Howard, Sarah Lucy (1976) The new utilitarians? Studies in the origins and early intellectual associations of Fabianism. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis concerns the intellectual origins and early
associations of Fabianism. It concentrates on the period of
the 1880's and early 1890's during which time the Fabian Society
was founded and its basic doctrines were formed. Its principals
are the small group of intellectuals who played the major role
in working out its basic theories.
The thesis is arranged as a series of studies of five
thinkers or schools of thought with whom the Fabians had
important intellectual associations. Each of the five studies
seeks both to supplement and supply a revision of the received
account of the formative influences and intellectual traditions
which shaped the development of Fabian Socialism. The importance
of Comte and the English Positivists, Marx, J. S. Mill and the
Utilitarians upon the formation of Fabian thought is a matter
of existing recognition, whereas the apparently paradoxical
influence of Herbert Spencer has been previously neglected, to
the detriment of a proper understanding of the early development
of Fabianism. A recognition of Spencer's importance requires
a reappraisal not a rejection of the generally received view of
the Fabians as the 'New Utilitarians.'
Fabian theory emerged out of a process of blending and
modifying the traditions of Radicalism, Positivism and Socialism.
The emergence of that theory was conditioned by the experience
of middle class intellectuals facing new social and economic
uncertainties in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
It is as intellectuals who see themselves as practical men that
the Fabians most clearly emerge as the 'New Utilitarians'.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Fabian Society (Great Britain), Socialism -- Great Britain -- 19th century, Utilitarianism -- Great Britain -- History
Official Date:	December 1976
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Extent:	270 leaves
Language:	eng

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