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to calculate whether their decisions would promote the greatest happiness of the

greatest number. This could be done rationally. It was all terribly logical. The
Romantics were repulsed by this. They were interested in exploring the inner life of
the emotions for their own sake, for their intuitive and creative potential.

However, some ancient thinkers believed there was a further dimension to human
nature and the inner life: thymos, the need for recognition.

Introducing thymos

Plato called this thymos. We all wish to have our dignity and identity recognised and
respected by others. To Plato this had value for society. It motivated the soldier, for
example, to risk his life in return for recognition of his heroism. But Rousseau, who
called it amour propre, thought it was the root of many problems. He thought it could
very easily spill over into resentment and conflict. In this way, people’s natural
goodness was corrupted by society and its inequalities. This was what he meant by
his famous quote, “People are born free, but everywhere they are in chains.”

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Some modern thinkers, like Hegel in the 18 century and Fukuyama in the 20 and
st
21 have taken an interest in thymos. Fukuyama thinks it is the foundation of modern
human rights, the idea that everyone’s dignity should be recognised equally as a
human being. We will explore this in future sessions, because Fukuyama also thinks
the concept of thymos can reveal much about modern politics and its many “isms”.

One of these is feminism. Modern feminism is often dated from the 1970’s, but its

origins go much further back. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one of the founding texts of
feminism, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in 1792.

What exactly is feminism? Basically, it is the idea that throughout history, women in
society have not been accorded equal dignity with men. Feminist historians believe
that the achievements of many great women in the past have been effectively

written out of history and their voices silenced by male historians whose version was
accepted as mainstream history. They have sought to correct the record and to
reassess the importance of such women.

Ada Lovelace as a feminist icon
Ada was forgotten until the 1950’s, partly because of her gender, but also partly
because of the complex nature of her and Babbage’s work. As early pioneers of
computing, they were both largely forgotten until the arrival of the digital age and
historians began looking at its history and origins. It was hard for a pioneer of