Over 250 years after her death, Jane Austen is still one of the most sought after novelists and a true fixture in the English literature canon. One might think, everything about her and her novels that have conquered the world has been said, but how about Austen’s hidden philosophical side? Could she even be a philosopher in her own right? This essay argues that Rodham’s article1 opens the reader’s mind to the possibility of Jane Austen being a moral philosopher by interpreting his insight into her characters, novels and vision and it asks whether literature truly is the ancilla philosophiae in Austen’s case. Finally, it contends that this article justly highlights Austen’s novels as narratives that are philosophically accomplished, but it challenges the idea of Jane Austen as a moral philosopher in the strict, academic sense.
This article is useful in its observations and close reading of Austen’s novels and insightful when it celebrates her as a literary mastermind, brilliant rhetorician, or even an early feminist who is hinting at the need of correcting the inequality between the sexes when it comes to marriage, property, education, and decorum. The bold and courageous thesis of Austen being a moral philosopher opened my eyes and got me thinking about her characters as „complexes of particular moral dispositions” (Rodham, 2013, p. 6), novels as morality plays enforcing life lessons, and her vision of moral education by helping readers to develop empathy and to think about how one should live one’s life2. Austen never preaches about what one ought to do, instead she draws on everyday situations for the reader to develop his own moral compass. Thusly, the reader may practice self-reflection with Emma Woodhouse (Emma 1815) or reflect on the moral issues of persuasion per se and how easily for example Elizabeth Elliot (Persuasion 1818) can persuade herself of virtually anything. One might argue that Anne Elliot is one character that especially exemplifies a moral disposition in Austen’s last novel. The quiet way of Austen’s rendering of such a disposition lies in the superbly subtle construction of the heroine’s character that evolves from a shy, kind and unobtrusive, dutiful daughter to a more active woman speaking up for herself and for women generally as in Anne’s conversation with Captain Harville in Vol. II, chapter 11, for example. As readers have access to Anne’s inner thoughts and feelings through the adoption of Free Indirect Discourse, her growing confidence in herself is shown vividly. Her speech is straight-forward, courageous and inspiring without falling into the trap of whining about lost chances. The reader sees her moral virtues and true strength, which does her and the story justice.
However, is it enough to create moral trials (facing and testing the protagonists) in literature, teaching „bourgeois” virtues of prudence, amiability, propriety, and dignity and illustrating virtuous conduct to become a philosopher in the academic sense as Rodham purports her to be? A philosopher3 is someone who developed a unique system of thinking in his philosophical writings. In general, it is someone who seeks wisdom. Wherein lie the boundaries between literature and philosophy? Can a novel be an artwork representing moral reasoning, and therefore be justly called ”applied” philosophy that makes abstract philosophical concepts tangible (Kierkegaard, 1949, p. 216) and engages its reader with his own existence? One might think perhaps of literature (especially novels) as philosophical thought experiments?4
I would concur with Kundera (2000, p. 64) that a novel is a philosophical narrative that may deal with existential themes such as Sartre’s works, but not with calling Austen a moral philosopher whose „rituals of the romantic comedy genre and “social realism” – is just background” (Rodham, 2013, p. 7) and who „has much to teach the professional philosopher as well as the casual reader about moral philosophy” (Rodham, 2013, p. 8). For, what would Austen’s philosophy be if she were a moral philosopher? Is her philosophical work embedded within her works for us to detect? When referring to her novels as thought experiments presenting challenging scenarios for the reader to digest, I can concur with seeing Austen’s philosophical side in her fiction, but I can detect no philosophy of her own. And is her „moral gaze” (Rodham, 2013, p. 8) not borrowing from Adam Smith’s „inner judge”? Is there such a thing as a „philosophy of the novel” as Kivy (2018, p. 218) claims? These philosophical questions arose after having read Rodham’s article which put Jane Austen firmly into my philosopher’s focus.