Human action and virtue in Descartes and Spinoza

In this paper, I argue that despite undeniable fundamental differences between Descartes’ and Spinoza’s accounts of human action, there are some striking similarities between their views on right action, moral motivation, and virtue that are usually overlooked. I will argue, first, that both thinkers define virtue in terms of activity or freedom, mutatis mutandis, and thus in terms of actual power of acting. Second, I will claim that both Descartes and Spinoza hold a non-consequentialist approach to virtue, by which human actions are evaluated as virtuous or good on the basis of their motivational forces rather than their consequences. I will show further that both philosophers identify virtue qua free action with the highest good (summum bonum), and thus with that which is to be sought for its own sake and not as a means to anything preferable to it.