In the introduction to his edited copy of Bernard Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees, Phillip Harth writes of Mandeville's lampooning the moral pretensions and pious hypocrisy rife among the English people at all levels of society. Cynical and perhaps realistic, Mandeville denies that people are as virtuous, selfless, and other-centered as they claim to be and pretend to be.
But look at the Harth quote on Page 16 to reveal an unexpected twist in Mandeville's conclusions about people, not just Englishmen: "But there are several important differences which indicate, from the outset of his career, Mandeville's refusal to adopt conventional satiric norms. In the first place, instead of condemning the bees for their vices, he goes to great lengths to show that happiness and prosperity of the hive depend directly on these very faults."
I do not think it is a stretch to describe Mandeville as a psychological egoist, believing that people are naturally selfish and vain. He must describe morally such motivators as vice because altruistic Christian morality position selfishness and pride as the two most wicked vices.
Mandeville is I believe an early normative egoist arguing that private vices lead to public benefits. If we apply Randian moral concepts that selfishness is virtue, and healthy pride and self-confidence as a self-referential disposition to believe in the self so that one acts to be worthy of such high self-estimation, then private vice or 18th century evil led to public benefit, a pure contradiction that does not seem to be possible.
But if private vices were moral, then it would make sense that they led to public benefits, and the rational egoism that I preach under Mavellonialist doctrine does promote such a view. Enlightened self-interest expressed in the inner and outer life of each individuating-anarchist supercitizen would result in huge public benefit--as well as deep and wide personal happiness and satisfaction with the way one is living, working and loving.
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