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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Republics, Passions, and Patria: Love of Country in Eighteenth Century Political Thought Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8pp3b6r1 Author Gallagher, Megan Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Republics, Passions, and Patria: Love of Country in Eighteenth Century Political Thought A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Megan Elizabeth Gallagher 2014 © Copyright by Megan Elizabeth Gallagher 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Republics, Passions, and Patria: Love of Country in Eighteenth Century Political Thought by Megan Elizabeth Gallagher Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Kirstie M. McClure, Chair The contemporary revival of interest in republican political thought requires a substantive account of civic virtue as its motivating factor. Whereas liberalism will replace the burden of virtue with the burden of dispassionate judgment, republicanism clings to the potential of its citizenry’s virtuosity and the idea that something akin to character is required to participate in politics. I argue that to enliven virtue, we must consider its relationship to the passions and their place in the historical republican tradition. Civic virtue’s influence on republican practices derives not from juridical principles or institutional safeguards but from ethical and emotional commitments to extra-legal concepts such as duty, respect, and responsibility. Yet the contemporary literature on republicanism, suffering from what I call an affective deficit, largely fails to account for this emotional dimension. Building on the theory of emotives developed by historian William Reddy in The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions ii (2001), and through a series of close readings of republican political thought from the eighteenth century, I develop a distinct theory of affective practices, defined as the ways in which feelings of devotion to one’s country and fellow citizens are cogitated upon, judged, enacted in the body and communicated to others. I apply this theory of affective practices to provide interpretations of Montesquieu on fear; Diderot on despair and respect; and Rousseau on love and sympathy. Through these explorations, we may better understand how the passions, and a “re-politicized” sense of civic virtue, are, and ought to be, employed in the pursuit, maintenance, and critique of republican politics by its contemporary defenders and detractors alike, particularly in Philip Pettit’s work on neo-republicanism and Jürgen Habermas’s on constitutional patriotism. iii The dissertation of Megan Elizabeth Gallagher is approved. Anthony Pagden Giulia Sissa Peter Stacey Kirstie M. McClure, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv For Johanna Shortall Gallagher and in memory of Winifred Seery Murphy v Table of Contents List of Images...............................................................................................................................viii Note on Sources and Translations..................................................................................................ix Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................................x Vita.................................................................................................................................................xii INTRODUCTION | The Lost Passions of Republican Political Thought.......................................1 I. Republican Thought and the Emotional Turn in Political Theory II. Contemporary Republican Political Theory and the Absence of the Passions III. Organization of the Dissertation CHAPTER 1 | How to Do Things with Emotions.........................................................................27 Introduction: Emotional Lexicons I. A Brief History of the Passions in Republican Political Thought II. The Politics of Affect Theory III. From Emotive Speech Acts to Affective Practices Conclusion: Affective Practices and les philosophes CHAPTER 2 | Fear, Excess, and the French Enlightenment.........................................................67 Introduction: Despotic Excesses and Republican Deficits I. Despotism in Early Modern Thought II. Despotic Passions in the Lettres persanes III. Roxane and “the poysoned fountaine” vi Conclusion: Fearful Symmetry CHAPTER 3 | Rites of the Republic............................................................................................101 Introduction: Rousseau and Civic Spectacle I. Performing Re-founding through Ritual II. Cultivating a Republican Amour-propre III. Maintaining Civic Virtue Beyond the Myth Conclusion: Amo, Amas, Amat CHAPTER 4 | Tahiti Between Despair and Disrespect...............................................................134 Introduction: The Politics of Hospitality in Diderot’s Supplément I. Bougainville, Raynal, and “les nations sauvages” II. “Unfeeling hearts”: Violations of Hospitality III. Republican Virtues Abroad: Neo-Republicanism and International Politics Conclusion: Unsocial Sociability Across Borders CONCLUSION | The Reinvigoration of Republican Virtue.......................................................164 I. Wordsworth at the Champ de Mars II. A Republican Ethos of Affect? III. Overcoming the Affective Deficit Bibliography................................................................................................................................177 vii List of Images Chapter 4 Image 1: Unattributed. Développement de la route faite autour du monde par les vaisseaux du roi, La Bordeuse et l’Étoile. From Louis Antoine de Bougainville and unknown artist, Illustrations de ‘Voyage autour du monde.’ Vol. 1. Paris: Saillant et Nyon, 1772. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Conclusion Image 2: Unattributed. Vue des travaux du Champ de Mars, par les patriotes. 1790. Print. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the French Revolution Digital Archive. http://purl.stanford.edu/qx733cc6971 Image 3: Isidore-Stanislas Helman and Antoine-Jean Duclos. Fédération générale des Français au Champ de Mars, le 14 juillet 1790. 1790. Print. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the French Revolution Digital Archive. http://purl.stanford.edu/bj395vq1790 viii Note on Sources and Translations For works by Diderot, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, I have utilized both the modern, standard editions in English and French, as well as the first printed editions when they were available digitally. Database information (and permanent hyperlinks, when available) is listed in the bibliography. I have not attempted to standardize capitalization, punctuation, or spelling in the eighteenth century editions, though when a particularly arcane word (or spelling) is used, I have included the modern French equivalent. Unattributed translations of these and other French materials are my own. I have standardized other modern sources, excluding titles, for consistent American English spelling throughout. ix Acknowledgments For their collective erudition, generosity, guidance, and good humor, I thank the members of my committee, Joshua Foa Dienstag, Anthony Pagden, Giulia Sissa, and Peter Stacey. I owe them a debt of gratitude. My advisor and chair, Kirstie McClure, whose dedication to all of her students continues to stagger the mind, has mentored me since I wrote to her as a prospective student. I will continue to measure my work by her standards. It is because of Molly Shanley and Peter G. Stillman’s teaching that I first became passionate about political theory as an undergraduate. Lastly, I had the good fortune to study with Victor Wolfenstein at the beginning of my graduate career. I like to think that, on a good day, the depth of his ethical commitments and his dedication to teaching guide my own. The tremendous staff of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library has made my year there truly delightful – and just the right amount of weird. Thank you in particular to Clark Director Barbara Fuchs, David Eng, Scott Jacobs, Nina Mamikunian, Alejandro Sanchez Nuñez, and Shannon Supple. In the UCLA Political Science Graduate Office, Joseph Brown and Yesenia Rayos have provided more support than could reasonably be hoped for. I am thankful for financial support from the California Rare Book School, the Edwin W. Pauley Fellowship, the UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies, the UCLA Department of Political Science, and the UCLA Graduate Division. To my dear friends, fellow theorists, writing partners, and partners in crime, a meager thank you is insufficient. Nonetheless, particular thanks to Libby Barringer, Ben Bascom, Jake Collins, x Arash Davari, Darin DeWitt, Carol Dingman, Cory Gooding, Emily Hallock, Lauren Jacobi, Katie Kumler, Whitney Mannies, Helen McManus, Chandra Obie, Ben Parizek, Matt Rand, Gilda Rodríguez, Mae Sakharov, Althea Sircar, Rebekah Sterling, and Meryl Sweeney. My family often had more confidence in me than I did in myself. For that, and much more, I owe them a debt I cannot repay. xi Vita Megan Elizabeth Gallagher graduated with honors from Vassar College in May 2005 with a B.A. in French and Francophone Studies and Political Science. She earned an M.A.