Conceiving the Modern Man: Exploring the Moral Sense School of Thought

• Název práce v češtině: Představy o moderním člověku aneb tradice morálního cítění
• Název v anglickém jazyce: Conceiving the Modern Man: Exploring the Moral Sense School of Thought
• Klíčová slova: Britská literatura 18. století, Morální filozofie 18. století, Henry Fielding, David Hume, Morální cítění
• Klíčová slova anglicky: British Literature of the 18th century, Moral Philosophy of the 18th century, Henry Fielding, David Hume
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2013/2014
• Typ práce: bakalářská práce
• Jazyk práce: angličtina
• Ústav: Ústav anglofonních literatur a kultur (21-UALK)
• Vedoucí / školitel: PhDr. Soňa Nováková, CSc.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 28.05.2014
• Datum zadání: 28.05.2014
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 11.06.2014
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 20.06.2017 00:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 04.01.2017
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná studentem
• Oponenti: prof. James Hill, Ph.D.
• Konzultanti: doc. Jakub Jirsa, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

The topics of ethics and morality are crucial; how is it that the modern society holds together not yet having broken into complete anarchy with citizens roaming and slaughtering each other? The modern conceptions of the individual and their relation and duties to society can be tracked back to the 18^th century through the philosophical ideas of social contract and the conceptions of human nature and morality which within the confines of the moral sensing school of thought were strikingly homogenous. Literature (which was just becoming a respectable profession) and philosophy (still undistinguished from science under the comprehensive term ‘Natural Philosophy’) seems to have arrived at very similar conclusions about what it means to be good. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling cherishes its seminal status as it differs from the subsequent sentimental novel proper in foregrounding reason to sentiment thus making itself akin to philosophy. It was one of the seminal texts of fiction to come out of the 18^th century that helped to build the novel and disseminated some of the philosophical tenets most remarkably articulated by David Hume in his An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals and A Treatise of Human Nature. However, impressions that literature was just a mouthpiece of moral philosophy need to be dispelled. I aim to pursue the questions of ethics and sensibility and the making of the modern man in these works and other germane works mentioned below advancing the inter-influential mechanics between works of fiction and works of philosophy.
The work would open with close readings of Tom Jones; how Fielding conceived of ethics in his work, e.g. in relation to his idea of the function of satire. The next part would track the idea of moral sense in the history of philosophy (Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury through Francis Hutcheson to Hume and Smith—in regards to the Scottish Enlightenment) with a specific focus on Hume. That would be a historical survey, a history of ideas section. Subsequently there would follow a comparative section which would form the biggest bulk of the work and which would elaborate on the similarities and discrepancies between Fielding and the mentioned philosophers (e.g. Fielding’s “good-nature” vs. Hume’s “sympathy” as the respective faculties that enable us to feel what others feel). Also the place of such ideas would be contextualised in regards to the development of the novel of sentiment – 1740s to 1750s – and sensibility – 60s-70s.
With the belief in the inherent goodness of human beings the mentioned thinkers adopted, the discussion will also run as a retort to Mandeville’s & Hobbes’ notion that man is essentially driven by self-interest (found in Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees and Hobbes’ Leviathan), yet when discussing Hume, this tenet as well as the foregrounding of reason in Tom Jones will get problematized and interpretative syntheses will be drawn. Hume’s system borrows from both the previous philosophical traditions and as well as Fielding conceives of reason and sense in quite a new way. Questions like how successfully can literature convey moral theories without losing its engaging quality will be raised.

Seznam odborné literatury

Primary sources:

Fielding, H. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. London: Penguin Books, 2012.

Goldsmith. The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale Supposed to be Written by Himself. Oxford: OUP, 1988.

Hobbes, T. Leviathan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012.

Hume, D. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. New York: OUP, 2000.

Hume, D. A Treatise of Human Nature. New York: OUP, 2000.

Hutcheson, F. An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the passions and affections: with Illustrations on the Moral Sense. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002:

Lock, J. Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

Mandeville, B. The Fable of the Bees. London: Penguin, 1989.

Smith, A. The Theory of Moral Sentiments: or, An Essay towards an analysis of the Principles by which men naturally judge concerning the conduct and character, first of their neighbours, and after of themselves. Connecticut: Martino Publishing, 2009.

Sterne, Laurence. The Life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Oxford: OUP, 2009.




Secondary sources:

Cohon, R. Hume’s Morality: Feeling and Fabrication. New York: OUP, 2010.

Ellis, M. The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Harrison, B. Henry Fielding's Tom Jones: the novelist as moral philosopher. Sussex University Press, 1975.

Irwin, T. The development of ethics: a historical and critical study. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Lynch, J.J. “Moral Sense and the Narrator of Tom Jones.”Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 25.3, Restoration and Eighteenth Century [Summer, 1985], pp. 599-614.

Porter, R. Enlightenment: Britain and the creation of the modern world. London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Raphael, D.D. “Can Literature Be Moral Philosophy?”New Literary History15.1, Literature and/as Moral Philosophy [Autumn, 1983], pp. 1-12.

Richetti, John J. The English novel in history, 1700-1780 [online]. London: Routledge, 1999.