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Descartes, Divine Veracity, and Moral Certainty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

Jean-Pierre Schachter
Jean-Pierre Schachter
Affiliation:
Huron University College
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Abstract

This article explores the relation between Descartes's appeal to God's veracity and his connected notions of “metaphysical” and “moral” certainty. I do this by showing their roles in his proof of the external world, his position on other minds, and his position on the “beast-machine.” Descartes uses God's veracity in the first proof, but not in the second or third. I suggest that the reason for this is that extending his appeal to God to other minds would have placed his beast-machine doctrine in jeopardy. I conclude by accounting for some Cartesian passages that might seem incompatible with my reading of moral certainty's important role in his philosophy.

Résumé

Cet article explore les liens entre le recours à la véracité de Dieu et les notions de certitude «métaphysique» et «morale» chez Descartes. Pour cela, je montre le rôle qu'elles jouent dans sa preuve de l'existence du monde extérieur, sa position sur l'existence d'autres esprits et celle sur l'«animal-machine». Descartes se sert de la véracité de Dieu dans le premier cas, maispas dans le deuxième ni le troisième. Je suggere que c'est parce que faire à nouveau appel à la véracité de Dieu dans le cas des autres esprits aurait mis en péril sa doctrine de l'animal-machine. Je conclus en me penchant sur des passages de Descartes qui pourraient sembler incompatibles avec l'inter prétation que je fais du rôle important quejoue la certitude morale dans sa philosophic.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , Winter 2005 , pp. 15 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2005

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References

Notes

1 René Descartes, Discourse on the Method (in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated and edited by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (herein “CSM”), 2 vols. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985]). All references to Descartes, unless otherwise indicated, are to this standard edition. The additional third volume, devoted to the correspondence and with contributions by Anthony Kenny, I will refer to as “CSMK.” I also include the Adam and Tannery pagination as “AT.”

2 Newman, Lex argues that the appeal to God's veracity (his “IWC” principle) is more fundamental than clearness and distinctness (“The Fourth Meditation” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 59, 3 [1999]: 559–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 559). His “IWC” seems equivalent to my “VP.” He further argues that an understanding of the IWC principle can illuminate Descartes's intention in his response to the Dream Argument as well as his writings in the Sixth Meditation. I think he is quite right, and I will show here how what he calls the “IWC” principle connects to the Cartesian notion of “moral certainty” and the two connected issues of other minds and animal minds.

3 This is true with the exception of the Cogito, which is immune to both the Dream and the Evil Demon arguments. Its immunity, however, does not flow from its clearness and distinctness, but rather from some other property unique to it. Since this feature of the Cogito cannot serve to promote any other beliefs from clearness and distinctness to metaphysical certainty, another expedient is needed for the certainty of our other clear and distinct beliefs. That other expedient is God's necessary veracity.

4 This doctrine seems to entail that there is limit to the “freedom of the Will,” which is in apparent conflict with Descartes's other view that the Will is free. Descartes is aware of this problem and attempts to resolve it in various ways. For a detailed discussion, see Kenny, Anthony, Descartes on the Will (in Descartes, edited by Cottingham, John [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998])Google Scholar. While it is true that Descartes's views here are difficult to disentangle, it is also the case that he repeatedly maintains that clear and distinct perception “forces” assent, and that is all that is necessary for the position I take in this article. For an inventory of the passages expressive of the “forcing” of the Will, see Kenny (ibid., pp. 148–50). A contrary view is taken by Alanen, Lilli in Descartes's Concept of Mind (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 240ffGoogle Scholar. I am not persuaded by Alanen's position.

5 Cottingham suggests in a footnote that Descartes may in this passage be thinking of the difference between a clear and distinct individual cognition and one that is apprehended within a system of properly grounded knowledge. This seems more than is called for by the passage, since Descartes himself indicates that what is lacking for the atheist is precisely God's guarantee. See also Sixth Set of Replies 4, CSM II 289; AT VII 428.

6 I discuss only the Meditations proof because many believe that the Principles proof is different, in virtue of being based on clear and distinct perception instead of an inclination. One recent writer, Wee, Cecilia in her “Descartes's Two Proofs of the External World” (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 80, 4 [2002]: 487–501, esp. p. 487)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, goes further and argues that not only is thePrinciples proof (PEWP) based on clear and distinct perception, but so is the Meditations proof (PEWM). I think she is wrong on both counts. Considerations of space prevent me from arguing the case here in detail, but here is a brief sketch. Her case rests on the clause in PEWP to the effect that “we appear to see clearly,” that our ideas are caused by external objects. Descartes's explanation of this clause indicates that the “seem” is intended to modify “see” and not “clearly”; his intention is to neutralize the ordinary implication to external objects of the verb “to see,” to reduce “the seen” to “what appears.” To make his intention clearer, both the “see” and the “clearly” are omitted in the French translation by Pico, which Descartes approves (“& il nous semble… que l'idée que nous en avons se forme en nous à l'occasion des corps de dehors”). Descartes further explains that his proof is intended to proceed solely from “what appears”: “what appears to us in fact requires the existence of material objects as a source of the ideas in question.” But “requires” how? He has already admitted that the inference is dubitable. I suggest that the only way that remains for an inference to be forced is if a strong inclination to believe is guaranteed by God, making PEWP identical to PEWM. Wee also assumes uncritically that the only kind of “strong inclination” possible is the kind we encounter in “Nature's teachings”; I argue to the contrary that there is also a strong inclination of a purely rational kind.

7 Descartes, Discourse, Pt. 4, CSM I 130; AT VI 37, 38.

8 Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, Pt. 4, 204–206, CSM II 289f.; AT VIIIA 327–29.

9 Descartes, To Mersenne, 21st April, 1641, CSM III 179; AT III 359.

10 Descartes, To Regius, 24 May 1640, CSM III 146f.; AT III 63.

11 Descartes, Discourse, Pt. 4, CSM I 130; AT VI 37, 38.

12 See Descartes, Second Set of Replies CSM II 102–103; AT VII 144.

13 My use of this term is not intended to bring in Positivist or Popperian considerations of either meaning or viable scientific hypothesis. My preferred term would have been “incorrigible,” since, properly speaking, the propositions involved are not “correctable,” if false. This latter term, however, seemed to carry more unwanted baggage than the former. All I intend by “unfalsifiable” is that if a belief is unfalsiiiably false, that is a fact that is in principle humanly undetectable. As I understand Descartes, both clear and distinct propositions (and their beliefs) and non-clear and distinct propositions concerning inferred entities are unfalsifiable in this sense; the clear and distinct because of the Dream argument and the non-clear and distinct because they fall outside the reach of any of our faculties.

14 “Car ne m'ayant donné aucune faculté pour connaître que cela soit, mais au contraire une très grande inclination à croire qu'elles me sont envoyées ou qu'elles partent des choses corporelles, je ne vois pas comment on pourrait l'excuser de tromperie, si en effet ces idées partaient ou étaient produites par d'autres causes que par des choses corporelles” (Meditation VI, AT VII, 79, from the 1647 translation of the Due de Luynes).

15 Cf. Locke, John, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, 2nd ed., edited by Nidditch, P. H. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)Google Scholar. Locke later explicitly uses this form of argument when he recommends the “corpuscularian hypothesis” as going “furthest in an intelligible explication of those qualities of bodies” (E IV.III.16.17 547).

16 A part, therefore, of what “Nature teaches us” is morally certain.

17 He also appeals to it to neutralize the Dream Argument. See Meditation VI, CSM II, p. 62; AT VII, 90.

18 This is from Haldane, Elizabeth S.'s translation, Descartes' “Discourse on the Method,” edited by Fieser, James (Internet Release, 1996), Part 5, p. 42Google Scholar; AT VI 57. The Stoothoff translation renders “moralement impossible” as “for all practical purposes impossible.” Since “morally impossible” is a technical expression for Descartes, this seems infelicitous, and so I selected the Haldane translation in this instance for its greater fidelity to the original: “Car, au lieu que la raison est un instrument universel, qui peut servir en toutes sortes de rencontres, ces organes ont besoin de quelque particuliere disposition pour chaque action particuliëre; d'oú vient qu'il est moralement impossible qu'il y en ait assez de divers en une machine pour la faire agir en toutes les occurrences de la vie, de même façon que notre raison nous fait agir.”

19 Cited by Rosenfield, Leonora Cohen in From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 11.Google Scholar

20 Pardies, Ignace-Gaston (1636–1673), Discours de la Connoissance des Bestes (1672), edited and with an introduction by Rosenfield, Leonora Cohen (New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1972).Google Scholar

21 (Ibid., p. 227: “Dieu nous tromperons, si les bestes n'etoient que de pures machines.”

22 (Ibid. “Car lors qu'un Jongleur nous fait voir des marionnettes qui marchent, qui parlent, & qui font des actions semblables aux nôtrès; nous ne doutons point qu'il ne nous trompe; parce qu'à voir toutes ces actions extérieures, nous sommes d'abord naturellement portez à juger qu'elles se font là de la même manière qu'elles se font en nous-mêmes & qu'ainsi ce que nous voyons sont de petits hommes. Or faire ainsî ce qui nous peut porter naturellement à juger que des marionnettes sont des hommes, c'est nous tromper. De même, à considerer les Bestes, & leurs actions si semblables aux nôtres, nous jugeons d'abord qu'elles se font dans les Bestes commes en nous-mêmes, avec connoissance & avec sentiment: Ainsi, si toutes ces Bestes n'étoient que de pures machines, que pourrions-nous dire de celuy qui nous les presenteroit, & qui les feroit joüer devant nous comme des marionnettes? La bienséance & le respect avec lequel nous devons parler de Dieu, ne nous permet pas de nous arrêter longtemps sur cette pensee: mais certainement il semble que ceux qui nous parlent ainsi de machines, nous en proposent l'auteur comme le plus habile de tous les Jongleurs.”