Byron Williston

For Descartes, the passions are the key to the good life. But he is also wary of the extent to which they may lead us astray. As I argue, there is reason to be skeptical that Descartes himself provides a satisfying resolution of this tension in the Passions of the Soul. The problem concerns our ability to interpret and work through intra-subjective passional conflicts. Descartes seems almost obsessed with the problem of such conflicts in this text. What he needs to provide, however, is a kind of moral therapy by which we can adjudicatethem. This is tantamount to providing a theory of representation for the passions, and it would be similar to the belief therapy that he provides for determining the representational content of other perception types, notably sensations and appetites. But I argue that he does not discharge this philosophical obligation, and indeed he cannot do so given his own understanding of the uniquely ambiguous representational character of the passions

In a recent letter to Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, British columnist and climate change gadfly George Monbiot pleaded with Canada to clean up its greenhouse gas emissions act. The letter appeared just a week before the Copenhagen climate conference. In it, Monbiot alleged that Canada's newly acquired status as oil superpower threatens to ?brutalize? the country, as it has other oil-rich countries (Monbiot, G. 2009. Please, Canada, clean up your act, The Globe and Mail, November 30, A15). In this paper, I want to expand on Monbiot's bleak assessment of the Canadian national psyche. It has been pointed out that climate change is forcing us to rethink philosophical ethics. Some, like Dale Jamieson, believe that virtue theory is best equipped to meet the challenge of understanding the moral dimensions of this phenomenon. I think this is basically right, but that climate change is also forcing us to reassess our capacity for moral progress. The two challenges are linked. In what follows, I will first (Section 1) motivate the appeal to virtue ethics as a new way of understanding the ethics of climate change. Next (Section 2), I offer a virtue ethical account of moral progress. With the latter in place, we can (Section 3) uncover the real nature of Canada's moral failing on climate change: it is an impediment to the moral progress of our species

Locke’s critique of enthusiastic religion is an attempt to undermine a form of supernaturalist belief. In this paper, I argue for a novel interpretation of that critique. By opening up a middle path between the views of John Passmore and Michael Ayers, I show that Locke is accusing the enthusiast of being a self-deceived believer. First, I demonstrate the manner in which a theory of self-deception squares with Locke’s intellectualist epistemology. Second, I argue that Locke thinks he can show that the enthusiasts’ most cherished beliefs are in fact contrary to manifest evidence. In “matters of ultimate concern” to us---i.e., our religious beliefs---the critique is thus meant tobuttress Locke’s commitment to a naturalistic ethics of belief

To self-forgive is to foreswear specific self-directed negative attitudes, attitudes that result from an agent’s recognition of his own moral failing. What does this foreswearing process involve? When is it justified? And what is the relation between self-forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness? I will make two arguments in an attempt to answer these questions. First, self-forgiveness essentially involves a process of shaming whose ultimate goal is restoration of the wrongdoer’s goodness. Second, if a wrongdoer is to merit the forgiveness of his victim(s), he is morally ’required’ not merely ’permitted to’ forgive himself first

Anglophone philosophers have on the whole overlooked much of the last ten years or so of Descartes' philosophical career. In the period following publication of the Meditations, however, Descartes was extremely active in attempting to develop a comprehensive ethics, rooted in his analysis of human passions. His work in this area grew out of a lengthy correspondence with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and was later systematically presented in the Passions of the Soul. The present volume is the first collection of essays dealing specifically with this aspect of Descartes' thinking. It is thus a valuable contribution to our understanding of the first modern philosopher. Since in the Passions Descartes provides us with the most sophisticated and extended discussion of the composite human being anywhere in his writings, this volume is an indispensable aid to understanding the full scope of Cartesian anthropology. Just what is the nature of the passions? Does Descartes' analysis of the passions undercut his dualism? How do the passions both contribute to our good, and, if we are not careful, prevent us from recognizing it? How can the passions be regulated rationally? How do the passions affect our freedom? These and other questions are addressed in these original and insightful articles, all by leading Descartes scholars.