Abstracts
Abstract
There is an apparent inconsistency at the heart of Mary Astell’s theory of virtue, for she seems committed to contradictory propositions: (1) that virtue involves alignment of all passions with their proper objects; and (2) that virtue involves the elimination or extirpation of at least some passions, such as pride, anger, hatred, and overwhelming sorrow. Jacqueline Broad (2015) has tried to solve this interpretive problem by suggesting that Astell recommends a two-step process for the virtuous management of one’s passions, with (1) occurring first and in the short term and (2) occurring second and in the long term. This essay agrees with Broad that Astell does not fall into inconsistency, but for different reasons. It argues that Astell consistently treats self-esteem, anger, hatred, and sorrow as unmoralized (i.e., neither virtuous nor vicious) passions that cannot, and hence should not, be extirpated, but that vicious forms of these passions, such as in the case of pride and overwhelming sorrow but also in the case of excessive anger and hatred, should be removed from the soul through proper redirection and adjustment in both the short term and the long term.
Keywords:
- Mary Astell,
- virtue,
- pride,
- anger,
- hatred,
- sorrow,
- Jacqueline Broad,
- passions,
- self-esteem
Appendices
Bibliography
- Ahearn, Kathleen A. “Mary Astell’s Account of Feminine Self-Esteem.” In Feminist Interpretations of Mary Astell, edited by Alice Sowaal and Penny A. Weiss. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271077604-005.
- Astell, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Parts I and II, edited by Patricia Springborg. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2002. (The first part abbreviated “SPL I”, the second part abbreviated “SPL II”, both parts cited by page number.)
- Astell, Mary. The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England, edited by Jacqueline Broad. Toronto: Iter Inc., 2013.
- Blank, Andreas. “Mary Astell on Flattery and Self-Esteem.” The Monist 98 (2015): 53-63. https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onu007.
- Broad, Jacqueline. The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198716815.001.0001.
- Broad, Jacqueline. “Mary Astell and the Virtues.” In Feminist Interpretations of Mary Astell, edited by Alice Sowaal and Penny A. Weiss, 16-34. Pennsylvania State University Press: 2016. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271077604-004.
- Brown, Deborah J. and Jacqueline Broad. “The Social Dimension of Generosity in Descartes and Astell.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (2022): 409-427. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2022.0037.
- Hickman, Charles. Fourteen Sermons Preach’d, at St James’s Church in Westminster. London: James Orme, 1700.
- Malebranche, Nicolas. The Search after Truth, edited by Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J.
- Olscamp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. (Abbreviated “ST”.)
- Norris, John. Letters Concerning the Love of God, Between the Author of the Proposal to the Ladies and Mr. John Norris, Wherein his late Discourse, shewing That it ought to be intire and exclusive of all other Loves, is further cleared and justified. London: printed for Samuel Manship at the Ship near the Royal Exchange in Cornhil, and Richard Wilkin at the King’s Head in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1695.
- Perry, Ruth. The Celebrated Mary Astell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
- Rickless, Samuel C. “The Cartesian Fallacy Fallacy.” Noûs 39 (2005): 309-336. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0029-4624.2005.00503.x.
- Rickless, Samuel C. “Is Locke’s Theory of Knowledge Inconsistent?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (2008): 83-104. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2008.00177.x.
- Rickless, Samuel C. “Hume’s Distinction Between Impressions and Ideas.” European Journal of Philosophy 26 (2018): 1222-1237. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12347.
- Sipowicz, Maks. “Mary Astell on the Social Nature of the Cartesian Passions.” Studia Z Historii Filozofii 12 (2021): 37-59. https://doi.org/10.12775/szhf.2021.014.
- Sowaal, Alice. “Mary Astell’s Serious Proposal: Mind, Method, and Custom.” Philosophy Compass 2 (2007): 227-243. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2007.00071.x.
- Sowaal, Alice. “Mary Astell and the Development of Vice: Pride, Courtship, and the Woman’s Human Nature Question.” In Feminist Interpretations of Mary Astell, edited by Alice Sowaal and Penny A. Weiss, 57-73. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271077604-006.
- Sowaal, Alice. “Mary Astell.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), edited by Edwald N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, URL=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/astell/.
- Tilmouth, Christopher. “Generosity and the Utility of the Passions: Cartesian Ethics in Restoration England.” The Seventeenth Century 22 (2007): 152-157. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268117X (.2007.10555590.