In the prefaces to Hume’s and Kant’s main works—Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason—they both aspire to bring order to ethics, so emulating the successes of the 17th century natural philosophers. As Gilbert Ryle noted, Hume’s creating of a new ‘moral sciences’ was an ‘ambitious failure; ‘he not only establishes no laws, he hardly even isolates his phenomena,’ the success of Hume’s project lying in its ‘extra boldness’. Yet Hume insisted the reason must be enslaved by the passions. In this he was at least prophetic, modern judgement being dictated by sentiment, something clearly demonstrated by the critical record of Austen’s novels. As we saw, Trilling noted that Austen showed us how exhausting the modern ethical life is, but what she is really showing us, I submit, is how exhausting (and unviable) it is to found one’s ethics on sentiment, something she had started to do with Sense and Sensibility.
As I suggested in The Moral Law Within, it looks as if Mansfield Park has a decidedly Kantian flavour to it, duty being an important theme. In terms of subtlety of technique, Mansfield Park stands in relation to Sense and Sensibility as Kant’s mature philosophy stands to Hume’s youthful Treatise, andmaybe its problems are correspondingly more subtle.
In a footnote to the preface of Critique of Practical Reason Kant noted, defensively, that he had never intended to outline a new philosophy, merely to provide a formula, which, like in mathematics, ‘determines quite precisely what is to be done to solve a problem and does not let him miss it’. As Kant said, ‘a formula that does this with respect to all duty in general’ is not to be lightly dismissed.
We should pause here. Modernity is not short of dissenters, who generation after generation, have observed this tendency to model ethics on natural philosophy. One of my favourite examples is E. F. Schumacher’s introductory chapter to A Guide to the Perplexed where he discusses philosophical maps.
To accept anything as true means to risk of error. If I limit myself to knowledge that I consider true beyond doubt, I minimize the risk of error but I maximize at the same time, the risk of missing out on what may be the subtlest, most important and rewarding things in life. St Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, taught that ‘the slenderest knowledge that may be obtained of the highest things is more desirable than the most certain knowledge obtained of lesser things’. ‘Slender’ knowledge is here put in opposition to ‘certain’ knowledge, and indicates uncertainty. Maybe it is necessarily so that the higher things cannot be known with the degree of certainty as the lesser things can be known, in which case it would be a very great loss indeed if knowledge were limited to things beyond the possibility of doubt.
According to Schumacher the entire philosophical map ‘was drawn in utilitarian colours: hardly anything was shown as existing unless it could be interpreted as profitable for man’s comfort or useful in the universal battle for survival’.
A generation later we find Marilynne Robinson protesting in remarkably similar terms.
It all comes down to the mystery of the relationship between the mind and the cosmos. Those who would employ reductive definitions of utility or reality credit their own perceptions of truth with fundamentalist simple-heartedness, brooking no allusion to complexities and ambiguities and countervailing experience. But if the mind is able to tell us what is true, why not credit its attempts at higher truth? And if its intuitions in these matters seem often to be in error, even to those who do not by any means wish to dismiss them, are not its intuitions always very substantially in error even in matters of science and economics?
Marilynne Robinson, Introduction to The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought
As Robinson says, ‘I miss civilization and I want it back.’
J. B. Schneewind has looked at the philosophical development that lead to Kant’s Invention of Autonomy and it is interesting to see how he summarises the alternatives before moving onto summarising Kant’s great invention in ‘Methods and ethics’.
Butler and the intuitionists that followed him held that everyone just sees or knows what to do, in almost every case. but they offered no systematic method for obtaining moral knowledge. Kant holds that everyone can use the categorical imperative to reason out what they ought to do in particular cases, and to see why they ought to do it. Bentham made the same claim for the greatest happiness principal, though he did not emphasise its availability to the common understanding as Kant did. They are, to the best of my knowledge, the first philosophers to make such claims.
In the first place, Butler did understand the proper symmetrical relationship between speculative philosophy and practical philosophy, speculative philosophy being essentially concerned with (external) physical causation abstracted of all mental influences, while practical philosophy is entirely concerned with (internal) motivation abstracted of all actual worldly consequences. Ethics is concerned with the mind, natural sciences with physical causation.
Beyond this basic orientation any simplifications need to be made with great care. As Robinson said, true morality ‘requires years of development, perhaps thousands of years’ and Kant acknowledged himself that it was a crazy idea to try and create ex nihilo a whole new morality. But then why should we assume that all of that morality was going to be reducible to a ‘formula’?
Schneeewind concludes that Kant agreed with Butler that ‘commonsense moral beliefs are essentially sound.’
After Rousseau’s heart-altering impact, Kant had of course to reject Leibnizian perfectionism. […]
He does not abandon self-perfection, as a part of morality; but he transforms it. He makes it, as the Cambridge Platonists did, a matter of the heart rather than the head, of the will and the feelings rather than the intellect. A marginal note in his copy of one of the textbooks gives Kant’s view concisely: “The proposition ‘Make yourself perfect’ can be seen as the principle of ethics if it is taken to say simply ‘Be good, make yourself worthy of happiness, be a good man, not merely a happy one’” What is required is not endless improvement in the extent and distinctions of our cognitions. For Kant, we always know the one thing we need to know for moral perfection: the moral law. The task is not to improve our knowledge, but to increase our virtue – our strength in obeying the moral law in the right spirit. Because moral perfection is a condition of the will, we can strive for it only in ourselves. The moral perfection of others cannot be our business; their happiness can and should be.
The importance of this can’t really be understated. Kant came up with a compelling package, an ethic that somewhat superficially looks rationalist, but is actually sentimental. Kant’s formulation of autonomy, in which we each construct an ethic which we must then adhere to is clever, but combined with his penchant for epistemological scepticism was bound (in retrospect) to provide the perfect breeding for the Romantic to reify and idealise dear self.
Jane Austen shows us why it can’t work. Sir Thomas is a model Kantian patriarch, adhering scrupulously to his principles from start to the finish, yet look at the dysfunctional family that results, and the justice Maria receives. Unable to create our own, we may crave for the kind of stability and structure that Sir Thomas offers but Sir Thomas must take ultimate responsibility for the catastrophe. Yet this model of Kantian rectitude gets to dictate the terms of Maria’s punishment and is it not reminiscent of the double standard reflected in the so called Mansfield judgement in which slavery is illegal at home but perfectly legal in the empire? According to the Kantian ethic we get make our own rules and then increase our virtue by sticking to them, thereafter not bothering our pretty heads with ‘endless improvement in the extent and distinctions of our cognitions’. Arguments about the legal structure of the empire being flagrantly non-universal are really beside the point. The legal structure evolved and became difficult to dislodge because people were slavishly, and with great and sophisticated rational consistency, adhering to the status quo because it was the status quo, and of course it would mean disrupting powerful interests. This is the pattern of the Kantian ethic with its reductive static formulaic approach to ethics which dispenses with self-examination.
It deals too much in descriptions of the various states of mind, into which her characters are thrown, and amplifies into a page a search for motives which a stroke might give with greater power and interest.
To Joseph Butler and Jane Austen, and anyone not fixated on the natural sciences as a model, ethics is all about motivation. For any modern realistic novel—and Mansfield Park is a significant milestone in the genre—the mind is where the action is, and so it is for the moralist.
The intercourse of the two families was at this period more nearly restored to what it had been in the autumn, than any member of the old intimacy had thought ever likely to be again. The return of Henry Crawford, and the arrival of William Price, had much to do with it, but much was still owing to Sir Thomas’s more than toleration of the neighbourly attempts at the Parsonage. His mind, now disengaged from the cares which had pressed on him at first, was at leisure to find the Grants and their young inmates really worth visiting; and though infinitely above scheming or contriving for any the most advantageous matrimonial establishment that could be among the apparent possibilities of any one most dear to him, and disdaining even as a littleness the being quick-sighted on such points, he could not avoid perceiving, in a grand and careless way, that Mr. Crawford was somewhat distinguishing his niece— nor perhaps refrain (though unconsciously) from giving a more willing assent to invitations on that account. (II.VII)
Here we see the formulaic Kantian deontology being put through the ironist’s shredder, but Sir Thomas is almost too easy a target. What about the other models of rectitude: Edmund and Fanny.
“It is not at all what I like,” he continued. “No man can like being driven into the appearance of such inconsistency. After being known to oppose the scheme from the beginning, there is absurdity in the face of my joining them now, when they are exceeding their first plan in every respect; but I can think of no other alternative. Can you, Fanny?”
“No,” said Fanny slowly, “not immediately, but—” […]
“Give me your approbation, then, Fanny. I am not comfortable without it.”
“Oh, cousin!”
“If you are against me, I ought to distrust myself, and yet—But it is absolutely impossible to let Tom go on in this way, riding about the country in quest of anybody who can be persuaded to act—no matter whom: the look of a gentleman is to be enough. I thought you would have entered more into Miss Crawford’s feelings.” (I.XVI)
It is easy to fall into cynicism and dismiss Edmund’s ‘inconsistency’ as the romantic and jealous Fanny does, but there is a great deal to be said for Edmund’s pragmatism once he had made his point: as he said before the conflict of interest emerged ‘Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all’. While it was ‘a triumphant day to Mr. Bertram and Maria’ (I.XVII), and for Mary Crawford (III.V), Edmund retains his moral compass and protects Fanny—‘She certainly will not act.’ (I.XVII)—something he can no do thanks to his concession. Yet we know, and he knows, and everybody knows, his motives have been contaminated.
Edmund’s first object the next morning was to see his father alone, and give him a fair statement of the whole acting scheme, defending his own share in it as far only as he could then, in a soberer moment, feel his motives to deserve, and acknowledging, with perfect ingenuousness, that his concession had been attended with such partial good as to make his judgment in it very doubtful. He was anxious, while vindicating himself, to say nothing unkind of the others: but there was only one amongst them whose conduct he could mention without some necessity of defence or palliation. “We have all been more or less to blame,” said he, “every one of us, excepting Fanny. Fanny is the only one who has judged rightly throughout; who has been consistent. Her feelings have been steadily against it from first to last. She never ceased to think of what was due to you. You will find Fanny everything you could wish.” (II.II)
Edmund remains aware of the contamination, so in the final analysis, ‘twas well played and his father can justly take pride in his conduct.
There are no tidy formulaic rules to follow—there rarely are.
To this nest of comforts Fanny now walked down to try its influence on an agitated, doubting spirit, to see if by looking at Edmund’s profile she could catch any of his counsel, or by giving air to her geraniums she might inhale a breeze of mental strength herself. But she had more than fears of her own perseverance to remove: she had begun to feel undecided as to what she oughttodo; and as she walked round the room her doubts were increasing. Was she right in refusing what was so warmly asked, so strongly wished for—what might be so essential to a scheme on which some of those to whom she owed the greatest complaisance had set their hearts? Was it not ill-nature, selfishness, and a fear of exposing herself? And would Edmund’s judgment, would his persuasion of Sir Thomas’s disapprobation of the whole, be enough to justify her in a determined denial in spite of all the rest? It would be so horrible to her to act that she was inclined to suspect the truth and purity of her own scruples; and as she looked around her, the claims of her cousins to being obliged were strengthened by the sight of present upon present that she had received from them. The table between the windows was covered with work-boxes and netting-boxes which had been given her at different times, principally by Tom; and she grew bewildered as to the amount of the debt which all these kind remembrances produced. A tap at the door roused her in the midst of this attempt tofind her way to her duty, and her gentle “Come in” was answered by the appearance of one, before whom all her doubts were wont to be laid. Her eyes brightened at the sight of Edmund. (I.XVI) (my emphasis)
And we see the same with Fanny, determined as she is to respect her uncle in the first volume, (but note Fanny finally concedes to act right at the close of the first volume—even this obstinacy has to finally give way to contingency) only to stand up to Sir Thomas at the opening of the third volume, when she resists his attempts to press her into marrying ‘the clandestine, insidious, treacherous admirer of Maria Bertram’ (III.II), someone she neither liked nor respected.
The really damning failure at the centre of Mansfield Park is Sir Thomas’s failure by his daughters, unable to see beyond his formulaic idea of ethics.
Poor Julia, the only one out of the nine not tolerably satisfied with their lot, was now in a state of complete penance, and as different from the Julia of the barouche-box as could well be imagined. The politeness which she had been brought up to practise as a duty made it impossible for her to escape; while the want of that higher species of self-command, that just consideration of others, that knowledge of her own heart, that principle of right, which had not formed any essential part of her education, made her miserable under it. (I.IX)
Sir Thomas abdicates his responsibilities. He does so in an outer sense, in departing to tend to the family fortune as Julia and Maria are about to make their entry into society, leaving Mrs Norris to manage their ‘coming out’. But in a more critical inner sense he has from the first abdicated his responsibilities in neglecting their spiritual welfare, taking no interest in the psychology that was driving their adherence to duty. His infatuation with duty and authority both prevented him from getting to know them properly, leaving them with an impoverished and shallow ethic.
Something must have been wanting within, or time would have worn away much of its ill effect. He feared that principle, active principle, had been wanting; that they had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which can alone suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments, the authorised object of their youth, could have had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition; and of the necessity of self-denial and humility, he feared they had never heard from any lips that could profit them. (III.XVII) (my emphasis)
As well as pointing out shortcomings of the Kantian ethic in governing Sir Thomas (who independently has a fine sense of responsibility), it also illustrates its extreme poverty when it comes to Maria and Julia. Nowhere does the formulaic Kantian ethic address disposition—in Christian terms, ‘self-knowledge, generosity and humility’ (I.II). Kant and Austen would agree on the need for these qualities, though Kant doesn’t seem to have at all appreciated that they are nowhere implied by his ‘formula’ for morality. Such qualities may be foreign to modern secular sensibilities, but then we are a thoroughgoing product of the intellectual revolution in which Kant was so influential, while he himself was the product of classical Christian ethics.
Kantian Deontology
This post is part of an essay on Mansfield Park, being posted in instalments.
Mansfield Park
Epilogue: Diminutive Greatness & Fanny Price
4.1. Kantian Deontology
In the prefaces to Hume’s and Kant’s main works—Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason—they both aspire to bring order to ethics, so emulating the successes of the 17th century natural philosophers. As Gilbert Ryle noted, Hume’s creating of a new ‘moral sciences’ was an ‘ambitious failure; ‘he not only establishes no laws, he hardly even isolates his phenomena,’ the success of Hume’s project lying in its ‘extra boldness’. Yet Hume insisted the reason must be enslaved by the passions. In this he was at least prophetic, modern judgement being dictated by sentiment, something clearly demonstrated by the critical record of Austen’s novels. As we saw, Trilling noted that Austen showed us how exhausting the modern ethical life is, but what she is really showing us, I submit, is how exhausting (and unviable) it is to found one’s ethics on sentiment, something she had started to do with Sense and Sensibility.
As I suggested in The Moral Law Within, it looks as if Mansfield Park has a decidedly Kantian flavour to it, duty being an important theme. In terms of subtlety of technique, Mansfield Park stands in relation to Sense and Sensibility as Kant’s mature philosophy stands to Hume’s youthful Treatise, and maybe its problems are correspondingly more subtle.
In a footnote to the preface of Critique of Practical Reason Kant noted, defensively, that he had never intended to outline a new philosophy, merely to provide a formula, which, like in mathematics, ‘determines quite precisely what is to be done to solve a problem and does not let him miss it’. As Kant said, ‘a formula that does this with respect to all duty in general’ is not to be lightly dismissed.
We should pause here. Modernity is not short of dissenters, who generation after generation, have observed this tendency to model ethics on natural philosophy. One of my favourite examples is E. F. Schumacher’s introductory chapter to A Guide to the Perplexed where he discusses philosophical maps.
According to Schumacher the entire philosophical map ‘was drawn in utilitarian colours: hardly anything was shown as existing unless it could be interpreted as profitable for man’s comfort or useful in the universal battle for survival’.
A generation later we find Marilynne Robinson protesting in remarkably similar terms.
As Robinson says, ‘I miss civilization and I want it back.’
J. B. Schneewind has looked at the philosophical development that lead to Kant’s Invention of Autonomy and it is interesting to see how he summarises the alternatives before moving onto summarising Kant’s great invention in ‘Methods and ethics’.
In the first place, Butler did understand the proper symmetrical relationship between speculative philosophy and practical philosophy, speculative philosophy being essentially concerned with (external) physical causation abstracted of all mental influences, while practical philosophy is entirely concerned with (internal) motivation abstracted of all actual worldly consequences. Ethics is concerned with the mind, natural sciences with physical causation.
Beyond this basic orientation any simplifications need to be made with great care. As Robinson said, true morality ‘requires years of development, perhaps thousands of years’ and Kant acknowledged himself that it was a crazy idea to try and create ex nihilo a whole new morality. But then why should we assume that all of that morality was going to be reducible to a ‘formula’?
Schneeewind concludes that Kant agreed with Butler that ‘commonsense moral beliefs are essentially sound.’
The importance of this can’t really be understated. Kant came up with a compelling package, an ethic that somewhat superficially looks rationalist, but is actually sentimental. Kant’s formulation of autonomy, in which we each construct an ethic which we must then adhere to is clever, but combined with his penchant for epistemological scepticism was bound (in retrospect) to provide the perfect breeding for the Romantic to reify and idealise dear self.
Jane Austen shows us why it can’t work. Sir Thomas is a model Kantian patriarch, adhering scrupulously to his principles from start to the finish, yet look at the dysfunctional family that results, and the justice Maria receives. Unable to create our own, we may crave for the kind of stability and structure that Sir Thomas offers but Sir Thomas must take ultimate responsibility for the catastrophe. Yet this model of Kantian rectitude gets to dictate the terms of Maria’s punishment and is it not reminiscent of the double standard reflected in the so called Mansfield judgement in which slavery is illegal at home but perfectly legal in the empire? According to the Kantian ethic we get make our own rules and then increase our virtue by sticking to them, thereafter not bothering our pretty heads with ‘endless improvement in the extent and distinctions of our cognitions’. Arguments about the legal structure of the empire being flagrantly non-universal are really beside the point. The legal structure evolved and became difficult to dislodge because people were slavishly, and with great and sophisticated rational consistency, adhering to the status quo because it was the status quo, and of course it would mean disrupting powerful interests. This is the pattern of the Kantian ethic with its reductive static formulaic approach to ethics which dispenses with self-examination.
To Joseph Butler and Jane Austen, and anyone not fixated on the natural sciences as a model, ethics is all about motivation. For any modern realistic novel—and Mansfield Park is a significant milestone in the genre—the mind is where the action is, and so it is for the moralist.
Here we see the formulaic Kantian deontology being put through the ironist’s shredder, but Sir Thomas is almost too easy a target. What about the other models of rectitude: Edmund and Fanny.
It is easy to fall into cynicism and dismiss Edmund’s ‘inconsistency’ as the romantic and jealous Fanny does, but there is a great deal to be said for Edmund’s pragmatism once he had made his point: as he said before the conflict of interest emerged ‘Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all’. While it was ‘a triumphant day to Mr. Bertram and Maria’ (I.XVII), and for Mary Crawford (III.V), Edmund retains his moral compass and protects Fanny—‘She certainly will not act.’ (I.XVII)—something he can no do thanks to his concession. Yet we know, and he knows, and everybody knows, his motives have been contaminated.
Edmund remains aware of the contamination, so in the final analysis, ‘twas well played and his father can justly take pride in his conduct.
There are no tidy formulaic rules to follow—there rarely are.
And we see the same with Fanny, determined as she is to respect her uncle in the first volume, (but note Fanny finally concedes to act right at the close of the first volume—even this obstinacy has to finally give way to contingency) only to stand up to Sir Thomas at the opening of the third volume, when she resists his attempts to press her into marrying ‘the clandestine, insidious, treacherous admirer of Maria Bertram’ (III.II), someone she neither liked nor respected.
The really damning failure at the centre of Mansfield Park is Sir Thomas’s failure by his daughters, unable to see beyond his formulaic idea of ethics.
Sir Thomas abdicates his responsibilities. He does so in an outer sense, in departing to tend to the family fortune as Julia and Maria are about to make their entry into society, leaving Mrs Norris to manage their ‘coming out’. But in a more critical inner sense he has from the first abdicated his responsibilities in neglecting their spiritual welfare, taking no interest in the psychology that was driving their adherence to duty. His infatuation with duty and authority both prevented him from getting to know them properly, leaving them with an impoverished and shallow ethic.
As well as pointing out shortcomings of the Kantian ethic in governing Sir Thomas (who independently has a fine sense of responsibility), it also illustrates its extreme poverty when it comes to Maria and Julia. Nowhere does the formulaic Kantian ethic address disposition—in Christian terms, ‘self-knowledge, generosity and humility’ (I.II). Kant and Austen would agree on the need for these qualities, though Kant doesn’t seem to have at all appreciated that they are nowhere implied by his ‘formula’ for morality. Such qualities may be foreign to modern secular sensibilities, but then we are a thoroughgoing product of the intellectual revolution in which Kant was so influential, while he himself was the product of classical Christian ethics.
Next: King Lear