Bernard Mandeville and the Universalization of Christian Ethics: An Impoverishing Tradition

Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees was received with shock in eighteenth-century English society; this came due to its claims of vice being better than virtue for the economic benefit of society. He goes so far as to claim “virtue is made friends with vice” when people follow the latter’s demands.[1] Such a claim was viewed as being an attack on Christian ethics and the belief that society is best composed when done so with virtuous members (of a Christian variety) exclusively. Some of his detractors even went so far as to label him a “Man-Devil” for these perceived slights. But it is not the case that the Fable of the Bees entirely negates Christian virtue in its conclusions. Rather, in The Fable of the Bees and Mandeville’s associated writings, he merely shows the incompatibility of Christian moral virtue at societal level with the promotion of a wealthy society. Once this incompatibility has been brought to light, it may be seen that Christian ethics is better suited to be the exception in society than the norm. This claim is supported by the Judaic (very culturally-specific) manner of belief from which Christian ethics originates and the propensity of human nature to follow their inclinations towards vice. It just so happens that the latter of which also promotes wealth under the intellectual auspices of Mandeville. [1] Mandeville, Bernard. The Fable of the Bees: and Other Writings. Edited by E.J. Hundert, Hackett, 1997