Ethics in Persuasion and the Jane Austen myths

Many people often foolishly think Jane Austen’s a romance author—the mother of chicklit. Indeed all her 6 novels follow the marriage plot, and if we’re talking about the bare plot, they all have the same one (a heroine, a hero, some obstacles, a female rival, a foil to the hero), but there are a lot more things going on and the novels are all different. The idea of plot is meaningless as the history of literature also boils down to a handful of different plots, used over and over again.
Some other people mistakenly think she’s chiefly concerned with manners. That appears to be true, as her novels are seen as comedy of manners—but what Jane Austen’s chiefly concerned with is not manners but the mind, the character, the moral principles underneath the manners. She’s interested in ethics. She uses the marriage plot to write about ethics, about self-deception and misunderstanding, about moral education and mental growth.    
Jane Austen’s ethics, in my opinion, are more sophisticated than both George Eliot’s and Edith Wharton’s. 
George Eliot’s ethics are built around the central idea of sympathy—people should love and sympathise with others, and shouldn’t be selfish. 
Edith Wharton’s main concern seems to be the conflict between society and individual—in The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country, her ethics are mainly to do with self-respect and dignity; whilst in The Age of Innocence, her ethics are about self-respect and the sense of duty. 
These 3 writers all have different strengths, and they’re all great, so I’m not putting down George Eliot and Edith Wharton in order to champion Jane Austen. I’m comparing the ethical aspect of their works. When I say Jane Austen’s ethics are more sophisticated, I mean they’re not built around a central idea—she deals with different moral values or principles, as well as different shades and different degrees of the same moral value. 
An example is the concept of pride in Persuasion. In the book, the word “proud” appears 8 times in Persuasion, “pride” 18 times. In my blog post about Anne Elliot’s personality, I wrote that Jane Austen made a distinction between bad pride (arrogance, self-satisfaction, self-importance), as in Sir Walter, Elizabeth, and Mary, and good pride (self-respect, confidence), as in Anne. 
However, there’s a 3rd kind of pride in Persuasion (this is the problem of blogging before finishing reading): Frederick Wentworth’s pride. His attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove at the beginning are, in his words, “the attempts of angry pride”. 

“… There he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost; and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in his way.” (Ch.23) 

Later, he admits that a few years ago, in a better position, he was too proud to ask Anne again. His pride is in the sense of a wounded ego. 
Also in Persuasion, Jane Austen writes about the different shades of the concept of resolution. Frederick Wentworth initially sees Anne as lacking resolution. 

“She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others. It had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been weakness and timidity.” (Ch.7) 

He says to Louisa:

“"... It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm…"” (Ch.10) 

Throughout the novel, he’s the one who has to grow and learn:  

“There, he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind.” (Ch.23) 

Some people are more attracted to an openly resolute character, but Jane Austen reminds us that there’s a difference between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will. 
Jane Austen’s idea can be seen clearly in Mansfield Park. Yesterday I saw someone say that she didn’t like Fanny Price because she’s not defiant. I’ve also seen lots of people call Fanny passive, or remark that she’s characterised by negation (whatever that means). Such misreadings are due to a shallow understanding of Jane Austen and a juvenile idea of resolution. There is nothing passive about holding fast to your principles, standing by your own belief and judgment, and resisting pressures from different sides. Fanny is defiant—just not in a noisy way. In fact, she’s more defiant than all of Jane Austen’s heroines. Her resolution is the steadiness of principle, and the resolution of a collected mind. 
In Persuasion, Anne Elliot is similar—her personal respect for her father and her sense of duty to her don’t allow her to defy him openly, but she has her own set of values, and refuses either to flatter Lady Dalrymple or to drop her friendship with Mrs Smith, of whom her father disapproves. 

There’s something else I find interesting. Frederick Wentworth fears that Lady Russell, who years ago persuaded Anne to reject him, would now persuade her to marry William Walter Elliot. It is true that she does try, but Anne tells him the difference: 

“"... If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty, but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated."” (ibid.) 

The novel examines the moral dangers of persuasion, but Jane Austen makes a distinction between persuasion on the side of safety, and on the side of risk. Lady Russell’s advice to decline Wentworth’s proposal did break their hearts, but at the time it’s sound advice. He comes back now a captain, with lots of money, but we can’t say that he would have achieved all that if Anne had accepted him. Perhaps he had the potential and ambition in him, or perhaps the rejection drove him to prove himself—we don’t know. Anne herself thinks Lady Russell wasn’t wrong, and she wasn’t wrong to reject him. 
But her friend’s attempt to persuade her to accept William Walter Elliot is altogether a different sort of persuasion.  
More can be said about Persuasion and Jane Austen’s other works, but I think that’s enough for now. It’s her misfortune that her novels can be enjoyed on a superficial level. Contrary to general perception, Jane Austen’s much more sophisticated, ethically and artistically.