After the Fall: Malebranche on the Law of the Body

Malebranche holds that the Fall changes the mind’s relationship to the body from union to dependence. I argue that this change transforms the mind’s normative relationship with its body. The mind depends on the body in that the mind feels subjected to the body’s authority and obligated to satisfy its needs. In addition to reconstructing Malebranche’s phenomenological account of the body’s felt authority, I argue that for Malebranche the obligations springing from our bodily nature are genuine.