 In her arguments for republican virtue , Wollstonecraft invokes an emerging middle @-@ class ethos in opposition to what she views as the vice @-@ ridden aristocratic code of manners . Influenced by Enlightenment thinkers , she believed in progress and derides Burke for relying on tradition and custom . She argues for rationality , pointing out that Burke 's system would lead to the continuation of slavery , simply because it had been an ancestral tradition . She describes an idyllic country life in which each family can have a farm that will just suit its needs . Wollstonecraft contrasts her utopian picture of society , drawn with what she says is genuine feeling , to Burke 's false feeling . 
