nothing more distressing than being attached to a

body which takes away completely its liberty’ (iv.). This anticipation

of the pleasures of an afterlife helps to reinforce the distinction made by

Descartes between bodily pleasures and mental pleasures. The latter can

be as immortal as the soul itself on condition that they are based on reliable

knowledge.

This almost inevitable drift into dualism about happiness is qualified

bythe impact of the passions on the life of embodied minds. Descartes

distinguishes between pleasures that are exclusively mental and those that