The Idea of Pleasure in Anglican Religious Culture, 1650-1733

英国圣公会宗教文化中的享乐理念，1650-1733 年

• 批准号: 2435260
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2435260
• 关键词: Idea; Pleasure; Anglican; Religious; Culture

My thesis-The Idea of Pleasure in Anglican Religious Culture, 1650-1733-presents a new understanding of how orthodox Anglican clergymen and writers remoulded common notions of the moral status of pleasure between 1650 and 1733. For Anglican thinkers developed a series of innovative ethical arguments about the rational order of pleasure. In doing so, they sought to direct humanity's disruptive appetites towards good ends. By exalting the rational, religious pleasures of the earthly life, these clergymen aimed to demonstrate that the true interests of religious nonconformists, atheists, deists and sinners lay in godly ends and obedience to clerical and monarchical authority. The recovery of this moral language of pleasure addresses the current historiographical neglect of the philosophical content of Anglican moral philosophy, which is often treated as straightforwardly reducible to the various 'isms' of Thomism and Aristotelianism. Situating these significant ethical shifts within orthodox religious discourse in turn reveals what was at stake in the early eighteenth century debates around luxury and commerce. For these debates were not primarily about whether it was morally acceptable to pursue consumption for the sake of pleasure. Rather, they centred around whether there was a rational hierarchy of pleasures accessible to reason, which condemned luxury as antithetical to the true joys of both earthly and eternal life.The conceptual trajectory of this language of pleasure is illustrated by comparing John Locke's developing ethical ideas with those of Robert South, Public Orator of the University of Oxford after 1660, and Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford after 1686. During the Interregnum, Locke and South were involved in a common Anglican confrontation with the problem of the passions: the theory that moral error and social conflict derived from the passions disrupting the proper functioning of reason. A prominent Royalist explanation for the English Civil War was that it arose from the unruly passions of the Puritans. Consequently, in the 1650s, an older generation of Anglican writers had sought new ethical answers to this moral predicament, varying from a fully-fledged Epicureanism to a valorisation of the rational order of pleasure within an Aristotelian framework. After the Restoration, Locke and South participated in a wider Anglican response to humanity's hedonistic nature by prioritising arguments about the rational order of pleasure-a philosophical claim which often superseded non-hedonic notions of human motivation and goodness. After 1665, Locke, along with Parker, used these common assumptions to justify a radical conclusion: that goodness was reducible to pleasure, and that the obligation of natural law could largely be derived from God's power of imposing rewards and punishments. Thus, the course of Locke's shifting moral ideas reflected a philosophical movement within an Anglican moral language of pleasure, from South's moderate position to Parker's radical stance.The developing resonance of even the most reductionist aspects of this language of pleasure was reflected in the reception of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). For the moral doctrines of the Essay evoked positive responses from even such pillars of Anglican orthodoxy as Francis Gastrell, the high church Bishop of Chester. The increasing influence of these ethical ideas was further illustrated by the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century debates around luxury. For both opponents and defenders of luxury often accepted that pleasant consumption was morally licit; they were divided over whether luxury interfered with more delightful pursuits. It was precisely this argument that underpinned Bishop George Berkeley's critique in Alciphron (1733) of Bernard Mandevillle's famous defence of luxury in the Fable of the Bees (1723).

我的论文——《1650-1733年英国国教宗教文化中的快乐观念》——对正统的英国国教牧师和作家如何在1650年至1733年间重塑快乐的道德地位的共同观念提出了新的理解。英国圣公会的思想家们发展了一系列关于快乐的理性秩序的创新伦理论证。在这样做的过程中，他们试图将人类破坏性的欲望导向良好的目的。通过颂扬世俗生活的理性和宗教乐趣，这些神职人员旨在证明，宗教不信教者、无神论者、自然神论者和罪人的真正利益在于敬虔的目的和对神职人员和君主权威的服从。这种快乐的道德语言的恢复解决了当前史学对圣公会道德哲学哲学内容的忽视，这通常被直接归结为托马斯主义和亚里士多德主义的各种“主义”。将这些重大的伦理转变置于正统的宗教话语中，反过来揭示了18世纪早期围绕奢侈品和商业的辩论所面临的危险。因为这些争论主要不是关于为了快乐而追求消费在道德上是否可以接受。相反，他们关注的是是否存在一种理性的享乐层次，这种层次谴责奢侈品与世俗和永恒生活的真正快乐是对立的。通过比较约翰·洛克不断发展的伦理思想与罗伯特·索斯（1660年后牛津大学的公共演说家）和塞缪尔·帕克（1686年后牛津大学的主教）的思想，可以说明这种快乐语言的概念轨迹。在间歇期，洛克和南斯卷入了圣公会对激情问题的共同对抗：道德错误和社会冲突源自激情的理论，破坏了理性的正常运作。保皇党对英国内战的一个重要解释是，它源于清教徒不守规矩的激情。因此，在17世纪50年代，老一代的英国国教作家为这种道德困境寻求新的伦理答案，从成熟的伊壁鸠鲁主义到在亚里士多德框架内对快乐的理性秩序的评价。在王政复辟之后，洛克和南参与了一个更广泛的圣公会对人类享乐主义本质的回应，他们优先考虑了关于快乐的理性秩序的争论——一个经常取代人类动机和善良的非享乐主义概念的哲学主张。1665年后，洛克和帕克用这些普遍的假设来证明一个激进的结论：善可以简化为快乐，自然法的义务很大程度上可以来自上帝施加奖惩的权力。因此，洛克道德观念的转变过程反映了圣公会道德语言中快乐的哲学运动，从南方的温和立场到帕克的激进立场。在洛克的《关于人类理解的文章》（1689）中，这种快乐语言的最简化的方面也反映出了发展中的共鸣。因为《随文》中的道德教义甚至引起了英国国教正统教义的积极回应，比如切斯特的高教会主教弗朗西斯·加斯特雷尔。17世纪末和18世纪初围绕奢侈品的辩论进一步说明了这些道德观念日益增长的影响。因为奢侈品的反对者和捍卫者通常都认为愉快的消费在道德上是合法的；对于奢侈是否妨碍了更愉快的追求，他们产生了分歧。正是这种观点支撑了乔治·伯克利主教在《阿尔西弗隆》（1733）中对伯纳德·曼德维尔在《蜜蜂的寓言》（1723）中为奢侈辩护的著名言论的批判。