Speaker Series: Calvin Normore (McGill/UCLA)

“Descartes’ Generosity”
C.G. Normore

In what is sometimes called the letter on the Sovereign Good  (to Christina Nov. 20, 1647) Descartes claims that our chief good ” and consists only in a firm will to do well, and the contentment which that produces” but in an earlier letter  to Elizabeth in August 1645 we find him admitting that that will and resolution when uninformed by right reason can lead us to seek false goods and so the contentment it produces is not solid. Descartes solution to this apparent tension is his doctrine of generosité. This paper attempts to sketch and make sense  Descartes’ account of generosité and to reflect a puzzles raised by accounts, like Descartes’ and Abelard’s which locate the good in the will to do good.