Patricia Sheridan - Philosophy Department Colloquim Speaker

Title: "Virtue, Affection, and the Social Good: The Moral Philosophy of Catharine Trotter Cockburn and the Bluestockings."

This paper explores the intellectual relationship between three eighteenth century women thinkers : Catharine  Troter Cockburn, and the Bluestockings, Elizabeth Carter and Catherine Talbot.  All three share a virtue - ethical approach according to which human happiness depends on the harmonization of our essentially rational and sociable natures . The affinity between the Bluestockings and Cockburn illuminates new avenues for thinking about the Bluestockings as philosophers and about the feminist dimensions of Cockburn’s morality . Further, their shared moral outlook sheds light on the feminism of the eighteenth century and highlights these thinkers ' contributions to a new and growing discourse about the social and political role of women.