Radicalism, religion and Mary Wollstonecraft

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to challenge a prevailing assumption in accounts of Enlightenment radicalism that it was essentially secular. A major problem with such a view is that it precludes the possibility of women’s radicalism, given the importance of religion for women in this period. I challenge the disconnection between religion and radical thought by highlighting their interconnection in the case of Mary Wollstonecraft. Recent studies of Wollstonecraft’s republicanism have focused attention on her political radicalism. These studies, for the most part, suggest her sources were secular, especially her conception of liberty as freedom from arbitrary power. After discussing Wollstonecraft’s religious formation, I suggest that there are religious and ethical sources for her view of liberty which have been left out of account. Thus, religion was not just a matter of Wollstonecraft’s personal beliefs, or emotional temper, but provided an important intellectual resource for her political arguments.