University of Delaware Press Austen's Oughts: Judgment After Locke and Shaftesbury

The word is all over Austens novels: what ought to be done, what one ought to say, how one ought to feel (versus how one does feel). When Austens characters employ an ought, the delicate oscillation between first- and third-person perspectives that marks her prose leads the reader to distinguish between what they say, and what they ought, according to a morally idealized, third-person calculus, to mean. But what is the context of this ought? This book situates the disinterested, reflective appeal to moral principle invoked_ironically or otherwise_in Austens oughts within the history of thought about judgment in the British eighteenth century. Beginning with Shaftesburys critique of Lockes account of judgment, successive readings explore the emphasis on disinterest in works by David Hume, Adam Smith, Samuel Richardson, and Sir Joshua Reynolds alongside discussions of Jane Austens major novels.