Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

by Alexander Bain

In regard to praiseworthiness, Shaftesbury, according to Mandeville, was the first to affirm that virtue could exist without self-denial. This was opposed to the prevailing opinion, and to the view taken up and criticised by Mandeville. His own belief was different. 'It is not in feeling the passions, or in being affected with the frailties of nature, that vice consists; but in indulging and obeying the call of them, contrary to the dictates of reason.'

2. Self-love. 'It is an admirable saying of a worthy divine, that though many discoveries have been made in the world of self-love, there is yet abundance of terra incognita left behind.' There is nothing so sincere upon earth as the love that creatures bear to themselves. 'Man centres everything in himself, and neither loves nor hates, but for his own sake.' Nay, more, we are naturally regardless of the effect of our conduct upon others; we have no innate love for our fellows. The highest virtue is not without reward; it has a satisfaction of its own, the pleasure of contemplating one's own worth. But is there no genuine self-denial? Mandeville answers by a distinction: mortifying one passion to gratify another is very common, but this not self-denial; self-inflicted pain without any recompense—where is that to be found?

'Charity is that virtue by which part of that sincere love we have for ourselves is transferred pure and unmixed to others (not friends or relatives), whom we have no obligation to, nor hope or expect anything-from.' The counterfeit of true charity is pity or compassion, which is a fellow-feeling for the sufferings of others. Pity is as much a frailty of our nature as anger, pride, or fear. The weakest minds (e.g., women and children) have generally the greatest share of it. It is excited through the eye or the ear; when the suffering does not strike our senses, the feeling is weak, and hardly more than an imitation of pity. Pity, since it seeks rather our own relief from a painful sight, than the good of others, must be curbed and controlled in order to produce any benefit to society.

Mandeville draws a nice distinction between self-love, and, what he calls, self-liking. 'To increase the care in creatures to preserve themselves, Mature has given them an instinct, by which every individual values itself above its real worth.' The more mettlesome and spirited animals (e.g., horses) are endowed with this instinct. In us, it is accompanied with an apprehension that we do overvalue ourselves; hence our susceptibility to the confirmatory good opinion of others. But if each were to display openly his own feeling of superiority, quarrels would inevitably arise. The grand discovery whereby the ill consequences of this passion are avoided is politeness. 'Good manners consists in flattering the pride of others, and concealing our own.' The first step is to conceal our good opinion of ourselves; the next is more impudent, namely, to pretend that we value others more highly than ourselves. But it takes a long time to come to that pitch; the Romans were almost masters of the world before they learned politeness.

3. Pride, Vanity, Honour. Pride is of great consequence in Mandeville's system. 'The moral virtues are the political offspring which flattery begot upon pride.' Man is naturally innocent, timid, and stupid; destitute of strong passions or appetites, he would remain in his primitive barbarism were it not for pride. Yet all moralists condemn pride, as a vain notion of our own superiority. It is a subtle passion, not easy to trace. It is often seen in the humility of the humble, and the shamelessness of the shameless. It simulates charity; 'pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together.' It is the chief ingredient in the chastity of women, and in the courage of men. Less cynical moralists than Mandeville have looked with suspicion on posthumous fame; 'so silly a creature is man, as that, intoxicated with the fumes of vanity, he can feast on the thought of the praises that shall be paid his memory in future ages, with so much ecstasy as to neglect his present life, nay court and covet death, if he but imagines that it will add to the glory he had acquired before.' But the most notable institution of pride is the love of honour. Honour is a 'chimera,' having no reality in nature, but a mere invention of moralists and politicians, to keep men close to their engagements, whatever they be. In some families it is hereditary, like the gout; but, luckily, the vulgar are destitute of it. In the time of chivalry, honour was a very troublesome affair; but in the beginning of the 17th century, it was melted over again, and brought to a new standard; 'they put in the same weight of courage, half the quantity of honesty, and a very little justice, but not a scrap of any other virtue.' The worst thing about it is duelling; but there are more suicides than duels, so that at any rate men do not hate others more than themselves. After a half-satirical apology for duelling, he concludes with one insurmountable objection; duelling is wholly repugnant to religion, adding with the muffled scepticism characteristic of the 18th century, 'how to reconcile them must be left to wiser heads than mine.'

4. Private vices, public benefits. Mandeville ventures to compare society to a bowl of punch. Avarice is the souring, and prodigality the sweetening of it. The water is the ignorance and folly of the insipid multitude, while honour and the noble qualities of man represent the brandy. To each of these ingredients we may object in turn, but experience teaches that, when judiciously mixed, they make an excellent liquor. It is not the good, but the evil qualities of men, that lead to worldly greatness. Without luxury we should have no trade. This doctrine is illustrated at great length, and has been better remembered than anything else in the book; but it may be dismissed with two remarks. (1) It embodies an error in political economy, namely, that it is spending and not saving that gives employment to the poor. If Mandeville's aim had been less critical, and had he been less delighted with his famous paradox, we may infer from the acuteness of his reasoning on the subject, that he would have anticipated the true doctrine of political economy, as he saw through the fallacy of the mercantile theory. (2) He employs the term, luxury, with great latitude, as including whatever is not a bare necessary of existence. According to the fashionable doctrine of his day, all luxury was called an evil and a vice; and in this sense, doubtless, vice is essential to the existence of a great nation.

5. The origin of society. Mandeville's remarks on this subject are the best he has written, and come nearest to the accredited views of the present day. He denies that we have any natural affection for one another, or any natural aversion or hatred. Each seeks his own happiness, and conflict arises from the opposition of men's desires. To make a society out of the raw material of uncivilized men, is a work of great difficulty, requiring the concurrence of many favourable accidents, and a long period of time. For the qualities developed among civilized men no more belong to them in a savage state, than the properties of wine exist in the grape. Society begins with families. In the beginning, the old savage has a great wish to rule his children, but has no capacity for government. He is inconstant and violent in his desires, and incapable of any steady conduct. What at first keeps men together is not so much reverence for the father, as the common danger from wild beasts. The traditions of antiquity are full of the prowess of heroes in killing dragons and monsters. The second step to society is the danger men are in from one another. To protect themselves, several families would be compelled to accept the leadership of the strongest. The leaders, seeing the mischiefs of dissension, would employ all their art to extirpate that evil. Thus they would forbid killing one another, stealing one another's wives, &c. The third and last step is the invention of letters; this is essential to the growth of society, and to the corresponding, expansion of law.[22]

I.—Mandeville's object being chiefly negative and dialectical, he has left little of positive ethical theory. Virtue he regards as de facto an arbitrary institution of society; what it ought to be, he hardly says, but the tendency of his writings is to make the good of the whole to be preferred to private interest.

II.—He denies the existence of a moral sense and of disinterestedness. The motive to observe moral rules is pride and vanity fomented by politicians. He does not regard virtue as an independent end, even by association, but considers that pride in its naked form is the ever present incentive to good conduct.

V.—The connexion of virtue with society is already fully indicated.