Germaine de Staël’s Theory of the Passions

Germaine de Staël’s[aut]De Staël, Germaine theory[aut]Groot, Eveline of the impassioned nature of human beings, as set out in her work De l’influence des passionsPassions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations (1796), provides an insightful account of a sentimentalist theory in which human sensibilitySensibility and emotionality are understood to be a core part of moral thought. In this work, Staël develops a psychological anthropology and moral theory that presents an interplay between the rational and the sentimental as one of its core aspects. Understanding the impassioned nature of human beings is crucial if—like Staël—one believes that passionsPassions are the most important root from which individual and collective happinessHappiness sprout. Furthermore, passionsPassions are essentialEssence, essential for moral judgementMoral Judgement: in the complex human psychologyHuman Psychology, dual negative and positive influences of both reasonReason and the passionsPassions influence each other. This interplay functions on a political and public level as well as on a personal and private level.