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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6273-0509
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
English
Year Degree Awarded
2022
Month Degree Awarded
May
First Advisor
Nick Bromell
Second Advisor
Hoang Phan
Third Advisor
Britt Rusert
Subject Categories
African American Studies | American Literature | Literature in English, North America | Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority
Abstract
The Burdens of Responsibility traces the emergence of moral responsibility as both a concept and problem in the nineteenth-century United States. Drawing on a range of sources –works of literature, philosophy, domestic manuals, newspaper archives – I show how many Americans began to conceive of moral responsibility as distinct from both duty and rules of behavior prescribed by traditional social roles. Although ethicists today take this distinction for granted, it was an emergent and problematic space in the nineteenth-century United States, brought into being by historical forces, including the rise of market capitalism, abolition, changing women’s roles, and increasing concern with the responsibilities (not merely the rights) of democratic citizenship. I argue that American authors, thinkers, and citizens were compelled to negotiate the tension between familiar notions of duty (fixed, prescribed, automatic) and new calls for responsibility (improvised, self-authored, contextual).
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/28372293
Recommended Citation
Leonard, Leslie, "The Burdens and Blessings of Responsibility: Duty and Community in Nineteenth- Century America" (2022). Doctoral Dissertations. 2547.
https://doi.org/10.7275/28372293
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2547
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
African American Studies Commons, American Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons