Putting on Virtue Without Putting Off Feminists

Abstract

Mary Wollstonecraft's account of virtue discourse and formation, which deploys ancient and medieval ethical resources for modern purposes, challenges a prevalent narrative in Christian ethics today. Several prominent Christian virtue ethicists have left the false impression that serious reflection on the virtues depends on pre‐modern traditions and the eschewal of modern resources. Troubled by skeptical quandaries and the difficulty of adjudicating conflicting claims about virtue, they are concerned with securing a pre‐modern court of appeals. Many feminists worry that these appeals unduly constrain because they naturalize what is contingent and fix what should be open to debate. Wollstonecraft does not share the skeptical concerns and so has no need for metaethical appeals. Adapting Edmund Burke's moral philosophy, her use of virtue discourse deploys his metaphor of “the wardrobe of the moral imagination” to more religious, radical, and democratic ends. This way of proceeding signals the possibility of a rapprochement between feminists of various stripes and those interested in deploying the discourse of the virtues for contemporary Christian ethics.