Bernard Mandeville: Wealth beyond Vice and Virtue

Jimena Hurtado Prieto

No 20684, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

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, were inadequate to understand and govern commercial society. Mandeville scrutinized existing theories 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 explore in this paper. We can continue to live in a highly unequal society based on 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; moral philosophy; Utilitarianism. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 B11 B31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2023-03-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-upt
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:020684

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