The Role of Manners in Theories on the State and Society During the Directoire

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Harald Bluhm
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 462868429

The Role of Manners in Theories on the State and Society During the DirectoireThe objective of this research project is to investigate the socially inclusive role of manners (moeurs) in the political theories that have been outlined during the late phase of the French Revolution (approx. 1795 to 1799). In the light of the political instability that characterizes the late revolutionary phase, a wide range of theories on the state and society arose from republican as well as monarchist or traditionalist authors. They assumed that the commonwealth is not merely legitimized by the force of law, but that it requires the support of commonly shared sociomoral convictions and actions. The text corpus to be analyzed includes but is not limited to works by Louis Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald, Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt de Tracy, Joseph de Maistre, Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours, Louis Sébastien Mercier, Pierre-Louis Roederer, Jean-Baptiste Say, and Emmanuel Joseph Sièyes.Based on this text corpus, a precise definition of the semantic field of the terms ‘moeurs’ and ‘moral’ will be developed as part of the project. It is our hypothesis that ever since this terminology has been employed by Montesquieu, two opposing concepts evolved: On the one hand manners were considered the sociomoral and sociocultural foundations of the political community, on the other hand they were conceived as a means through which civil freedom manifested and expressed itself. Contrary to the current state of research, we propose that the political revaluation of manners occurring throughout the investigated period across the entire political spectrum was neither based on a comprehensive recourse on monistic concepts, nor did it result in an overdetermination of the political. Rather, we will highlight how the authors of the examined works developed a variety of models for the relation between the state and society with reference to the republican tradition as well as the Scottish political economy. The corresponding approaches ranged from liberal republican to conservative perspectives and were unified in their skepticism towards the notion of a mere legal as well as economic social inclusion. Hence, manners and morality were referred to in a modified manner. At the same time, this research project will gain new insights for a better understanding of the differentiation of the sociopolitical language at the turn of the nineteenth century.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants