Two or three battles: organicity and temporality in cartesian ethics

In the Principles, Descartes announces his intention to de- liver an “exact account of morals” which would crown his philosophical project and aim at nothing less than the “perfection and felicity of life”. The development of such a perfect system of morals, however, presup- poses a complete knowledge of all the other sciences, and will require their completion before it can be brought to light. Morality thus appears as the end of Cartesian philosophy, and this in a double sense: morality will be the last science to appear, but it will also bring forth the actual fulfillment of the philosophical project, its final and most perfect result. The purpose of this paper is to examine, through a close reading of the continuities and interruptions that puncture Descartes’ works, the am- biguous character of such ethical promise, and the conditions in which such realization of philosophy did not take place.