(Download) "Courageous Humility in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (Critical Essay)" by Social Theory and Practice ~ Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Courageous Humility in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (Critical Essay)
- Author : Social Theory and Practice
- Release Date : January 01, 2007
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 229 KB
Description
I am concerned to investigate courageous humility as a social virtue from a Kantian point of view. There are at least two obstacles in so doing. First, Kant is rarely thought to be a virtue theorist, and contemporary Kantian political theorists more often require not civic virtue, but only adherence to certain formal procedures that assure justice even in the face of an utter lack of virtue. (1) Second, recent discussions of civic virtue encourage moral minimalism. To expect too much morally of a citizenry is to undermine the hope of a successful society; we must therefore not be too demanding of the bearers of these civic virtues. Any citizen should be capable of them, without too much difficulty. This minimalist trend most often leads to understanding civic virtues as being merely instrumental: a state is virtuous if it assures the flourishing of a particular society, whatever the ends or purposes of that society are. (2) My concern for Kantian humility as a social virtue thus bucks both Kantian methodologicalism and moral minimalist trends in recent literature. On the one hand, I do insist that Kant is a virtue theorist, even in the social realm; and, on the other, to claim humility as a potentially social or civic virtue rejects moral minimalism. I have already argued elsewhere that whatever his concern for rules and procedures, Kant is also a virtue theorist, so I will not defend that point here. (3) But to bring a more robust concern for virtue to the social level, while avoiding moral minimalism in a definition of the civic virtues, demands further discussion.