Austen's oughts
Subtitle: judgment after Locke and Shaftesbury
By: Karen Valihora.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Newark
Language: eng
Number of pages: 363
ISBN-13: 9780874130829
Subjects: Austen, Jane, -- 1775-1817 -- Criticism and interpretation; Austen, Jane, -- 1775-1817 -- Ethics; Judgment in literature; Judgment (Ethics) -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century; English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism
Description: The word is all over Jane Austen's novels: what ought to be done, what one ought to say, how one ought to feel (versus how one does feel). When Austen's characters employ an ought, the delicate oscillation between first-and third-person perspectives that marks her prose leads the reader to distinguish between what they say, and what they ought, according to a morally idealized, third-person calculus to mean. But what is the context of this ought? This book situates the disinterested, reflective appeal to moral principle invoked ironically or otherwise in Austen's oughts within the history of thought about judgment in the British eighteenth century. Beginning with Shaftesbury's critique of Locke's account of judgment, successive readings explore the emphasis on disinterest in works by David Hume, Adam Smith, Samuel Richardson, and Sir Joshua Reynolds alongside discussions of Jane Austen's major novels.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.