Bernard Mandeville: Wealth beyond Vice and Virtue

Abstract

Bernard Mandeville denounced the moral philosophy of his times, its theoretical and practical dimensions, as elitist and contrary to human nature. The explanations and recommendations derived from this moral philosophy, according to Mandeville, was inadequate to understand and govern commercial society. Mandeville scrutinized existing explanations about human nature, confronted them with what he presented as facts and unraveled their contradictions. This leads to Mandeville’s challenge: accepting things as they are or assuming the responsibility of transformation. This is the challenge I aim at exploring in this paper. We can continue to live in a highly unequal society based upon pride and shame or we can create incentives that will lead to a different calculation of passions in line with a Utilitarian criterion.

Keywords

• bernard mandeville. wealth. virtue. commercial society.