Persuasion and Pedagogy: On Teaching Ethics with Jane Austen Margaret Watkins “. . . Jane Austen’s technique is the method of the vintner. She pin-points the exact quality of character in which she is interested, and the exact degree of that quality, by matching it against the same quality in different degrees, against simulations of that quality, against deficiencies of it, and against qualities which, though different, are brothers or cousins of that selected quality.” 1 —Gilbert Ryle Ryle’s pithy analogy between wine-tasting and Jane Austen’s novels suggests a pedagogical as well as a philosophical message. Just as teaching oenology well requires tasting some wine, teaching ethics requires engaging some complex human characters. I want to suggest that one of the best ways to do so in the classroom involves the extended study of a literary text, and that an ideal text for this project with ethics classes is Austen’s most mature novel, Persuasion. This text not only augments the resources for ethical reflection that students bring to our courses; it provides a multitude of rich illustrations that go beyond the stock, abstract examples philosophy teachers usually have at their disposal and introduces philosophical points of its own. That this novel could do all this in the classroom suggests that we would do well to introduce more literature into our courses and explore their resources for ethical reflection. It is not too much to hope, I think, that this disciplinary integration might begin to cultivate an on-going practice of moral reflection and discernment in students with a talent for reflecting on the narratives they encounter. In the following, I propose some ways in which Persuasion can illuminate and illustrate concepts for ethics students. In the first section, I discuss specific ways to integrate the study of this novel into ethics courses and why certain approaches seem to work better than others. Next, I highlight themes for three different levels of study: reflection on particular virtues and vices,