When and why should we care for other people's feelings? Or, for that matter, our own feelings?

Elinor and Marianne Dashwood both have cultivated feelings. That is to say, they have put a lot of effort into their feelings. They both believe their feelings should be taken seriously and the proof is that both have taken their own feelings seriously, albeit it in different ways. We see this most clearly in an odd section well into the novel when Marianne becomes very ill and Willoughby shows up to see her. He does not speak to her but he does meet with Elinor. It's very important to Elinor that Willoughby actually loves Marianne. Later, when she has recovered physically, it will be terribly important to Marianne that John Willoughby really loved her, that he, in fact, still loves her even though he has married another. And Elinor, sensing this, makes certain that she does know.

This novel, to a degree we never see again in Austen, takes the view that the validation of feelings is terribly important. People have behaved badly but all is okay if, in the end, feelings can be validated. John Willoughby really loved Marianne even though he tossed her over in order to get financial security. He ended up having to do that because he's been a first class shit in seducing, impregnating and abandoning Colonel Brandon's ward Eliza.

Here's a thought: another way for the novel to end would have been for Willoughby to go to his aunt, admit that he behaved abominably towards Eliza and say that he is willing to make all right now by marrying Eliza. That doesn't happen for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that Willoughby is a shit and he'd never do anything so honourable. And he gets away with being a  shit because he's highly attractive to women. Marianne's vindication, to the very limited degree she has one, is that Willoughby, while married to wealth, isn't in love with his wife.

Which sounds rather like the mirror image of her own situation doesn't it?

In the meantime, Marianne has been rather worthless as a sister. She has been rebuking Elinor for what she perceives as Elinor's lack of feeling. When she finds out that Elinor was actually suffering terribly because of her own frustrations in love, frustrations that Marianne was utterly oblivious about, she apologizes. We need to note that all Marianne's fine feelings did not make her any more perceptive.

We think of feelings as a kind of sensitivity. Someone sees something, hears something or touches something and they are moved. Feelings are supposed to be connected to something on this model. But Marianne's feelings are remarkably disconnected. Her feelings for Willoughby come even though she has no understanding of his character. Her feelings for her sister are absolutely useless in helping her figure out what Elinor is going through. Her feelings have nothing to do with her judgment. Or, as Austen would put it, her sensibilities have nothing to do with her sense.

That's puzzling for us because the word "sense" seems to be related to the senses. It seems like a purely mental thing. For that matter, so could judgment.  We think of these things as being "in our heads". We believe that you have to have sense or good judgment and then you act on it. On this model, it's possible to conceive of someone who has sense, who makes very good judgments, and yet never acts on them. And that's kind of odd for how could anyone know that this person has good sense if the only place that sense existed was in her head.

A thought experiment

Let's imagine that Elinor is actually a sneaky little bitch who is only out for her own happiness. She has very little real power. Her mother is a ditz, the family has no money or influence and her sister is younger and hotter than she is. She is, for all intents, a helpless mouse who can only achieve happiness if others go along with her plans. Any one of a number of people could crush her dreams simply by not playing along.

Worse, her only chance for happiness is a longshot. She and Edward have connected. She senses that and she is probably correct. Why do we know this? Well, we do. This is not science requiring specialized knowledge and skills. Everyone has had the experience of meeting someone and feeling that a real connection has been made. We don't know this with 100 percent certainty, so we wait until there have been a number of conversations. Elinor has done this. There have been a series of conversations and she now knows that Edward feels something for her and she for him.

Unfortunately, this is not science requiring specialized knowledge and skills. Other people have noticed too. (And this ought to be a reminder for us that whatever sense, sensibility, feeling and judgment are, they aren't things that happen inside our heads but things that show up in our behaviour for anyone to see provided they are willing to pay attention.) One of the people who has noticed is her ditzy mother and the other is the evil Fanny Dashwood. Elinor has no power in her relations with these people. She is a helpless mouse.

We might also note that one person who has not noticed is her sister Marianne who only finds out by being told  by her mother. It's interesting that Marianne, who supposedly loves Elinor, cannot even be bothered to pay enough attention to notice what this sister she loves is feeling. She's more aware of her own (negative) feelings towards Edward than of Elinor's.

And Edward has not declared his love. He keeps showing interest in her but he never comes out and says it. There is no actual promise, no commitment. She hopes him to be a good man but she doesn't know. Her sense/judgments manifests itself in her reticence. She holds back. She will not risk the same sort of disaster that Marianne courts and finds.

And then she finds out that Edward, like Willoughby, has a prior attachment. Unlike Willoughby, he's not a complete shit about it. He has a real sense of responsibility towards Lucy Steele. He doesn't love her anymore but he made a promise and he's not going to break it. He doesn't know that Lucy is after him only for the money he will come into. No one could know and it's entirely possible that Lucy herself is unaware and her feelings or sensibilities towards him aren't going to help if she doesn't understand own motivations.

Elinor sees a shot at happiness but it's an outside chance. All she can do at this point is to limit the damage that others with more power—Marianne, her ditzy mother, Fanny Dashwood and Lucy Steele—can do to her hopes and the only tool she has available to her is her ability to manipulate these people through her understanding of THEIR feelings. It's not her ability to feel anything herself that works for her but rather her ability to sense what others are feeling and to direct, assuage and soothe these feelings.

We might get distracted by her behaviour towards Colonel Brandon here. He seems a genuinely nice guy who acts for the benefit of others and Elinor really seems to care about his feelings. On the other hand, he turns out to be incredibly useful to her. He sets Edward up with the living that makes her happiness with him possible. He also takes Marianne off her hands by marrying her and thereby freeing Elinor to concentrate on her own happiness.

And so too we might say of her being surprisingly understanding towards Willoughby when he shows up during her sister's illness. For it is essential that she can tell Marianne that her feelings for Willoughby were valid because he really did love her. Otherwise, Marianne might have crumbled completely and Elinor would have been stuck with a helpless basket case on her hands instead of w woman willing to make a (probably loveless) match with Colonel Brandon so that Elinor could stop worrying about her.

Okay, maybe the sneaky little bitch in this scenario is actually Jane Austen plotting her novel to achieve the desired end and not Elinor who is simply hoping for the best and merely has to wait until her creator gets all her ducks lined up for her. In the end, though, I think the moral conclusion we should draw is the same: we shouldn't care about other people's feelings. We might notice them and respect them because not this person will be more likely to cooperate with us but the feelings themselves have no moral significance for us. If someone loves me, I will see that in their actions and not their feelings. If someone consistently fails to deliver, they don't love me no matter how intense their feelings for me may seem. Those feelings don't, on their own, mean anything at all.

They can have tremendous consequences and that is why we have to be very careful about how we cultivate them. We should not just let them grow. And we should not trample on the feelings of others, even when those others have shown that they don't particularly care for our own feelings. But the moral significance of feelings is zero. They are just something we need to manage in life.

This is particularly true in love. There are feelings that go with love but to love someone is to deliver and to keep delivering. If you don't do that, then you don't really love.