Mary Wollstonecraft’s conception of ‘true taste’ and its role in egalitarian education and citizenship
| Author | Madeline Ahmed Cronin |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885116677479 |
| Published date | 01 October 2019 |
| Date | 01 October 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
2019, Vol. 18(4) 508–528
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885116677479
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Article
Mary Wollstonecraft’s
conception of ‘true taste’
and its role in egalitarian
education and citizenship
Madeline Ahmed Cronin
Department of Political Science, Santa Clara University, USA
Abstract
Is the possession of taste relevant to the practice of moral and political judgement? For
Mary Wollstonecraft and many of her contemporaries, the formation of taste was
increasingly significant for both ethics and politics. In fact, some of the key contributors
to the debate, which I have termed the ‘politics of taste’, believed that fostering existing
standards of taste promised a palliative to modern democratic ills that they diagnosed.
Wollstonecraft is an immanent critic of such positions. Although she shares some of
Edmund Burke’s and David Hume’s assumptions, she proposes dramatic revision of the
extant model of refined taste driven by the spread of rational education. In this way, she
attempts to rescue ‘true taste’ from its sentimental context – one permeated by false
assumptions about femininity and class. For Wollstonecraft, ‘true taste’ must be the
product of refined understanding. Only then can it be deemed a support rather than a
hindrance to the practice of moral and political judgement. Although recent
Wollstonecraft scholarship has emphasised the depth of her engagement with
Scottish Enlightenment thought, using Hume as a primary interlocutor with
Wollstonecraft, especially on the question of taste, is yet unprecedented. This approach,
Wollstonecraft’s immanent critique of taste, yields arguments about taste that are espe-
cially complex and philosophically interesting, both in her time and ours.
Keywords
Taste, Wollstonecraft, refinement, civic education, class, judgement, Hume, Burke
Corresponding author:
Madeline Ahmed Cronin, Department of Political Science, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa
Clara, CA 95053, USA.
Email: mcronin@scu.edu
I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body,
and to convince them that the soft phrases, ...delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of
taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness.
– Mary Wollstonecraft (‘‘Introduction’’ 1995: 76)
With what a languid yawn have I seen an admirable poem thrown down, that a man
of true taste returns to, again and again with rapture; and whilst melody has almost
suspended respiration, a lady has asked me where I bought my gown.
– Mary Wollstonecraft (‘‘Of National Education’’ 1995: 261, emphasis added)
Is refined taste a support or hindrance to sound moral and political judgement?
By extension, political theorists might also ask whether the refinement of taste is
relevant to the education of citizens. For Mary Wollstonecraft and many of her
contemporaries, the refinement of taste most certainly did matter for judgement
and in the education of citizens. By the middle of the 18th century, controversy
over the moral significance of the refinement of taste, particularly its role in the
progress of civilisation, was widespread (Flynn, 1992: 200). Whether it was Jean-
Jacques Rousseau’s condemnation of refined taste as the harbinger of moral
decay, or Hume’s celebration of refined taste as an indicator of increased soci-
ability, and the progress of civilisation, the cultivation of taste was controversial.
Taste – understood not as pure aesthetic judgement but as a ‘spontaneous sense
of what is right’, pleasing, and fitting with regard to an array of objects and
practices – became increasingly important in the 18th century for several reasons
(Moriarty, 1988: 3). Distinct from the influential rise of Newtonian science and
empiricism in science more broadly, however, I isolate a set of causes for this
increased attention to taste by outlining what I have termed the ‘politics of
taste’.
The ‘politics of taste’ refers to the set of 18th-century debates sparked by inten-
sified awareness of (and sometimes anxiety about) the sway of ‘the many’ over
social and political outcomes and the consequent breakdown of existing standards
of taste from what leading lights deemed ‘civilisation’. Many of the leading con-
tributors to the politics of taste propose – in different ways – an increased attention
to the cultivation of taste as a palliative to the modern democratic ills that they
diagnose. Wollstonecraft is an immanent critic of such positions. She is an imma-
nent critic not in the sense of 20th-century critical theory, but in the broader sense –
of critically assessing circumstances from within a shared cultural and intellectual
context. Unlike Hume and other pronounced voices within the politics of taste, she
proposes a dramatic revision of the extant model of refined taste driven by the
spread of rational education. Although Wollstonecraft is famously castigatory of
ladies of taste in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Rights of Woman) (1792),
she defends an account of ‘true taste’ characterised by an inclination to take pleas-
ure in virtue, which she believes is obscured by the spread of false taste, especially
the performance of taste purely as a matter of decorum or sign of social status. In
other words, Wollstonecraft’s critique of false refinement of taste is consistent with
Cronin 509
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