デズリエール夫人

Critique of Virtue

In criticizing the human pretension to superiority over nature through its alleged possession of reason and free will, Deshoulières devotes particular attention to the human claims of moral virtue. In her later works, she operates an umasking of virtue as the simple operation of natural instinct. What is often claimed to be a moral attribute developed by free will is revealed to be the natural reaction of an embodied subject to particular stimuli in his or her material environs. Her epigrammatic “Diverse Reflections” (1686) typifies this demythologization of virtue. She critically analyzes three moral virtues in particular: wisdom, prudence, and courage.Philosophers often claim that wisdom is acquired by human beings as they age. This virtue is alleged to be the fruit of careful reflection on alternative courses of action. Unlike the rashness of youth, this cautious thoughtfulness frees the elderly to abandon certain dangerous habits that compromise their health. According to Deshoulières, however, this enlightenment is more instinctual than intellectual.

We believe we’ve become wise/ When, after having seen the autumnal fall of leaves more than fifty times,/ We abandon the dangerous use of certain pleasures./ We delude ourselves./ Such changes are not the work of free choice./ It is only the pride cloaking humanity/ Which, using every pretext/ Gives to the cause of virtue/ What we owe to the cause of aging.

As the human body ages, with the concomitant risk of illness and accident and the growing risk of death, the human agent instinctively moderates the use of dangerous drink or food or sport. This instinctual moderation owes far more to biology than to any deliberate choice. The alleged virtue of the elderly derives more from the natural reaction of the body to the threat of destruction, than to some mysterious internal act of election. Similarly, the capstone moral virtue of prudence is little more than the instinctual exercise of common sense in the face of imminent peril. The alleged virtue might permit the moral agent to foresee danger but in and of itself it can not remove that danger. The common estimate of prudence gravely exaggerates the power of human reason and will to create the future.

The incense we give to prudence/ Leads my mood to despair./ What is its purpose? To see in advance/ The evils we must endure./ Is it such a benefit to predict them?/ If this cruel virtue had some certain rule/ That could remove them from us,/ I’d find the worries it gives bearable enough,/ But nothing is so misleading as human prudence./ Alas! Almost always the detour it takes/ In order to help us avoid a looming misfortune/ Is the path that takes us right to it.

Like the praise of other alleged virtues, the esteem for prudence overestimates the scope of human agency. While the human agent can detect dangers in its immediate environment, it can do little to alter that environment since it is bound by the laws of material nature, and so its future course is largely determined by the causative activity of that nature. The cardinal moral virtue of courage is similarly dismissed as the product of sensible self-protection rather than of heroic freedom. Deshoulières attacks the courage of classical pagan warriors often lauded in the pedagogical literature of the period. The politically motivated suicides of disgraced civic leaders in the classical era are a predictable response to an unbearable physical and emotional environment.

We scarcely recognize ourselves in discussions of courage/ When we elevate to the rank of the generous/ Those Greeks and Romans whose suicidal deaths / Have made the name of courage so famous./ What have they done that is so great? They left life/ When, after crushing disgrace, Life had nothing pleasant left for them./ By one single death they spared themselves a thousand.

The suicide of a disgraced politician awaiting imminent arrest and probable execution reflects rational self-interest rooted in the instinct for sparing oneself greater pain than immediate death. There is nothing particularly surprising nor meritorious in executing such an act. In the circumstances, it could not have been otherwise.In her demythologization of virtue, Deshoulières manifests the comprehensive scope of her naturalist conception of human nature. Virtue and vice, allegedly the manifestations of free will, are simply the instinctual reactions of the moral agent to the stimuli of pain and pleasure in his or her environment. Prudence, courage, temperance, and justice permit one to negotiate the perils in one’s surroundings in the interest of self-preservation. The repertory of virtue is not different in kind from the various defensive responses to threatening stimuli evinced by the other members of the animal kingdom as they confront the challenges of the material cosmos.

Ces Grecs et ces Romains dont la mort volontaireA rendu les noms si fameux.Qu’ont-ils fait de si grand? Ils sortaient de la vieLors que de disgrâces suivieElle n’avait plus rien d’agréable pour eux.Par une seule mort ils s’en épargnaient mille;Qu’elle est douce à des cœurs lassés de soupirer!