PHIL 1620 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Tyrant
Document Summary
Wollstonecraft notes that in order to excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious arguments have been made to prove the inferiority of women (14). That is, to prove that they are incapable of virtue. However, the path to virtue is universal, so there should be only one way appointed by. Providence to lead mankind to either virtue or happiness (14) The rules of morality and virtue, are deuced from pure reason, and apply to the whole species (34) Recall that in the previous chapter, wollstonecraft argued that monarchy was acquired by brute force, and because it was rooted in hereditary right rather than merit, it was arbitrary power . In this chapter she is going to draw an analogy between monarchial power and patriarchal power. When, for example, she examines the biblical story of eve, she concludes that such as story re ects how in the remotest antiquity men used brute force to subjugate women (25)