ABSTRACT
The boundary between public and private spheres, and the presumption that moral actors must assume a universalistic, abstract “moral point of view” made Anglo-American, middle-class women’s arguments for “women’s morality” ultimately ineffectual. This chapter argues that the eighteenth century marked a period of crucial social transformations. These changed “forms of life” required that people think differently about morality. The chapter discusses the development in the moral thinking of the three great Scottish Enlightenment moralists Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith. It suggests that while there is no inherent reason why universalistic morality required the exclusion of women from its domain, in fact the historical circumstances of eighteenth century life led to the development of an argument which contained both women and moral sentiments within the domestic sphere. Since women were asserting new public roles for themselves in the eighteenth century, these demands had to be contained and were contained by arguing that women naturally belonged within the household.
