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Summary

lam very much in your debt for all the trouble you put yourself to for my sake, and for the concern you show yourself to have for my interests. But since I have far less of the latter than you, I should think myself guilty of an injustice if I did not beg you to ignore completely whatever you may hear against me, and not even bother to listen to it, or write to me about it. For my part, I have long known that there are fools abroad in the world, and I have so little regard for their judgement that I should be extremely sorry to lose a single moment of my leisure or my peace and quiet on their account.

As for my Metaphysics, I have completely stopped thinking about it since the day I sent you my answer to Hyperaspistes – so much so that I have not picked up the work since then. So I cannot answer a single one of the queries you sent me in your letter last week, except to say that I beg you not to give them any more thought than I do. In publishing the book I did what I thought I had to for the glory of God and to satisfy the demands of my conscience. If my project has failed, and there are too few people in the world capable of understanding my arguments, it is not my fault: the arguments are no less true for that. But it would be my fault if I got angry, or used up more time answering the irrelevant objections of those who have been in touch with you . . .

Summary

TO BEECKMAN, 24 JANUARY 1619

I have received your letter, which I was expecting. On first glancing over it, I was delighted to see your notes on music. What clearer evidence could there be that you had not forgotten me? But there was something else I was looking for, and that the most important, namely news about what you have been doing, what you are doing, and how you are. You ought not to think that all I care about is science, I care about you, and not just your intellect – even if that is the greatest part of you – but the whole man.

As for me, in my usual state of indolence I have hardly put a title to the books which, on your advice, I am going to write. But you should not think me so lazy as to fritter away all my time. On the contrary, I have never been more usefully employed – but on matters which your intellect, occupied with more elevated subjects, would no doubt despise, looking down on them from the lofty heights of science, namely painting, military architecture and above all, Flemish. You will soon see what progress I have made in this language, for I am coming to Middelburg, God willing, at the beginning of Lent …

If you look carefully at what I wrote on discords and the rest of my treatise on music, you will find that all the points I made on the intervals of harmonies, scales and discords were demonstrated mathematically; but the account I gave is too brief, confused, and not properly worked out.

Summary

This volume completes the project, begun in the 1980s, to provide an authoritative and comprehensive new English translation of the philosophical writings of Descartes, based on the original Latin and French texts. The first two volumes of the translation, which appeared in 1985 (known as ‘CSM’), contained the Early Writings, Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence, The World and Treatise on Man, Discourse and Essays, Principles of Philosophy, Comments on a Certain Broadsheet, Description of the Human Body and The Passions of the Soul (Volume One); and the Meditations, Objections and Replies and The Search for Truth (Volume Two). But for scholars and students of Descartes there is, in addition to the large corpus of his published works, another formidable body of source material which is indispensable for a proper understanding of his philosophy: the correspondence. This third and final volume of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes is devoted to Descartes' letters.

Descartes himself attached great importance to his letters – an extraordinarily rich and wide-ranging body of detailed commentary and analysis covering every aspect of his philosophical system. Apart from a handful of letters, most of this material was not available to English readers until the publication in 1970 of Anthony Kenny's Descartes: Philosophical Letters (known as ‘K’). This valuable anthology, which has gained wide currency among Anglophone Cartesian scholars, is now out of print; but we are extremely fortunate in that it has been possible to incorporate it in its entirety into the present volume.

Summary

1. Man is an animal which is not only intensely interested in its own preservation but also possesses a native and delicate sense of its own value. To detract from that causes no less alarm than härm to body or goods. In the very name of man a certain dignity is feit to lie, so that the ultimate and most effective rebuttal of insolence and insults from others is ‘Look, I am not a dog, but a man as well as yourself.’ Human nature therefore belongs equally to all and no one would or could gladly associate with anyone who does not value him as a man as well as himself and a partner in the same nature. Hence, the second of the duties of every man to every man is held to be: that each man value and treat the other as naturally his equal, or as equally a man.

2. This equality among men consists not only in the fact that the physical strength of adult men is nearly equal to the extent that even a relatively weak man can kill a stronger man by taking him by surprise or by use of cunning and skill in arms, but also in that one must practise the precepts of natural law towards another and one expects the same in return, even though he may be better provided by nature with various gifts of mind and body; his superiority does not give him licence to inflict injuries on others. On the other hand neither the scanty provision of nature nor the niggardliness of fortune in themselves condemn one to have less access to the enjoyment of the common law than others. But what one may require or expect from others, the same, other things being equal, they should have from him; and any law [jus] that a man has made for others, it is particularly fitting that he follow himself. For the Obligation to cultivate social life with others lies on all men equally; and it is not allowed to one more than any other to violate natural laws where another person is concerned.

Summary

1. The sovereign civil authority has a twofold right over the Citizens’ lives: a direct right in the suppression of crime, and an indirect right in the defence of the State.

2. Force on the part of an external enemy has often to be met by force; or we may need to use violence in claiming our right. In either case the sovereign authority may compel the Citizens to perform this kind of service, where it is not a question of deliberately sending them to death but only of exposing them to the danger of death. The sovereign authority has the duty to give them training and preparation to conduct themselves with vigour and skill in such dangers. No Citizen through fear of this danger may render himself unfit for military service. Once inducted, he will in no circumstances desert his post through fear but will fight rather to the last breath, unless he believes it to be the will of his Commander that he should save his life rather than hold his position, or that the position is less important to the State than the lives of the Citizens involved.

3. Executing its right directly the sovereign power may take away Citizens’ lives for atrocious crimes and as a punishment (though punishment also falls upon a man's other possessions). At this point a few general explanatory remarks on the nature of punishment are necessary.

4. A punishment is an evil one suffers, inflicted in return for an evil one has done; in other words, some painful evil imposed by authority as a means of coercion in view of a past offence.

Summary

Introduction

Earlier chapters have analyzed a series of decision modes, each of which is based upon a particular combination of individual and collective decision-making authority. Each has advantages and shortcomings, which theoretical analysis can assist in understanding, but actual experience is also necessary in order to reach judgements about their relative desirability. The decision mode deemed most appropriate for particular economic activities may not be most appropriate for others. Furthermore, for any particular activity, the decision mode deemed most appropriate at one time may not be considered so when circumstances change. Technology may advance; income levels and distributions may alter; consumer preferences may shift; the administrative capability of government may improve; and science may learn to quantify externality impacts with more precision.

At any point in time, each society adopts a combination of decision modes, and this combination forms the society's economic system. This choice involves trade-offs. The judgement involved in such choice must be subjective to some degree, and differences of opinion may develop within each society as to the most appropriate combination and tradeoffs. Of importance is the process through which a society arrives at its economic system. To some degree, we can view these choices and processes as experimentation. The use and evaluation of several of the decision modes is relatively recent. Furthermore, rapid economic growth, increases in population, and the spread of urbanization have all combined to increase the significance of externality impacts in ways that have led to greater emphasis on the collective decision modes. So too has the vast mushrooming of human knowledge and the expansion of public involvement in education, research, and technological innovation. Much about the individual-collective decision-making choice has changed. It is only through practical experience that wiser social judgements can be made. Consequently, each society will be continually altering its economic system. From this perspective, the study of comparative economic systems takes on a new significance: It is not simply an academic exercise; rather it is an essential element in the process of intelligent choice.

Summary

The phrase economic system refers to the organizational arrangements and processes through which a society makes its production and consumption decisions. In creating and modifying its economic system, each society chooses among alternative objectives and alternative decision modes. Many objectives may be seen as desirable, and we shall focus in Part I on efficiency, growth, liberty, and equality. An underlying theme is that these objectives frequently involve inconsistencies and trade-offs. The more complete attainment of anyone objective may involve a partial sacrifice of another. The emphasis placed on various objectives has differed among societies, and for each society the emphasis has changed over time.

In the pursuit of its objectives, each society uses a combination of decision modes, and we shall analyze six of these in Part II: free enterprise, price controls, subsidies, taxation, non-price regulations, and public enterprises. Each society leaves some economic decisions in the hands of individuals or groups, while establishing laws and incentives that govern such decentralized decision making. Each society also owns and operates some economic activities collectively. Some communist societies have created substantial planning structures to coordinate the activities of vast public enterprise networks; yet even within such systems individual initiative is expected and rewarded. For each society, the reliance upon different types of decision modes has varied from one economic activity to another, and for each society these choices have varied over time.

The procedures for choosing objectives and decision modes have also differed among societies, and Part III examines these. Reform of the economic system occurs continually, as each society evaluates its experiences, and frequently the modifications are so substantial that they are referred to as revolutions. With the closer integration of the new world economy, international trade and investment relationships constrain each society's choices in regard to modifying the economic system. An underlying reality is the limitation of human knowledge about the implications of alternative modes of decision making. Today, many societies are changing their economic systems in response to new judgements and new predictions about these implications. Consequently, a purpose of this book is to enable readers to participate more intelligently in their society's choice of economic system.

Summary

1. It remains to discern the specific functions of sovereign power and their noteworthy features. Most important here are the civil laws, which are the decrees of the sovereign civil authority [summi imperantis civilis], which enjoin upon the Citizens what they should do or not do in civil life.

2. There are two particular senses in which the word ‘civil’ is applied to law: with respect to authority and with respect to origin. In the former sense, all laws are called civil which are the bases for the giving of justice in the civil courts, whatever their origin. In the latter sense, those laws are called civil which proceed from the will of the sovereign and deal with matters which are undefined by natural and divine law but deeply affect the private interests of individual Citizens.

3. Though nothing should be regulated by the authority of the civil laws unless it has a bearing on the public interest, it is of the highest importance for the dignity and peace of civil life that Citizens should properly observe the natural law; and therefore it is a duty of sovereigns to lend it the force and effectiveness of civil law. For there is so much wickedness in the greater part of mankind that neither the obvious benefits of natural law nor fear of divine power is adequate to check it. The sovereign, therefore, may ensure preservation of the moral integrity of civil life by lending to natural laws the force of the civil laws.

4. The force of the civil laws consists in the addition of a penal sanction to precepts to do or not to do, or in defining the penalty in the courts that awaits one who has done what he ought not or not done what he ought. Violations of natural law which have no penal sanctions attached are beyond the reach of human justice, though the divine tribunal still Stands ready to punish.

5. Since civil life is too fragile to allow each man to exact what he believes to be his due by violent self-help, civil laws come to the aid of natural law in providing actions for the obligations of natural law.

Summary

Introduction

Subsidies have become an important decision mode within most economic systems. Subsidies may assist certain economic activities by reducing their production costs. Subsidies may assist individuals by reducing the price they pay for particular goods and services, and some cash subsidies are designed to raise the income levels of the poor. The objectives of production subsidies are generally to improve efficiency and to stimulate growth, whereas consumption and income subsidies generally pursue some aspect of equality. Nevertheless, some production subsidies are directed specifically at regions with higher than average unemployment, and these may be seen as an attempt to achieve a more equal distribution of opportunities and incomes geographically within the society. Some consumption and income subsidies, such as those to support education, may be seen as fostering efficient labour adjustment and growth. Hence, many subsidies may be advocated on the basis of each broad social objective.

Subsidies alter the price ratios that would result in a free, competitive marketplace. Consumption subsidies encourage people to purchase those goods and services whose prices are being subsidized. The business recipients of subsidies will likely offer their goods and services for sale at lower prices than would exist in the absence of subsidies, and so business subsidies may also alter consumption patterns. Foreign-based corporations may regard these lower prices as unfair competition. Hence international trade negotiations have come to focus on many of these subsidy programs as a trade distortion that should be limited by formal international agreements. The GAIT Tokyo round of negotiations resulted in subsidy codes for particular types of subsidies. Meanwhile, some countries impose special countervail duties if their corporations are being hurt by foreign subsidies. Hence the role of subsidies must be considered in the context of international trade negotiations. With current and projected reductions in tariff barriers, subsidies will become relatively more important as a trade-determining process. Hence, international trade negotiations will likely devote more attention to these government subsidies. In particular, discussions about freer trade will have to confront this issue, since the elimination of tariffs increases the vulnerability of a nation to the subsidies provided by its trading partners. Nevertheless, subsidies are implemented to pursue certain social objectives, and so an intergovernmental pact that limits subsidies may diminish, rather than improve, the well-being of signatories.

Summary

1. Treaties which are agreements made between independent sovereign rulers have a function both in wartime and in peacetime. They may be divided, on the basis of their content, into those which define the terms of reciprocal Performance of some duty already enjoined by natural law, and those which go beyond the duties of natural law, or at least put into specific terms what seems indefinite in natural law.

2. Treaties of the first type are those which form an agreement merely about practising simple humanity or refraining from doing harm. To this category belong also treaties which simply give formal expression to friendly relations without any requirements or which confirm the right of diplomacy and commerce insofar as it is laid down by natural law.

3. Treaties of the second type are either equal or unequal. An equal treaty is the same for both parties. It involves equality in the content of the promises made on each side, either simply or with due regard to differences of strength, and equality in the manner of the promises, so that neither party may be in an inferior position to the other or subject to him.

4. Treaties are unequal when the Performances promised by the parties are unequal or when one party is in an inferior position to the other. Unequal promises are made either by the more powerful party to the treaty or by the less powerful. The first is the case if the greater power promises help to the other party without a stipulation in return, or if it makes promises on a larger scale than the other. The second is the case if the weaker party is obliged to give more than it gets back.

5. Some of the obligations of a weaker party to a treaty involve some loss of sovereignty, for example if it is agreed that the weaker ally may not exercise some part of his sovereign power without the consent of the more powerful.

Summary

1. When property has come to Citizens from sovereigns, the right by which they hold it depends on the discretion of the sovereign. By contrast, property of which Citizens have obtained full ownership by their own industry or in any other way is subject to three principal rights which, by the nature of states and as necessary to their purpose, belong to sovereigns.

2. The first right is that sovereigns may make laws obliging the Citizens to accommodate their use of their property to the interest of the State; or defining the extent and nature of possessions, and the method of transferring property to others, and other matters of this kind.

3. The second right is that the sovereign may collect a fraction of the Citizens’ property as tribute or tax. For since their lives and fortunes are to be defended by the State, it is appropriate that they contribute to meeting the expenses necessary to this end. It is totally unscrupulous to attempt to enjoy the protection and convenience the State affords while refusing to contribute either Service or property to its preservation. And yet prudent rulers would be wise to take into consideration the resentment felt by ordinary people, and to make an effort to give as little offence as possible in collecting taxes, observing fairness above all and imposing taxes that are moderate and flexible rather than massive and uniform.

4. The third right is eminent domain, which means that in a national emergency sovereigns may seize and apply to public use the property of any subject which the crisis particularly requires, even if the property seized far exceeds the amount which had been fixed as his normal obligatory contribution to his country's expenses. For this reason, however, as much of the excess as possible should be refunded to him from the public treasury or by a levy on the rest of the Citizens.

5. Besides these three rights, there is in many states a distinct public property, which usually goes under the name of the country's or the kingdom's patrimony. This is again divided in various places into the patrimony of the prince and that of the country, or into the privy purse and the treasury.

Summary

1. We come now to the duties which a man must perform towards other men. Some result from the common Obligation by which the Creator has willed that all men be bound as men; others derive from a particular custom which has been introduced or accepted, or from a particular adventitious State. The former are to be shown by every man to every man, the latter only towards certain men on the basis of a particular condition or State. Hence you may call the former absolute, the latter hypothetical.

2. First among the absolute duties is the duty not to harm others. This is at once the most far-reaching of all duties, extending as it does to all men as men, and the easiest, since it consists of mere omission of action, except insofar as passions in conflict with reason must sometimes be restrained. It is also the most essential duty, since without it human social life would be utterly impossible. For I can live at peace with a man who does me no positive Service, and with a man who does not exchange even the commonest duties with me, provided he does me no harm. In fact, this is all we desire from mankind at large; it is only within a fairly small circle that we impart good things to each other. By contrast, there is no way that I can live at peace with one who does me harm. For nature has implanted in each man such a tender love of himself and of what is his, that he cannot but repel by every means one who offers to do harm to either.

3. This duty affords protection not only to what we have from nature, as life, body, limbs, chastity, liberty, but also to what we have acquired on the basis of some institution and human Convention. Hence this precept forbids that anything which is ours by legitimate title be taken, spoiled, damaged or removed from our use in whole or in part. By this precept all crimes are understood to be forbidden by which harm is inflicted on another, as, killing, wounding, beating, robbery, theft, fraud and other forms of violence, whether inflicted directly or indirectly, in person or through an agent.

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Index

Letters page 198 to 384

Summary

Table of letters translated

Letters

Summary

Introduction

Summary

Table of citations of Descartes' works

Chronological table of Descartes' life and works

Notes on Descartes' correspondents

Contents

Frontmatter

7 - On recognizing men's natural equality

Summary

13 - On the right of life and death

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10 - Reform and revolution

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1 - Introductory overview

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12 - On civil laws in particular

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6 - Subsidies

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17 - On treaties

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PART I - Objectives

15 - On the power of sovereign authority over property within the state

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6 - On the duty of every man to every man, and first of not harming others

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