Morality and the Market: Contested Commodification in Eighteenth-Century England

我的研究将比较有争议的商品的案例研究，包括尸体，食品和婴儿销售。它将探讨立法，社会团体和个人如何应对相互冲突的观点，以及这对社会和市场关系的启示。这个项目将集中在十八世纪的英国，因为这个世纪代表了一个重要的经济变革时期，作为一个新生的资本主义和不断变化的道德和市场关系的时间。金融、工业和消费革命影响了经济的运作，影响了社会关系、道德关切、对商品的看法以及法律的和大众对所有权的态度。在探索商品和市场的冲突的看法，这个项目有可能作出重大贡献的资本主义，身体和社会抗议的历史。这个研究项目的灵感来自社会经济学，法律的，人类学和哲学理论的结合与当今，例如财产法理论家玛格丽特·雷丁（Margaret Radin）的观点，她声称商品化发生在一个复杂的范围内。认知理论家菲斯克和泰特洛克通过心理划分理论解释了对普遍商品化的抵制。人们把金钱、物品和关系放在不同的心理类别中，发现类别之间的价值比较令人困惑和痛苦。这些理论应该放在18世纪的背景下考虑，以评估它们是如何补充或反驳历史学家关于道德、市场和信用经济的发现的。我打算将这些理论与看似矛盾的观点一起考虑，例如汤普森的道德经济学，它表明早期现代社会对贸易的非官方认知限制比现代社会更多。本项目将通过对尸体、食品和婴儿的交易这三个案例的研究，来探讨社会关系和市场关系的分层认识。在比较有争议的商品时，它将探讨社会，道德和市场的相互作用。在十八世纪，解剖学的日益普及导致了对解剖用尸体需求的急剧增加。围绕着尸体的商品化，例如在确定尸体的所有权方面，存在着大量的争议。此外，由于法律的供应不足，导致了“复活”尸体的黑市，因此尸体交易与犯罪行为有着密切的联系。因此，冲突在处决时的骚乱、“复活主义者”的法庭案件、外科医生的纪律、反解剖学讽刺和立法改革中显而易见。完全的商品化是完全不受限制的。因此，18世纪的粮食骚乱是在技术上法律的贸易做法不符合道德标准之后发生的，从骚乱者的角度来看，这表明商品化是不完全的。相反，越来越受自由放任市场意识形态影响的法律和有关商人认为这种贸易做法是可以接受的。因此，我将考虑诸如谷物等必需品的有争议的商品化，以及不断变化的市场如何影响这种看法并导致抗议。在18世纪，尽管婴儿交易是合法的，但它仍然引起了很大的争议，主要是因为它与杀婴和非法行为有关。与今天的婴儿黑市相比，早期现代市场的婴儿供应量高于需求量，因此，对今天的婴儿买卖和早期现代婴儿买卖进行比较，应该可以深入了解供求对有争议的商品化的影响。这项研究将纳入有关阶级、性别、年龄和宗教的想法，因为这些因素影响了个人对商品的看法。

My research will compare case studies of contested commodities, covering cadavers, food-stuffs and baby-selling. It will explore how legislation, social groups, and individuals responded to conflicting views perceptions and what this reveals about social and market relations. This project will focus on eighteenth-century England as this century represents an important period of economic change, as a time of nascent capitalism and shifting moral and market relations. The financial, industrial and consumer revolutions affected the functioning of the economy and influenced social relations, moral concerns, perceptions of commodities, and legal and popular attitudes to ownership. In exploring conflicting perceptions of commodities and the market, this project has the potential to make a significant contribution to the history of capitalism, the body and social protest.This research project takes inspiration from a combination of socio-economic, legal, anthropological, and philosophical theories relating to the present day, such as that of property law theorist Margaret Radin who claims that commodification occurs on a complex spectrum. Cognitive theorists Fiske and Tetlock explain resistance to universal commodification through theories of mental compartmentalisation. People place money, objects and relationships into distinct mental categories and find value comparisons between categories confusing and distressing. Such theories should be considered in an eighteenth-century context to assess how they add to or contradict the findings of historians relating to moral, market, and credit economies. I intend to consider such theories alongside seemingly contradictory ideas, such as Thompson's moral economy, which suggests early modern society involved more unofficial cognitive restrictions on trade than modern. This will lead to a deeper understanding both of theories of commodification and the early modern social economy.To address the layered perceptions of social and market relations, this project will focus on three case studies: trade in cadavers, food and infants. In comparing contested commodities, it will explore social, moral and market interactions. In the eighteenth century, the growing popularity of anatomy resulted in a steep increase in demand for cadavers for dissection. A great deal of controversy surrounded the commodification of the dead body, such as in determining the ownership of a corpse. Moreover, the trade in cadavers was deeply connected to criminality as the insufficient legal supply resulted in a black market in 'resurrected' corpses. Consequently, conflict is evident in riots at executions, court cases of 'resurrectionists', the disciplining of surgeons, anti-anatomy satire and legislative changes. Complete commodification is entirely unrestricted. Therefore, eighteenth-century food riots, which arose following technically legal trade practices which failed to meet moral standards, indicate incomplete commodification from the perspective of the rioters. In contrast, the law, which was increasingly influenced by laissez-faire market ideology, and the merchants involved, considered such trade practices acceptable. Therefore, I will consider the contested commodification of necessities such as grain, and how the changing markets influenced such perceptions and resulted in protests. In the eighteenth century, despite its legality, trade in babies was highly controversial, largely due to its connections to infanticide and illegitimacy. In contrast to the present day black market in infants, the early modern market had a higher supply of babies than demand, therefore a comparison between present day baby-selling and early modern baby-selling should provide insight into the effect of supply and demand on contested commodification. This research will incorporate ideas about class, gender, age and religion as these factors affected individuals' perceptions of commodities.