A Happy Life. Women´s Moral Philosophy in 17th- and 18th-Century Scandinavia

What is a good life? Who decides?

This independent research project, carried out at the University of Copenhagen, explores Scandinavian women’s writing on these fundamental philosophical questions in the 17th and 18th centuries.

During this period, an older ideal that equated happiness with the ability to accept one’s changing fortunes gradually gave way to a notion of ‘pursuit of happiness’ as a human right.

Several Scandinavian women took part in this philosophical shift, publishing writing that addressed both humanity as a whole and women’s specific circumstances.

But as they were excluded from the traditional institutions of moral philosophy, these women often resorted to unconventional arenas, genres, and modes of expression. They have, therefore, been largely ignored in the history of philosophy.

To challenge accounts of the period’s moral philosophy that has resulted from such neglect, this project performs close readings of periodical essays, books of hymns and prayers, novels, poems, and pamphlets written by women in Sweden/Finland and Denmark/Norway between 1650 and 1790.

The goal is to understand how and where women intellectuals intervened in philosophical debates about the good life, and to critically examine prevailing notions about which texts, perspectives and traditions that can be considered philosophical.

The result will be the first-ever scientific study about Scandinavian women’s moral philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries.