The Mind Is a Detached Supervisor of Its Body

The Cartesian account of the mind and body turns the mind into a supervisor of its body. Let us see how that turns out to be the case. First, the mind is not directly and primarily responsible for the activities of the body, because, as we saw, the bodily agent can

perform most of its life activities autonomously. Consider the situation in which the body needs water. One would expect that it is the mind who initiates the water seeking

behavior, and that the bodily movements of going towards the water are outer

expressions of an inner mental trying. The Cartesian theory claims, however, that the course of action has already been determined physiologically.

What can the mind do? There seem to be three possible ways in which the mind can enter into bodily agency: The mind can consent to an action proposed by the bodily senses, it can refuse go along with the body and intervene, or it can think creatively about the situation and re-orient the body’s trajectory of action to a new direction. In all these options, it seems that the mind’s agency is detached from the body’s agency. The mental

agent turns out to be an outside intervener in the activities of the body.49

The mind’s supervisory role is best understood by examining the will and its relation to the body. The will is the mind’s agentive faculty. In its practical50 _{use, the} power of willing is directed towards the pursuit of good. Whatever the mind chooses, it must be presented as good.51 _{This sets an important general constraint on the mind’s} relationship to bodily agency: the will as a faculty is universal directed towards the good, rather than towards particular actions or particular goods. This leads to the following consequences which will make it clear why I called the Cartesian mind a “supervisor” of its body.52

Since the mind wills a bodily action only insofar it appears to be good, the mind’s decision targets the good, not the bodily activity as such. For example, when the body lacks water, the mind is not directly involved in bringing about the body’s activity of seeking water. The body as a physiological system is already internally determined to seek water. Instead, the mind’s role is to consent to the act of drinking water as bringing about some good.

49 _{In a letter to Regius, December 1641, Descartes does assert that the mind and the body form a whole}

human being. However, the concrete details of how the mind and the body act together—worked out in

The Passions of The Soul— reveals a less immediate and more fractured relationship between them. 50 _{See Descartes, the 4th Meditation, AT VII:57. There is also a theoretical of use of the will in affirming,}

denying, or refraining from judging, but I will not focus on that here.

51 _{“[...] the will tends only towards objects that have some semblance of goodness.” Descartes, AT XI:464}

52 _{Alanen 2016 views the Cartesian mind as an exerciser of the faculty of will and emphasizes the centrality}

of good for the life of the mental agent. This contrasts to the interpretation according to which the thinking being is principally a conscious subject.

The supervisory role of the mind is apparent from Descartes’ account of the passions.53 _{Passions and internal sensations are both perceptions and agitations of the} will.54 _{They are perceptions because they present something to take place either in the} body or the mind. In effect, passions are cognitive symptoms, telling us about what is wrong with the body. For example, when I am in pain, that sensation indicates to me that the body or its part cannot handle the stress it is undergoing.

Second, passions are agitations of the will because they move the will towards some action. The function of passions, according to Descartes, is to make the mind to want and consent to those things which are good for the body. Therefore, in addition to being a symptom, the sensation of pain prompts me to consent to the action which the body is prepared to perform automatically from its physiological structure. A pain

recommends a certain action for the mind, e.g. “my hand is hurt, protect it” or “taking my hand off the hot stove is a good idea”. Since the body is largely operationally independent, the raison d’etre of passions is to facilitate the supervisory action over the body.55

53 _{Brown 2006 argues that Descartes’ mind–body union cannot be understood without going through the}

details of how the passions and sensations work. Instead of looking just at Meditations one has to look into Descartes’ Passions of the Soul for guidance.

54 _{I count internal sensations such as pain, pleasure, thirst and hunger among the passions for the purposes}

of this essay. Descartes makes no fundamental distinction between them, saying that anything that moves the will is a passion. Passions proper, e.g. anger, affect the will most forcefully.

55 _{“[The passions] dispose our soul to want the things which nature deems useful for us, and to persist in}

this volition; and the same agitation of the spirits which normally causes the passions also disposes the body to make movements which help us to attain these things.” Descartes, AT XI:372

Another formulation of the same idea is: “[A passion’s] natural function is to move the soul to consent and contribute to actions which may serve to preserve the body or render it in some way more perfect.” Descartes, AT XI:430

The supervisory role of the mind comes with a superficial cognitive relation to the body. A pain as a symptom and as a signal for action does not tell much to the mind about what the underlying condition of the body is. The body is presented as a source of requests for action. The mental agent is a supervisor in the sense that its role is to manage the direction of the bodily life based on the signals it receives from the body.

2.3.2 The Mind and Body Are by Default in an Active–Passive Relationship