A “Moraliste Moment”?: Ethics in Eighteenth-Century French Moralist Writing from Vauvenargues to Joubert

Abstract

“A Moraliste Moment” examines eighteenth-century French moraliste writing: aphoristic texts studying human nature and social and political behavior. While scholars have usually treated the late seventeenth century as the zenith of moraliste writing’s quality and influence in France, I explore why there was a second flourishing of moraliste writing during the eighteenth century, and what this moment’s significance was for our understanding of moral thought in the French Enlightenment. I study a corpus of moraliste texts by four authors spanning from the 1740s to the 1820s: the Marquis de Vauvenargues; Nicolas Chamfort; Antoine de Rivarol; and Joseph Joubert. I further compare these texts to the works of seventeenth-century moralistes, as well as to the those of eighteenth-century philosophes. I argue that the eighteenth-century moralistes chose to return to the aphorism genre, creating a new “moraliste moment,” in order to elaborate an alternative ethical perspective to that of the Enlightenment philosophes. I contend that, influenced by their seventeenth-century predecessors, eighteenth-century moralistes use the genre to present a negative moral critique of their society, and to espouse a contrarian, pessimistic view of human nature and of the possibility of political reform that contrasts with the greater optimism of Enlightenment philosophes. In Chapter One I argue that eighteenth-century moralistes chose to write in this genre in order to use its concern with the limitations of moral language, and its valorization of clarity, novelty, and piquancy, to focus on negative moral critiques of their society’s vices and hypocrisies, without offering positive, didactic ethical guidance. Chapter Two seeks to understand what eighteenth-century moralistes believe is the source of ethical ideas. While seventeenth-century moralistes shared similar theological and philosophical beliefs, eighteenth-century moralistes adopt a broad range of positions in these domains. However, I contend that eighteenth-century moralistes are ultimately united by their belief that the sources of humans’ ethical impulses lie in nature, the passions, and the heart. In Chapter Three, I examine the eighteenth-century moralistes’ ideas about the morality of revolution. I maintain that despite the eighteenth-century moralistes’ extremely varied political positions, all are undergirded by the same political impulse: each moraliste claims the mantle of the lone, principled contrarian, steadfastly defending the morally correct point of view against a more powerful opponent, be this the monarch or the mass of the people. Each eighteenth-century moraliste believes he represents reason, justice, and the righteous minority, even as each moraliste has different ideas about the moral permissibility of revolt against the government. This dissertation thus argues that eighteenth-century moraliste writing elaborates an alternative form and content of ethical writing in the Enlightenment era. The moralistes counter the philosophes’ optimism about the goodness of human nature and the possibility of political reform by offering a negative, critical moral discourse that attacks their society’s hypocrisy and that claims that only a few individuals of strong character may retain their moral clarity amid society’s corruption.