Descartes's Moral Perfectionism

Cover
Endorsement Page
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
	Notes
Chapter 1: Good and evil
	1.1 Introduction
	1.2 The goodness of each thing in itself without reference to anything else
	1.3 Goodness in relation to ourselves
	1.4 Goodness in relation to ourselves: an alternative interpretation
	1.5 Highest goods in relation to ourselves
	1.6 Further examples of highest goods
	1.7 Evil
	1.8 Knowledge of good and evil
	Notes
Chapter 2: Descartes’s conception of virtue
	2.1 Introduction
	2.2 The will
	2.3 A firm and constant resolution in the will
	2.4 To carry out all the things which one judges to be best, and to employ all the powers of one’s mind in finding out what these are
	2.5 Virtue and knowledge
	Notes
Chapter 3: Descartes’s moral perfectionism
	3.1 Introduction
	3.2 Method of decision-making vs criterion of right-making features
	3.3 Cartesian moral perfectionism
		3.3.1 Self and other
	3.4 Alternative accounts (I): Descartes as (something of) a stoic
	3.5 Alternative accounts (II): Descartes as an Epicurean
	Notes
Chapter 4: Happiness
	4.1 Introduction
	4.2 Descartes’s account of happiness
	4.3 No degrees of happiness
		4.3.1 Letter of 4 August 1645
		4.3.2 Letter of 18 August 1645
	4.4 The good of happiness
	4.5 Virtue and happiness
		4.5.1 Why living as one ought to do is, at least in practice, necessary for happiness
		4.5.2 Is living as one ought to do sufficient for happiness?
	Notes
Chapter 5: Cartesian generosity
	5.1 Introduction
	5.2 The general function of the passions
	5.3 Generosity as a passion
	5.4 Generosity as a virtue
	5.5 Controlling the passions
	5.6 Acquiring Cartesian generosity
		5.6.1 The habit
		5.6.2 The knowledge
	Notes
Chapter 6: Cartesian generosity, the highest and most perfect morality, and the morale par provision
	6.1 Introduction
	6.2 Generosity and the highest and most perfect morality
		6.2.1 Two fundamentally different ideals?
		6.2.2 Generosity as the highest and most perfect morality
	6.3 Generosity and the morale par provision
		6.3.1 The morale par provision
		6.3.2 The status of the morale par provision
			6.3.2.1 The maxims of the morale and their justification
	Notes
Bibliography
Index