Arguing from Reception History for the Viability of Rational Reconstruction: A Case Study Involving The Reception of Cartesian Ethics in an Anglophone Context From 1650
I argue that Lisa Shapiro’s rational reconstruction of Descartes’s provisional moral code in terms of a broad conception of morality supplies us with an interpretative framework that make historiographical sense of the reception of Descartes’s moral philosophy in an Anglophone context on three occasions: the appeal to Descartes made by Henry More, Henry Sidgwick’s abrupt dismissal, and the ensuing
