MACARIA AND THE PURITAN ETHICS OF DIRECT PARTICIPATION IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD

This paper explores a particular way in which theBaconian reformation of knowledge can be seen as providing conditions ofpossibility for the emergence of Puritan ethics in the mid-seventeenthcenturyEngland. Macaria, along with other works belonging to the Puritanliterature, shares the concern for moral and cognitive reformation of thehuman being, as well as the desire to continue some of the unfinishedprojects and writings of Francis Bacon, developing a specific type of ethics,the Puritan ethics of direct participation in the transformation of the world.I will show that the Puritan ethics developed in Macaria is a response to theBaconian “quest for knowledge” and a continuation of Bacon’sprovidentialist views on the history of humankind.