‘God’s Truth’: Kant, Mill and moral epistemology in Oliver Twist

Mangham, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3585-7162 (2012) ‘God’s Truth’: Kant, Mill and moral epistemology in Oliver Twist. Literature Compass, 9 (11). pp. 733-742. ISSN 1741-4113 doi: 10.1111/lic3.12024

Abstract/Summary

This essay aims to demonstrate how Dickens’s search for ‘truth’ (and his understanding of what that abstraction consists of) entered into and emerged from one of the key philosophical discussions of the early nineteenth century: namely whether moral knowledge is the sum of one’s experiences or whether there are such things as a priori or ‘natural’ principles of ethics that transcend human practice.