Essays in Philosophy: A Biannual Journal
“Cartesian Agency and Ethics: Virtue, Passion, Happiness, Freedom”
Volume 14, Number 2
Issue date: July 2013
Submission deadline: January 31, 2013
Editor: Shoshana Brassfield (Frostburg State University)

Descartes is well known for what he says about our situation in the world as pure thinkers and knowers. The Cartesian meditator seeks knowledge of the nature and existence of himself and the world around him. But Descartes is also deeply concerned with our situation in the world as agents, with the questions of what our free agency consists in, how we should use it, how we can live virtuous and happy lives, and how the physical, emotional, and intellectual aspects of ourselves affect what we should desire and how we pursue those things. In the Discourse on Method, for instance, Descartes outlines a provisional morality. In the Fourth Meditation he addresses how the incorrect use of the will leads to error and sin, and in the Sixth Meditation Descartes tells us that the purpose of the sense perceptions is not to give us knowledge of the essential nature of things, but rather to help us negotiate what is beneficial or harmful to us as embodied agents. In The Passions of the Soul and his correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Descartes offers both a theoretical framework and practical advice regarding our situation as embodied moral agents, acting in situations of uncertainty, and influenced by a wide array of desires and emotions in our pursuit of the good.

Essays in Philosophy invites submissions engaged with questions about Descartes’s approach to agency and/or ethics, broadly construed. Topics for submissions may address (but are not limited to) issues such as:

• Connections between Descartes’s accounts of agency, ethics, etc., and those of other philosophers
• Descartes’s conception of the will, freedom, etc.
• Descartes’s moral philosophy (e.g. provisional moral philosophy, happiness, virtue, etc.)
• Descartes’s theory of the passions or intellectual emotions (in general or in particular)
• Descartes’s conception of the good, including perceptions of what is beneficial and harmful to the mind-body composite
• The nature or role of the appetites, according to Descartes
• The physiological components of action, passion, and volition, according to Descartes
• Or any such related question

All submissions should be sent to the general editor David Boersema via email: boersema@pacificu.edu

Essays in Philosophy publishes philosophical papers of quality which the editors believe will make a contribution to the literature on a certain topic. The journal holds to no specific school of thought, mode of philosophizing, or style of writing. Each issue of the journal is devoted to a specific topic.

For more information about Essays in Philosophy please visit the journal website: http://commons.pacificu.edu/eip/