The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue by Jacqueline Broad

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue by Jacqueline Broad John A. Dussinger Jacqueline Broad. The Philosophy of Mary Astell: An Early Modern Theory of Virtue. Oxford: Oxford, 2015. Pp. v + 205. $70. In his Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions (1711), Mandeville acknowledged that both men and women possess souls but because of the fundamental difference of their bodies have different mental capacities: “This delicacy as well as imbecility of the Spirits in Women is Conspicuous in all their actions, those of the Brain not excepted: They are unfit both for abstruse and elaborate Thoughts, all studies of Depth, Coherence, and Solidity that fatigue the Spirits, and require a steadiness and assiduity of thinking.” Nevertheless, he goes on to observe that “where the Advantages of Education and Knowledge are equal, they exceed the Men in Sprightliness of Fancy, quickness of Thought and off-hand Wit.” Two years earlier his first English pamphlet, The Virgin Unmask’d (1709), had rendered the ironic dialogue of a spinster advising her niece against ever marrying because of the male’s legal power to deny her any personal freedom under that contract and instead urging her to pursue an education to find independence and happiness. If Mandeville was not impressed by Mary Astell’s prowess as an original thinker, he may have admired her vigorous attack on the oppressive marriage system when writing this dialogue. In her philosophical writings, Astell, however, demonstrates the “steadiness and assiduity of thinking” that women’s natural disposition supposedly lacks. Some thirty years since Ruth Perry’s pioneering investigation of this writer’s unique feminist role, Ms. Broad’s scrupulously researched monograph presents a holistic account of Astell’s oeuvre, one that engages fundamental questions in theology, metaphysics, epistemology, and morality as well as her Tory and High Church politics. As the subtitle implies, the unifying focus is on Astell’s concern with guiding women through a male-dominated world to reach a fulfilling moral judgment and “lasting happiness.” Although mainly allowing Astell’s ideas to come forth within their historical context, Ms. Broad also reminds her readers of their present-day significance and eventually connects them to such recent feminists as Marilyn Friedman (2000), ending her book with a brief postulate about Astell’s theory of freedom. The seven chapters with a thematic title are as follows: “Knowledge,” “God,” “Soul and Body,” “Virtue and the Passions,” “Love,” “Marriage,” and “Moderation.” While patiently recounting her epistemology, Ms. Broad explains that Astell was not an empiricist but fundamentally a rationalist, omitting the senses as a basis of knowing, and adhering [End Page 54] to Descartes’s method of judgment but excluding his radical skepticism about received ideas, including religious faith. The chapter on “God” is almost embarrassingly orthodox in its ontological arguments from Norris and Malebranche and its cosmological arguments based on appealing to a higher cause. If not a metaphysical certainty, we are told, it is at least a moral certainty that the Bible is the word of God because to doubt it would result in “a most untenable and unreasonable position.” In contrast to this rather conventional epistemology and theology, chapter 5, “Virtue and the Passions,” suddenly comes alive while protesting the old assumption about Astell’s dualism: she “acknowledges that her fellow women must learn to negotiate practical moral situations as embodied subjects—as a substantial union of soul and body—and not just disembodied minds.” That said, it may be almost mischievous to ask whether Astell herself would ever accept being embodied with any male, whatever the circumstances. On the contrary, as in Norris’s moral theology, Astell eschews creaturely love while devoting herself wholly to God: “When a man allows his desires to tend toward his fellow mortals, ‘all is unhinged and falls into disorder. . . .’ “ Again, this “distinctly Augustinian approach to the topic of love” does not bode well for any “normal” heterosexual relationship that is the basis of traditional marriage. Given her whole emphasis on mind over body, Astell ignores the murky problems of sexual desire in women as well as in men and finally opts for a marriage arrangement based on friendship and equal...