Self-Ownership and Moral Relations to Self in Early Modern Britain (2016)
This paper scrutinises early modern thinking about our moral relations to ourselves. It begins by reiterating the too-often-ignored point that full self-ownership was not a position defended in Britain—by Locke or anyone else. In fact, the actual early modern positions about the moral relations we have to ourselves have been obscured by our present-day interest in self-ownership. The paper goes on to organise the moral history of the self by examining the reasons available for prohibiting self-harm. Those reasons typically had their source in God, self, and others. Major divisions in the period arose over which kinds of reasons could be invoked and why. The defining feature of this intellectual landscape was the debate between ‘other-regarding’ and ‘dignity’ theorists, who differed over the moral status of the self and over its importance as a source of moral reasons. More dramatically and controversially, various freethinkers and sceptics questioned the importance of God as a source of prohibitions for self-harm. After offering an interpretation of this history, the paper concludes by noting some connections and contrasts between early modern and present-day moral and political philosophy on the moral status of the self.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Ossa-Richardson, Anthony;
(2013)
Possession or Insanity? Two Views from the Victorian Lunatic Asylum
(/isis/citation/CBB001201306/)
Article
Maurer, Christian;
Jaffro, Laurent;
(2013)
Reading Shaftesbury's Pathologia: An Illustration and Defence of the Stoic Account of the Emotions
(/isis/citation/CBB001201193/)
Thesis
Kroeker, Esther;
(2007)
Thomas Reid: Motives and the Anatomy of the Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB001561316/)
Chapter
Jessica Riskin;
(2020)
Machines in the Garden
(/isis/citation/CBB064144062/)
Article
Federico Boccaccini;
Anna Marmodoro;
(2017)
Powers, Abilities and Skills in Early Modern Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB647362818/)
Book
Bell, Matthew;
(2014)
Melancholia: The Western Malady
(/isis/citation/CBB001510023/)
Article
Tom Sorell;
(2018)
Experimental Philosophy and the History of Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB182480276/)
Book
Bakker, Paul J. J. M.;
de Boer, Sander W.;
Leijenhorst, Radboud;
(2012)
Psychology and the Other Disciplines: A Case of Cross-Disciplinary Interaction (1250--1750)
(/isis/citation/CBB001214000/)
Thesis
Daigle, Erica Nicole;
(2009)
Reconciling Matter and Spirit: The Galenic Brain in Early Modern Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB001561069/)
Article
Weisser, Olivia;
(2013)
Grieved and Disordered: Gender and Emotion in Early Modern Patient Narratives
(/isis/citation/CBB001200321/)
Article
Dupont, Jean-Claude;
(2007)
La psychologie de la vision spatiale: Gérard Simon et après
(/isis/citation/CBB000954357/)
Book
Paster, Gail Kern;
Rowe, Katherine;
Floyd-Wilson, Mary;
(2004)
Reading the Early Modern Passions: Essays in the Cultural History of Emotion
(/isis/citation/CBB000470199/)
Article
Bos, Jacques;
(2009)
The Rise and Decline of Character: Humoral Psychology in Ancient and Early Modern Medical Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB000953765/)
Book
Susan James;
(2021)
Life and Death in Early Modern Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB596785213/)
Book
Christoph Lüthy;
(2018)
Image, Imagination, and Cognition: Medieval and Early Modern Theory and Practice
(/isis/citation/CBB544222494/)
Book
Christopher Partridge;
(2014)
The Occult World
(/isis/citation/CBB544694972/)
Book
Eugenio Lecaldano;
(2021)
Identità personale: Storia e critica di un’idea
(/isis/citation/CBB940829141/)
Book
Dominik Perler;
(2018)
Feelings Transformed: Philosophical Theories of the Emotions, 1270-1670
(/isis/citation/CBB764536907/)
Chapter
Richard Yeo;
(2016)
Notebooks, Recollection, and External Memory: Some Early Modern English Ideas and Practices
(/isis/citation/CBB265475647/)
Chapter
Edwards, Michael;
(2012)
Body, Soul and Anatomy in Late Aristotelian Psychology
(/isis/citation/CBB001213678/)
Be the first to comment!