Moral Value, Ethical Order And Historical Politics

George Eliot, a Victorian female writer, based on her profound insight into thecurrent reality of England and her unique perception of the Southern Europe, set in acomplicated historical panorama of Florence in the late15thcentury, created amasterpiece entitled Romola to express or to interpret the political ethics conceptionthat should be constructed in a period of great social transformation---a philosophicalnovel with its content including western history, politics, religion, intellectual history,etc.George Eliot has a natural passion and speculative philosophy of human destinyand future, which leads to the depth and contradictions of this novel. As a Comtist,Eliot’s theory is partly based on the epistemological perspective of positivism, whichdivides human knowledge into three stages, including Theological Stage,Metaphysical Stage, and Positive Stage. Florence of the15thcentury in this novelshows great power and vitality inspired by Renaissance, while the church authorityand the moral restriction of religion in the Middle Ages is in decline, which seems tostay in a transformative period from theological stage to metaphysical stage. Thewriter considers and answers the questions through the novel, namely to explore or topursue the moral value, the political form, and the ethical order; or it may be calledthe social continuity and organism between human and society.The main body of this thesis consists of three chapters:The first chapter summarizes the social, historical and moral value, and theideological foundation of the novel, namely, Comte’s positivistic philosophy andsociology, which has a deep influence on the female writer and motivates her to writeRomola. The novel and the Comte’s theory have a close relationship. It introduces three perspectives: the law of three stages of human mind and social development inthe positivistic system, the social organism between human and society, the theoryand practice about establishing the religion of humanity.The second chapter analyzes the profound ideas in Romola, which is imprinted inPositivism. It also analyzes the central characters including Savonarola, Machiavelli，Bardo, Tito to generalize different theories that are reflected or represented. Thecharacters discussed in this chapter do not fully live up to the expectations orrequirements of Positivism, because their behaviors are either so stubborn, or lackingfaith, or extremely free, or villainous and degraded, which lack self-discipline andcontinuity in the construction of a highly self-conscious and responsible politicalcommunity. It is not perfect to explore the politics and morals for the female writer.In the third chapter, the title character of Romola is analyzed. This novelexpresses the idea of humanistic love (altruism) as an idealistic conception of theoriented value in order to formulate a political and moral project in a period of socialtransformation. It centers on the two departures to interpret the realistic and symbolicmeaning: to be born in the fire again after having experienced the suffering in the hell,she stands up again firmly and calmly from the vicissitudes of life and the thorny roadthat is full of spiritual conflicts. It may be the benign prescription according to thegrowing process and the rising of the mental state, because the theory is pertinent tothe religion of humanity that is advocated by Comte. That is a religion about thehuman’s love, which the admiring and loving object is human being in place of God.The religion of humanity has the purity and devotion of traditional Christianitywithout the superstition and stubbornness, which is beneficial for balancing thecontradictions of society and keeping it stable and harmonious.