Tragedy is never far away in Pride and Prejudice, and the brilliance of Austen's heroine is that Elizabeth can see the materially disastrous consequences of acting according to conscience and the good, yet she does the right thing anyway, refusing both Mr. Collins's modest competence and Mr. Darcy's powerful consequence because both men are, among other things, self-interested and self-important. Mr. Collins is clearly ineducable; Darcy, however, is capable of improving the education of his judgment. The questions of judgment and education are not frivolous, nor is the problem of how to bring about the right kind of learning. Austen's question through Pride and Prejudice is Plato's question in the Meno: "Can virtue be taught?"
Sarah Emsley, Jane Austen's Philosophy of the Virtues, p. 86. She says later (p. 89), "What is central to Pride and Prejudice is not wish-fulfillment or fantasy, but justice, and how to get there."
As a side note, this year is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mansfield Park, and Emsley will be hosting an extended, months-long, discussion of it, starting May 9 on her blog.
