MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT NOVEL
Keywords:
Enlightenment, moral philosophy, aesthetics, novel, ethics, eighteenth-century literatureAbstract
This article examines the relationship between moral philosophy and aesthetic
experience in the Enlightenment novel. Focusing on the intellectual climate of the
eighteenth century, the study explores how novelists combined ethical instruction with
artistic form in order to shape readers’ moral sensibilities. Enlightenment thinkers
believed that literature could educate individuals through reason, sentiment, and
imagination. By analyzing selected novels of the period, the article demonstrates how
narrative structure, character development, and emotional engagement functioned as
tools for moral reflection. The study argues that the Enlightenment novel represents a
unique synthesis of philosophy and art, where aesthetic pleasure and moral education
operate together to promote rationality, virtue, and social harmony.
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Hume, D. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. London, 1751.
Kant, I. Critique of Judgment. Berlin, 1790.
Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp. Oxford University Press, 1953.
