The Republicanism of “The Mother of Liberalism”

Abstract Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) developed a unique philosophical theory about state governance due to her reworking of the republican model of government into an aristocratic liberal republicanism. Staël is, however, a liberal thinker prior to being a republican thinker. In this chapter, the author aims to demonstrate that through the lens of Staël’s philosophical anthropology, and in particular through her use of the passion of love of liberty as an epistemic emotion, Staël is able to develop a fixed set of moral and political values and principles that need to be met as much as possible within the governance of a state. Taking into account such important preconditions for practical politics as the political reality, the psychological zeitgeist, and the stage of human progress, this set of values and principles primarily revolves around the promotion of equality before the law, individual rights, and the requirement of a constrained government.