"As coisas como elas são" : moralidade politica e social em William Godwin (1790-1800)

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2002

RESUMO

" Things as they are . Political and social morality in William Godwin (1790-1800)" is a study on the philosopher, writer and political ideologist William Godwin (1790-1800). Godwin s political role in 1790 s is approached according to the criticism to the traditional historiography approaches about him. Whereas the latter refuses to attribute a properly political nature to Godwin, which is representative in the so-called 1790 s "polítical debate", this study seeks to understand the proper1ypolitical content ofhis social actuation. To do so, it investigates how Godwin thinks of the political order in England in 1790, having as fundamental sources his philosophical treatise Political justice (1793) and his romance Things as they are or the adventures ofCaleb Williams (1794). In Caleb Williams Godwin addresses private morality s polítical criticism. According to him, due to a perpetuation of a polítical order founded on aristocratic moral values, re1ations among individuaIs are marked by violence, tyranny and suffering. Ris criticism reveals its proper1y polítical nature because it is addressed to British aristocratic and monarchical institutions. To him, they subject individuaIs to the conditioning of supporting values and feelings which makes private sociability to assume a conflicting and violent nature. With his criticism to the monarchical and aristocratic order, Godwin reveals the desires of a fraction of British middle classes interested in refonning nation s morality and universalising its behaviour codes. Godwin advocates bourgeois notions of virtue and individual capacity rather than that ones of heredity and noble blood maintained by aristocracy. Re reveals himself as a bourgeois ideologist that proceeds to a re-e1aboration and spread of values more suitable to the consolidation of the British capitalist order

ASSUNTO(S)

literatura inglesa utilitarismo filosofia inglesa - historia e critica literatura e moral

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