Scholarship on Mary Wollstonecraft’s engagement with Adam Smith has primarily focused on his failure to attend to the experience of women in society. While this is one facet of her criticism of his thought, this article contends that Wollstonecraft’s arguments in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) extend beyond concerns that he overlooked women in his treatise, but question the very foundation of his moral theory. Unlike Smith’s silence on issues of gender inequality, he was deeply conc…
Read moreScholarship on Mary Wollstonecraft’s engagement with Adam Smith has primarily focused on his failure to attend to the experience of women in society. While this is one facet of her criticism of his thought, this article contends that Wollstonecraft’s arguments in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) extend beyond concerns that he overlooked women in his treatise, but question the very foundation of his moral theory. Unlike Smith’s silence on issues of gender inequality, he was deeply concerned that the poor’s esteem for and desire to emulate the rich would prompt them to eschew the cultivation of virtue in pursuit of wealth and luxury. Wollstonecraft argues that the undue and unfounded esteem perpetuated by inequalities in society thwarts the sympathetic process that is the foundation of moral rules. Crucially, Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’ does not escape this shortcoming, and although existing commentaries characterize her failure to reference this distinctive feature of his theory as an oversight, I argue that it is possible her silence was intentional. Comparing their proposed programmes for national education illuminates the ways in which Wollstonecraft’s call for the integration of both sex and class can preclude erroneous judgments that arise from ‘unnatural distinctions’ within society.
