We propose a novel reading of Descartes' views on the nature of pain, thirst, and hunger: imperativism. According to imperativism, rather than (exclusively) having intentional contents individuated by a set of correctness conditions specifying the way the world is, pain thirst, and hunger have contents individuated by satisfaction conditions, which specify the way the world ought to be. Unlike representationalist treatments, the imperativist reading satisfies the unique health-preserving role Descartes sets out for pain, thirst, and hunger, without inflating his austere (...) metaphysics of res extensa. (shrink)

Commentators commonly assume that Descartes regards it as a function of the passions to inform us or teach us which things are beneficial and which are harmful. As a result, they tend to infer that Descartes regards the passions as an appropriate guide to what is beneficial or harmful. In this paper I argue that this conception of the role of the passions in Descartes is mistaken. First, in spite of a number of texts appearing to show the contrary, I (...) argue that Descartes does not regard it as the role of the passions to inform us about what is beneficial or harmful. Second, although Descartes calls the passions good and useful, I argue that Descartes does not think we should allow ourselves to be guided by them. When we recognize that the function of the passions is largely motivational and not informative, we can more easily understand Descartes's practical advice in The Passions of the Soul that happiness requires us to guide our passions instead of letting our passions guide us. (shrink)

Walter Charleton’s often overlooked treatise, The Natural History of the Passions (1674), offers an eclectic and unique engagement in the seventeenth-century debate about the nature and purpose of...

In the Fourth Meditation, Descartes famously treats the indifference of the will (roughly, ambivalence of reasons) as the source of error, which many read as oddly suggesting that the will judges arbitrarily. In his letter to Elisabeth dated 1st September 1645, however, he expressly takes passions to be the source of error, saying that passions move the will to judge erroneously by misrepresenting the value of objects. Although these two accounts focus on different kinds of error – theoretical and practical (...) error, respectively – I argue that Descartes is best understood as extending the second account also to the source of theoretical error. On my reading, the first account does not imply that erroneous judgements are simply arbitrary, but it leaves out an explanation why we judge at the time we do, when we could (and should) continue to inquire insofar as we have not yet gathered sufficient evidence. The second account fills in this lacuna by giving an explanation in terms of passions. I further argue that the schematic nature of the first account is due partly to the structure of the Meditations, but mainly to the fact that Descartes has not yet systematically examined the nature of passions there. (shrink)

This paper examines Descartes’ account of hatred. Descartes holds that individuals should not hate, because hatred separates us from goods, causes sadness, and produces vicious character traits. Although some scholars argue that hatred is necessary to protect the body, I argue that Descartes holds that hatred is not necessary to protect the body, because there are other means of protecting the body that do not involve hatred. I conclude this paper by showing the place of hatred in Descartes’ broader moral (...) theory, especially his emphasis on the wellbeing of the soul and the virtue of generosity. (shrink)

1. Introduction: 1.1 Difficulties of Approach; 1.2 Philosophical Background. 2. The Context of Early Modern Theories of the Passions: 2.1 Changing Vocabulary; 2.2 Taxonomies; 2.3 Philosophical Issues in Theories of the Emotions. SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTS: Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Theories of the Emotions; Descartes; Hobbes; Malebranche; Spinoza; Shaftsbury; Hutcheson; Hume.

.In this paper, I address Descartes’ claims that sensory perceptions function to aid and preserve the subject in interacting with the world, and focus specifically on the ‘valence’, or agreeable/disagreeable quality, that characterizes many sensations. I show how Descartes considers this aspect of sensation to be a significant factor in the ecological role of sensory perception and I then turn to a kind of case that seems to pose a problem for this view: that of aesthetic pleasure. I consider Descartes’ (...) remarks on a particular kind of aesthetic pleasure – that found in musical consonance – and argue that his discussion of this phenomenon reveals that he distinguishes between two distinct kinds of valence – evaluative sensory valence and aesthetic valence – only one of which functions to report directly on ecological evaluation. Further, I suggest that the best way to understand the distinction between these is by appealing to Descartes’ three grades of sensory perception. (shrink)