ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns Descartes’s view of what makes it the case that each person must follow virtue—that is, must use their will to choose first to form and then to act in accordance with their most considered judgements about what would be best to do—in all their conduct. It is argued that Descartes is a moral perfectionist in this respect: in his view, each person must follow virtue in all their conduct because they thereby secure the highest degree of perfection (being or reality) that is possible for themselves. The chapter also considers and rejects two alternative accounts of Descartes’s view on this matter.
