ABSTRACT
This essay tackles Mary Wollstonecraft’s concept of virtue and its implications in her work. Virtue is perhaps the most central concept underlying all of her work, including the way she understands gender relations. The core problem in this essay is the degree to which virtue can be and was understood as gendered or gender-free both by Wollstonecraft and her predecessors. Even when her predecessors, back to Aristotle, appear on the face of it to define and discuss virtue in a gender-free way, they do not, and historical understandings of philosophical approaches should understand that as a fundamental, not peripheral issue. In contrast, Wollstonecraft’s definition and discussion of virtue is often interpreted in an over-gendered way, including by feminist theorists, largely because of a narrow reading of her passages on wives and mothers in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This is reminiscent of the history of analysis of women and reason, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s infamous treatment of Sophie in Emile. This essay argues that interpretations of Wollstonecraft’s concept of virtue must be read in relation to the higher moral duties related to pursuing God’s rational, moral law, thus rescuing it from everyday duties and tasks – which, of course, must be pursued in a virtuous manner. The essay concludes by probing the problem of how, given that unjust societies cannot easily breed virtue, it is possible for people and communities to pursue “improved,” more rational, and more virtuous lives and societies.
