Three talks at the conference: Les vertus républicaines à l’âge du doux commerce: entre influence, réaction et opposition dans les Lumières suisses, françaises et écossaises, Université de Lausanne, 29-30 June 2018
On the 29th and 30th of June a conference on the republican virtue in the age of commerce was held at the University of Lausanne, organised by Prof. Simone Zurbuchen, Prof. Béla Kapossy, Dr. Rudmer Bijlsma, Sonia Boussange-Andrei et Justine Roulin, with the support of the doctoral school CUSO « Études sur le Siècle des Lumières ».
At the conference, three members of the project on the Enlightenment Agrarian Republics spoke on the subjects related to their respective research.
Graham Clure talked about the noble republicanism and elective monarchy in Rousseau’s Considerations on Poland, drawing a distinction between Mably’s and Mercier de La Rivière’s conventionnally republican solutions for Poland and a more radical proposal by Rousseau, based on monarchy and popular sovereignty.
Auguste Bertholet and Radek Szymanski gave a joint talk on the two facets of moral education in mid-eighteenth century Vaud, subject territory of the Bernese republic. They analysed a course in moral philosophy destined for the princes (Szymanski) and a weekly review discussing morality for the general public (Bertholet), thus presenting two complementary facets of the manner in which commerce, economy and politics intersected. Both speakers emphasized the seamless fusion of politics and economy – the principal duties of the government towards the citizens, and of the citizens towards their political community, had to do with maintaining agriculture, promoting equitable manufacturing and commerce.