Resumen de Freedom, passions and moral causation: metaphysical and ethical complications of Descartes's dualism
What is the kind of causation at stake in body-mind interaction? In these short notes, I suggest that moral causation offers a viable model to understand intra-mental causation (how the intellect and the passions can affect the will), and it can be generalized to the case of body-to-mind causation as well. Moral causation was a kind of efficient causation discussed in scholastic philosophy in order to account for free human agency. Moral causation does not entail a proper transfer of being or properties between cause and effect, but rather some broader form of communication or dialogue between the causal actors involved. Descartes resorted to moral causation in order to solve a tension in his account of freedom, but it can also provide a viable model to better understand bodymind interaction.
