Rob Boddice
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040580
- eISBN:
- 9780252099021
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040580.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In his Descent of Man, Charles Darwin placed sympathy at the crux of morality in civilized society. His idea buttressed the belief that white, upper-class, educated men deserved their sense of ...
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In his Descent of Man, Charles Darwin placed sympathy at the crux of morality in civilized society. His idea buttressed the belief that white, upper-class, educated men deserved their sense of superiority by virtue of good breeding. It also implied that progress could be steered by envisioning a new blueprint for sympathy that redefined moral actions carried out in sympathy's name. Rob Boddice joins a daring intellectual history of sympathy to a portrait of how the first Darwinists defined and employed it. Combining the history of emotions, the history of medicine, the history of science and the history of morality, Boddice shows how specific interpretations of Darwinism sparked a cacophonous discourse intent on displacing previous notions of sympathy. Scientific and medical progress demanded that "cruel" practices like vivisection, an essential part of new research in physiology, and compulsory vaccination be seen as moral for their ultimate goal of alleviating suffering. Some even saw the so-called unfit--natural targets of sympathy--as a danger to society and encouraged sympathy for the "fit" alone, placing this emotion at the heart of eugenics. Right or wrong, these early Darwinists formed a moral economy that acted on a new system of ethics, reconceptualised obligations, and executed new duties. Boddice persuasively argues that the bizarre, even dangerous formulations of sympathy they invented influence society and civilization in the present day.Less
In his Descent of Man, Charles Darwin placed sympathy at the crux of morality in civilized society. His idea buttressed the belief that white, upper-class, educated men deserved their sense of superiority by virtue of good breeding. It also implied that progress could be steered by envisioning a new blueprint for sympathy that redefined moral actions carried out in sympathy's name. Rob Boddice joins a daring intellectual history of sympathy to a portrait of how the first Darwinists defined and employed it. Combining the history of emotions, the history of medicine, the history of science and the history of morality, Boddice shows how specific interpretations of Darwinism sparked a cacophonous discourse intent on displacing previous notions of sympathy. Scientific and medical progress demanded that "cruel" practices like vivisection, an essential part of new research in physiology, and compulsory vaccination be seen as moral for their ultimate goal of alleviating suffering. Some even saw the so-called unfit--natural targets of sympathy--as a danger to society and encouraged sympathy for the "fit" alone, placing this emotion at the heart of eugenics. Right or wrong, these early Darwinists formed a moral economy that acted on a new system of ethics, reconceptualised obligations, and executed new duties. Boddice persuasively argues that the bizarre, even dangerous formulations of sympathy they invented influence society and civilization in the present day.
Rob Boddice
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040580
- eISBN:
- 9780252099021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040580.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Sets the framework of the book within contemporary theories of the history of emotions and the history of morality, making a case for the use of ‘moral economy’ as an analytical category that ...
More
Sets the framework of the book within contemporary theories of the history of emotions and the history of morality, making a case for the use of ‘moral economy’ as an analytical category that connects theories of the biological evolution of civilized emotions to scientific practices of those theories. The Darwinian explanation of sympathy thus becomes a scientific practice of sympathy, both defining the self and the meaning of scientific moral action, and a raft of public policies and research agendas.Less
Sets the framework of the book within contemporary theories of the history of emotions and the history of morality, making a case for the use of ‘moral economy’ as an analytical category that connects theories of the biological evolution of civilized emotions to scientific practices of those theories. The Darwinian explanation of sympathy thus becomes a scientific practice of sympathy, both defining the self and the meaning of scientific moral action, and a raft of public policies and research agendas.
Sabina Donati (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804784511
- eISBN:
- 9780804787338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804784511.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
“Becoming Visible”: Italian Women and Their Male Co-Citizens in the Liberal State
“Becoming Visible”: Italian Women and Their Male Co-Citizens in the Liberal State
