The Persistence of Casuistry
The Persistence of Casuistry
This concluding chapter discusses the conflict between ethics or good culture and various forms of hypocrisy in the eighteenth century. David Hume favored civility while Lord Chesterfield proposed taking a hypocritical view to further personal goals. But the monarchical tradition, combined with the progressive liberalization of politics and enhanced through print media, perpetuated the concept of gallantry as an idealistic domestic virtue. This chapter concludes that should the focus of political issues be on the character of the speaker rather than on the rationality of his arguments, politics would just be moral performances trying for clever cover-ups.
Keywords: David Hume, Lord Chesterfield, monarchical tradition, liberalization, gallantry
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