Science, Customs, and the Modern Subject

Eighteenth-century Spain was haunted by a sense of decadence. Consequently, intellectual innovation developed in its attempt to recover its lost grandeur while keeping its Catholic culture. In such a context, politicaleconomic reflection focused in a remarkable way on a scientific approach to social habits. Reception of foreign developments was adapted to a framework that fostered the enhancement of individualism but not of individual self-determination. The first part of the article shows that the approach to customs initially elaborated on the concept of emulation as a moral sentiment for overcoming collective passions that precluded cooperation. The second part shifts the focus to a discussion of education as an antidote against traditional prejudices but also as a bulwark to both modern moral hazards derived from commercial society and republicanism

Aesthetics · Decadence · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Hubris · Individualism · Passions · Political science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Classics · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Law · Philosophy