Article ID: CBB489750642

Monitoring the self: François-Marc-Louis Naville and his moral tables (2020)

unapi

This paper examines the self-measurement and self-tracking practices of a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century Genevese pastor and pedagogical innovator, François-Marc-Louis Naville, who extensively used Benjamin Franklin’s tools of moral calculation and a lesser known tool, Marc-Antoine Jullien’s moral thermometer, to set a direction to his life and to monitor and improve his moral character. My contribution sheds light on how technologies of quantification molded notions of personal responsibility and character within an emerging utilitarian context. I situate Naville’s use of these tools within his work as a pastor in a parish of the (then occupied) Republic of Geneva and within the Genevese and Swiss pedagogical reform movement of the early nineteenth century. I provide a detailed examination of how Naville used and adapted Franklin’s and Jullien’s tools of moral accounting for his own moral and religious purposes. Time, God’s most precious gift to man, served Naville as the ultimate measure of his moral worth.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB489750642/

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Authors & Contributors
Bateman, Bradley W.
Cantor, Geoffrey N.
Chang, Hasok
Chassé, Daniel Speich
Hale, Piers J.
Klein, Judy L.
Journals
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
History of Political Economy
History of Psychology
Publishers
University of Chicago
Cambridge University Press
Duke University Press
Springer International Publishing
Concepts
Science and religion
Measurement
Quantification
Moral philosophy
Theology
Utilitarianism
People
Darwin, Charles Robert
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Arnauld, Antoine
Calvin, Jean
Jevons, William Stanley
Kingsley, Charles
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
17th century
18th century
20th century
16th century
Places
United States
Great Britain
Geneva (Switzerland)
France
Colombia
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