The Good, The Bad, and The Infinite.

In this week’s class discussions of Descartes’ “Meditations” we frequently brought up Descartes’ idea of God as an infinite substance, all-encompassing of finite substances. Whether one chooses to believe in a God in the same sense as the Christian church, it is not inconceivable to suppose that there surely must be something greater than the finite existences of humans, trees, animals, and the like – that there must be some great ‘Origin’, unbound by any limits of time or space, from whence all other life and existence must have come. Following that idea, it also serves to reason that there must be some purpose for the finite substances of this existing world beyond the Lion King definition of simply composing a “Circle of Life”. Why would this infinite existence lend creation to all of the finite existence that there currently is or ever has been? As the first and only thing that Descartes found to be true beyond a reasonable doubt was the idea that “I am, I exist”, it follows that his view on the purpose of life would be thought, since that is the only thing that we can each call our own. I believe, based on Descartes’ definitions of will and intellect that beyond one’s point in life being to think, it is also important that one’s thought be centered on arrived-at truth.

Embracing Descartes’ argument for thought as the ultimate human life purpose, I would like to propose in answer to this question that since the infinite “God” or infinite substance is neither good nor bad – but both – it thus, by lending both its good and bad qualities to the subsequent creations, has created its finite, rational creations with a certain responsibility to determine for themselves their own life purposes. I think that Descartes would say this because he relied principally on the facility of reason to determine for himself which ideas were innate, adventitious, or fictitious. As Descartes identified, the mind is equipped with the two great facilities of will and intellect – will being infinite, intellect being finite. As we discussed in the last class, by using both of these facilities humans are able to determine what it is that they want and what it is that they know. It is when the two are not in balance with one another that human error (described as false judgments) occurs. But what is error? What is wrong? What is bad?

My big problem with Descartes’ argument on the human condition, in relation to good and bad is that there are no absolute determinants for good and bad. There are no laws or absolute rules set down by Descartes to determine which actions or thoughts are “good” or “bad”, but rather it is left up to the reason of each individual to make these determinations. Additionally, if each person’s mind is the only thing that is absolutely inseparable from doubt as an existing thing, and if each person’s mind is unique to himself, then would not each person’s perceptions, rationalizations, and experiences be individual as well? In this case, how then would one be able to determine for himself what is good and bad, or determine his own standards? Are not we our harshest critics? In the case of one holding a highly positive or highly negative view of oneself, would not one be more inclined to be very extreme in one’s definitions of what is good or bad, in order to make himself feel justified?    With all of these questions left unanswered, there is definitely no possibility for the existence of a universal morality. Even if Descartes discounts a universal morality as something unachievable, any individual standards of morality if discounting the standards of one’s community or if giving oneself too easy or too difficult a judgment is not even possible by these definitions. Therefore, if it is the task of each person to determine right or wrong for himself, we may say that a solidified idea of morality cannot truly exist for each person.