Through a Mirror Darkly: Wollstonecraft and Smith on Educating the Sentiments

• In Event: Education, Commerce, and Democracy

Abstract

While Mary Wollstonecraft became famous for criticizing Edmund Burke’s condemnation of the French Revolution in A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), her corpus contains a wide range of powerful refutations of notable men. Many scholars have observed that Wollstonecraft was familiar with and even directly critical of the prominent Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith in her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) (Kay 1986; Taylor 2003; O’Neill, 2007; Tomaselli, 2020). Most of what has been written regarding her engagement with Smith’s arguments concerns issues of gender inequality while less attention is given to how her ideas about inequality more generally, and economic inequalities in particular, are relevant for cultivating the sentiments. This is a surprising and underappreciated relevance of her work, given that her approach most notably diverges from Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) in that her emphasis is on the development of rational faculties. Not herself a proponent of sentimentalist moral theory, Wollstonecraft nonetheless exhibited perceptive foresight of inequality’s pernicious consequences for the cultivation and proper display of sympathy. Smith’s understanding of how general rules of morality emerge and are inculcated is predicated on this process of “fellow-feeling,” rendering the refinement of the sentiments crucial to his moral theory.
It is perhaps unsurprising that when Wollstonecraft and Smith are brought into dialogue the focus is on her criticism of his failure to recognize the different status of women in society, or even to acknowledge women at all (Marshall, 1986; Justman, 1993). Kay (1986) notes the many ways in which Wollstonecraft exposes Smith’s naivete concerning the female experience. Leddy (2016) similarly attends to pedagogical issues, but responds to this criticism of Smith by drawing attention to his concern that men be familiarized with “the distinctly feminine voice of sentimental novelists” for a complete Enlightenment education. Slegers (2020) recognizes an affinity between Smith and Wollstonecraft in their skepticism over whether genuine sentiments and authentic affection between individuals could be realized in commercial societies driven by vain pursuits. According to Slegers’ reading, Wollstonecraft cleverly extends Smith’s analysis of the desire for love understood as the esteem of others more generally to the way this plays itself out in marital relations. In a move away from the customary interpretation of pitting these two thinkers against each other on issues of gender, Kopajtic (2023) questions the prevailing view that Smith succumbs to “gender essentialism” by segregating the virtues. She argues that instead of countering Smith’s views on this score, Wollstonecraft actually co-opts them for her own ideas of reform.
This paper presents a different approach by suggesting that Wollstonecraft had much to offer Smith’s philosophy beyond her important calls for a greater awareness of the plight of women. Attuned to the many manifestations of inequality within society, across her works she often references how unequal relations, even between the poor and the rich, can affect one’s ability to act morally. Unlike his silence on issues of gender, Smith was keenly aware of and clearly grappled with how disparities between the rich and the poor perpetuate misplaced esteem, but as I will argue, downplayed the consequences of economic inequality for his moral theory. A recent resurgence of interest in his Smith’s views on inequality have seen many defend his ideas in response to deepening disparities that are a result of the capitalist policies commonly associated with Smith’s work (Baum, 1992; Himmelfarb, 2006; Boucayannis, 2013; Fleischacker, 2005; Salter, 2012; Rasmussen, 2016; Collins, 2020; Harris, 2020; Walraevens, 2021). None of these acknowledge the critical assessment that Wollstonecraft makes of Smith’s theory or recognize the potential for education to ameliorate problems of economic inequality. Although he proposes a plan for the provision of public education to correct the worst consequences of the division of labor for the working poor, drawing on Wollstonecraft, I argue that Smith’s approach forgoes an opportunity to amend sympathies gone awry.
I contend that Wollstonecraft was privy to the potential that an integrated approach to education, both on the levels of gender and class, could have for correcting failures of sympathy. Although she does not refer to Smith directly when formulating her own proposal for national education, Wollstonecraft’s incisive reflection on the need for early interactions of this sort and its contribution to moral development can be read as an answer to the problem she identifies in the proper functioning of Smith’s impartial spectator. Smith scholars would do well to return to some of the earliest readers and critics of his work, including Wollstonecraft, when interpreting and formulating their own ideas of how Smith speaks to our time.

Author

• Rachel Lentz, University of Notre Dame