The Relation between Metaphysics and Ethics In Descartes Thought

Author
seyed mostafa shahraeini
Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS)
10.61186/mi.4.7.7
Abstract
The redefinition of human being is among the foundations on which Cartesian thought is based. Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy and Search for Truth, explicitly criticizes the Aristotelians formal definition of man as 'rational animal' because of the fact that two pivotal concepts in it, i.e. animality and rationality, both are vague and confused. Instead, in Cartesian philosophy man is redefined as the unextended thinking thing that is very different from Aristotelian formal definition in that being thinking for Descartes, is so remote from being rational for Aristotle. The former relates only with the sphere of mind, while the latter with soul. Both animality and rationality are excluded from Cartesian new definition of man because within his dualistic thought/extension paradigm, all confused, qualitative notions have been replaced with clear and distinct ones.

Now, in present paper, we try to explore that weather we can yet expect from the Cartesian man whose soul has been reduced to mind, rationality to speaking, and animality to movement and heat of internal organs, to behave morally within the world, as we do from Aristotelian one. Basically, can the Cartesian man, who has no sensation and imagination at first, do ethics, and has any moral obligation before the other beings.
Keywords
Cartesian Man
Ethics
Soul
Mind
Animality
thought
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