This article analyses Adam Smith's and Sophie de Grouchy's accounts of sympathy to show how they arrive at strikingly different views on whether inequality is a threat to, or precondition of, social order. Where many scholars have recently sought to recover Smith's egalitarianism, I instead focus on how his account of sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments naturalises socioeconomic inequalities, while also highlighting the wider inegalitarian implications of his analysis. I demonstrate that Grouchy was alert to these implications and (...) reveal how her own account of sympathy challenges the moral psychology underlying Smith's position on inequality. By reconstructing Grouchy's response to Smith, I illustrate how retrieving the insights of long‐overlooked thinkers can reorient the way we understand key debates in the history of philosophy, since Grouchy was far more concerned than Smith with exposing how economic inequality imperils the prospects of relating to one another as equals. (shrink)

István Hont identified a point in the history of political thought at which republicanism and commercialism became separated. According to Hont, Emmanuel Sieyès proposed that a monarchical republic should be formed. By contrast the Jacobins, in favour of a republic led by the people, rejected not only Sieyès’s political proposal, but also the economic ideology that went with it. Sieyès was in favour of a commercial republic; the Jacobins were not. This was, according to Hont, a defining moment in the (...) history of political thought. In this article, I offer a different analysis of that particular moment in the history of the commercial republic, one that instead of focusing on Sieyès and the Jacobins, looks at the thought of Girondins philosophers Nicolas de Condorcet and Sophie de Grouchy. I argue that their arguments provide sound models for a commercial republic, reconciling late 18th century republican ideals in which virtue was central, with the need for a flourishing and internationally active market economy. (shrink)

What can a woman from 18th Century in France do to get published? That is a question which women philosophers who were involved in politics in the revolutionary era were obliged to ask themselves. Contributing to political debates might have a beneficial effect on the status of women in the society of the future. But who would want to invest money to promulgate the work of those who could not defend it in the Assembly, because, as women, they were not (...) citizens? I propose three models : that of Madame Roland, who represented herself for many years as the companion and secretary of her husband, and who nonetheless wrote his most important discourses ; that of Sophie de Grouchy, who collaborated with her husband, Condorcet, but was only able to publish her own writing after the revolution ; finally, that of Olympe de Gouges, who paid herself for the printing and distribution of her numerous works. Despite their efforts, these women were put in their place more or less violently by a revolutionary society that did not accept that they could participate in its reforms. (shrink)

In this article, I present the arguments of three republican women philosophers of eighteenth-century France, focusing especially on two themes: equality (of class, gender, and race) and the family. I argue that these philosophers, Olympe de Gouges, Marie-Jeanne Phlipon Roland, and Sophie de Grouchy, who are interesting and original in their own right, belong to the neo-republican tradition and that re-discovering their texts is an opportunity to reflect on women’s perspectives on the ideas that shaped our current political thought.

In this paper I look at the philosophical struggles of one eighteenth-century woman writer to reconcile a desire and obvious capacity to participate in the creation of republican ideals and their applications on the one hand, and on the other a deeply held belief that women's role in a republic is confined to the domestic realm. I argue that Marie-Jeanne Phlipon Roland's philosophical writings—three unpublished essays, published and unpublished letters, as well as parts of her memoirs—suggest that even though she (...) adopted a Rousseau-style rural republicanism that relies on complementarity of men and women's virtues, she somehow succeeds in proposing a less sexist picture of the republican family, one that makes it possible for men and women to take an equal part in family business and politics. (shrink)

This article critically engages with Philip Pettit’s civic republican theory, particularly his account of what it takes to realize non-domination in society. Despite providing a comprehensive analysis of the institutional prerequisites for realizing non-domination, Pettit surprisingly overlooks the critical role of education in achieving this goal. Pettit’s neglect of republican education has been widely criticized, and a growing body of literature seeks to develop a civic education theory suitable for civic republican purposes. While there is considerable disagreement in the literature (...) regarding the content and methods of republican education, almost all consider its scope restricted to the pupil’s education. Pettit’s insufficient understanding of domination’s ill effects constrains our ability to envision a comprehensive educational response. In contrast, the republican tradition provides more substantial reasons for condemning domination and a richer account of the harms of domination, including a detailed account of the pervasive moral, developmental, and psychological harms. By drawing on women republicans of the 18th century (Mary Wollstonecraft, Sophie de Grouchy) and contemporary feminists (I. M. Young, and others), the article aims to establish the case for rehabilitative education, utilizing Tostan (an African-based NGO) as a model for its pedagogy and implementation. Such reconstruction requires challenging core tenets of Pettit’s theory, such as his dismissal of positive liberty, the limited role he assigns to civil society organizations, and how he envisions the politics of republicanism. Hence, by revisiting and taking issue with Pettit’s republicanism, the article advocates for rehabilitative education programs to overcome domination and envisions a more engaged and grassroots political framework for the politics of republicanism. (shrink)

Catharine Macaulay was one of the most significant republican writers of her generation. Although there has been a revival of interest in Macaulay amongst feminists and intellectual historians, neo-republican writers have yet to examine the theoretical content of her work in any depth. Since she anticipates and addresses a number of themes that still preoccupy republicans, this neglect represents a serious loss to the discipline. I examine Macaulay’s conception of freedom, showing how she uses the often misunderstood notion of virtue (...) to reconcile the individual and collective elements inherent in the republican model. In her own analysis of the deep-rooted social obstacles that stand in the way of women becoming free, Macaulay identifies a serious problem that confronts all republicans, namely how to secure freedom in the face of entrenched structural imbalances that systematically disadvantage certain classes of person. In the end, I conclude that Macaulay herself cannot overcome the issues she raises. This in no way diminishes the importance of her work since her diagnosis is as relevant today as in her own time. (shrink)

This paper argues that the republican ideal of non-domination, central in Bergès’s paper, rests on affective conditions that often go unnoticed. In this context, I introduce the notion of affective independence to shed light on the affects akin to the spirit of socio-economic and political independence in between aristocratic pretentiousness and vanity on the one hand and servility towards superiors on the other. In the Letters on Sympathy, Sophie de Grouchy dismisses Adam Smith’s key notion of propriety and thoroughly rejects (...) deferential manners. Her critical gaze cuts even deeper. Anticipating critiques of democratic demagoguery, she reclaims the early modern notion of enthusiasm, linked to religious fanaticism, to account for uncritical admiration towards populist leaders. (shrink)