ABSTRACT
The second of the principal components of respectability as a map of the modern was a construction that is called in this book “moral competence.” While the self-respecting subject can be envisioned as the central feature of a respectable identity (who a respectable person is), moral competence refers to what a respectable person does and should do as a consequence of being respectable: a pattern of practice. The principal aspects and several of the implications of moral competence are explored in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and also in discussions of civil service reform in the United States in the 1870s. The examination of Mansfield Park addresses a number of interpretive issues. One of these concerns the relationship between respectability and Protestant Evangelicalism. It is suggested that although there were close connections between them, it is incorrect to portray respectability as a product of Evangelicalism. There is also the issue of slavery (seen by contemporary interpreters of Mansfield Park as one of its principal themes). It is argued that a debate on a seemingly unrelated matter in the novel (a plan to put on a play) closely parallels an aspect of the slave-trade debate in Britain before 1807. The discussion of civil service reform highlights relationships between respectability and professionalism and illustrates other ways in which moral competence was relevant to public issues.
