Abstract

This dissertation locates John Ruskin's art and social criticism in the context of the religious and philosophical traditions of moral thought informing his writings. The study argues that a life-long attention to moral character runs from his inquiries into art and nature through his critique of industrial capitalism. His evocative descriptions of the attitudes, capacities and ends that people bring to their use and appreciation of goods unites his concerns with nature's beauty and intrinsic value, human labor's excellence, economic justice and "wise consumption." ;After introducing the "type" of social theory found in Ruskin's "Tory radical" tradition, the first two chapters sketch the two ethical vocabularies he uses. His early aesthetics is framed by a Christian theological vision indebted to Richard Hooker's idea of the "participation" of creatures' "perfections" in God's creation. Ruskin then adopts an Aristotelian vocabulary of "the virtues" in describing Gothic craftwork. While still answering to his initial theological metaphysics, his social criticism develops from this reorientation toward human creativity within "social practices" formative of people's shared goods and capacities for excellence. ;The dissertation also assesses Ruskin's contributions to modern critical thought. Chapters three to five address his views on religion, politics and economics from the 1850's to the 1870's. They defend as his most distinctive legacy his imagining the duties that attach to consumption, both to other people and to the natural world. Ruskin's concern with consumption differs starkly from Karl Marx's production-driven social theory. That contrast illuminates ethical resources, disallowed by Marx, that can be garnered from Ruskin's portraits of the virtues of justice and piety. ;The dissertation disentangles these resources from Ruskin's reinforcement of social hierarchies. It recommends his character-based assessments of good labor and just consumption, while criticizing him on feminist and democratic grounds for sanctifying a social order with prescribed social roles. An epilogue considers Ruskin's reappropriation by the Cambridge University theologian John Milbank. Like other "communitarians" today, Milbank repeats the problems with Ruskin's metaphysical aspirations for perfect community, while neglecting his trenchant criticisms of economic injustice