God and the Rights of Men

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God and the Rights of Men
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• The substitution of the word nature instead of a
  more intelligible phrase, the first cause, or
  simply God, is a mere play on words
• (Wollstonecraft, Revs 1789)

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Wollstonecraft the Theologian

• Mary Wollstonecraft was a profoundly spiritual
  writer
• Her entire philosophy on human rights is
  profoundly grounded in theology

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Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)

• Underappreciated and under-credited, largely
  because of the long-reaching impact of A
  Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
• It was her first overtly political text, and it
  moved her from obscurity into fame (Waters,
  124).

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Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)

• Part of a fascinating series of commentaries on
  the French Revolution
• Edmund Burkes Reflections on the Revolution in
  France
• Richard Prices Discourse on the Love for our
  Country
• All three texts are profoundly grounded in
  Christian theology

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Contribution

• Several scholars, such as Taylor and Sapiro, have
  noticed the strong presence of religion in
  Wollstonecrafts works
• Both Sapiro and Taylors research, however,
  focuses on Wollstonecrafts personal life and
  religiosity
• The purpose of this essay is not to explore Mary
  Wollstonecrafts personal beliefs about God.
• Instead, this essay contends to illustrate how
  Wollstonecrafts A Vindication of the Rights of
  Men presents a theory on human rights that is
  inexorably based in Christian theology

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The Historical Framework

• In order to more fully understand
  Wollstonecrafts text theologically, it is
  necessary to begin by examining the theology of
  the documents that stirred her to write in the
  first place.
• Burke and Price

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Edmund Burke

• The Rights of Men is written as a public letter
  in response to Edmond Burkes famous criticism of
  the French Revolution
• Burke had already enjoyed a long career as a
  statesman of the Whig party.
• Known for his advocacy and support of the
  American Revolution, so his condemnation of the
  French Revolution, especially so early into the
  conflict, was particularly compelling.
• Wollstonecraft was the first to counter his
  conservative ideas, penning her response less
  than a month after Burkes work was published
  (124, Waters).

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Edmund Burke

• Reflections on the Revolution in France stands
  today as the most famous criticism of the French
  Revolution
• It centers on the value of a stable society and
  focuses on the merit in tradition and class
  organization
• Burke was spurred by Dr. Richard Price, a
  Dissenting minister who publicly praised the
  Revolution in his sermons
• Dr. Price was the minister at Newington Green,
  and Wollstonecraft knew him personally

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Edmund Burke

• Burke criticizes Price
• No sound ought to be heard in the church but the
  healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of
  civil liberty and civil government gains as
  little as that of religion by this confusion of
  duties (94, Reflections).
• Inheritance and hereditary power
• We have an inheritable crown an inheritable
  peerage and a house of commons and a people
  inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties,
  from a long line of ancestors. This policy
  appears to me to be the result of profound
  reflection or rather the happy effect of
  following nature, which is wisdom without
  reflection, and above it" (119, Reflections).

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Edmund Burke

• Burke
• the only sensible concept of a mans rights is
  defined by his social existence.
• Burke pointed to the chaos in France as evidence
  for his theory.
• According to Burke, the basic political right is
  the right to be governed well, not the right to
  govern oneself

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Edmund Burke

• Burke viewed the class stratification as
  something completely natural and respectable
• The state system was created for the rational and
  moral end of serving its people, and it is
  ultimately ordained by God.
• This leads to the conclusion that some members of
  society are simply destined to be in the lower
  class
• When they find, as they commonly do, the success
  disproportioned to the endeavor, they must be
  taught their consolation in the final proportions
  of eternal justice (372).

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Dr. Richard Price

• Wollstonecrafts impassioned and speedy reply to
  Burkes Reflections is largely indebted to his
  targeting of Dr. Richard Price in the letter.
• Dr. Price was the minister to a community of
  Rational Dissenters, or Unitarians as they became
  known (Taylor, 103).
• Price was born in Wales in 1723, and gained fame
  as a supporter of both the American and French
  revolutions

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Dr. Richard Price

• his view of the Creators benevolence led him to
  be a champion of individual rights
• every man ought to be left to follow his
  conscience because only then does he truly act
  virtuously
• Price compares the French Revolution to the
  Glorious Revolution of 1688, praising the spread
  of liberty and happiness all over the world
• saw the divine perfection of society as
  attainable through social justice

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Dr. Richard Price

• Burke championed a rational government as being
  in line with Gods will, but Price thought that
  doctrines which imply that God made mankind to
  be oppressed and plundered are no less a
  blasphemy against him, than an insult on common
  sense
• Richard Prices doctrines influenced Mary
  Wollstonecraft years before she became a
  political writer.
• Wollstonecraft attended his politically charged
  sermons
• Wollstonecraft came to admire his personal and
  political integrity (103).

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Wollstonecraft

• Similarities with Price, departures from Price
• To act according to the dictates of reason is
  to conform to the law of God (54, VRM)
• Reason as Gods gift to mankind (x, VRM)
• my heart is human, beats quick with human
  sympathies and I FEAR God.. I fear that sublime
  power, whose motive for creating me must have
  been wise and good and I submit to the moral
  laws which my reason deduces from this view of my
  dependence on him. It is not his power that I
  fear it is not to an arbitrary will, but to an
  unerring reason I submit (VRM)

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Wollstonecraft

• Liberty as virtue
• Justice on earth social reform as Gods will
• It is, sir, possible to render the poor happier
  in this world, without depriving them of the
  consolation which you gratuitously grant them in
  the next (VRM)
• Distinction of God and Church
• Equality based on religion

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Wollstonecraft

• Last line of VRM But neither open enmity nor
  hollow homage destroys the intrinsic value of
  those principles which rest on an eternal
  foundation, and revert for a standard to the
  immutable attributes of God (64)