Bernard Mandeville Biography

He graduated from Leiden University in Holland, where he received a doctor's diploma. He has written a work dedicated to hysterical and mortgage diseases with G.. Mandeville became famous for his only work - "Basney about bees." This work is based on a pamphlet in poetry, published in G under the name "The Ulya, or Fraudsters, who have become honest." Then this poem was reprinted with the addition of Mandevil’s commentary to it - “Studies on the origin of moral virtue”, “Study of the nature of society”, etc.

The work of Mandeville was very popular in England and was repeatedly reprinted under the “fable about bees, or vices of private individuals - the benefit for society.” In his fable, Mandeville painted a picture of society, which combines luxury and poverty, idleness and wastefulness and hard work. To do this, he uses allegory, depicting the life of a bee hive in which everything is sold and bought.

All the vices that are known to humanity dominate in it. However, it was these vices that made it possible to flourish the hive, the "vices of private individuals" were a source of public welfare. And one fine day, all the bees of this hive became honest, virtues appeared instead of vices. All this led to indigenous changes in the hive: wealth went from the hive, and he was hopes. Thus, the moral of the "fables" was the conclusion that the vices are the necessary state of society.

Objectively, the “apology of vices”, deployed by Mandeville, was aimed at exposing the morality that prevailed at that time, at the show of how the hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of the English bourgeois covered their true face - the desire for wealth and profit. Mandeville wrote a satire on a system of social relations of modern England. In the "comments" to the poetic fable, Mandeville further develops his main thoughts about the power of vices and their need for society.

He believed that the selfish features inherent in human nature made a person a public being. Mandeville emphasizes the inseparability of vices from the life of society, their need for its development. He concludes about the necessary and important role of evil in the development of society: “What we call evil in this world, both moral and physical, is the great principle that makes us social beings is a strong basis, the life -giving force and the support of all professions and classes without exception, here we should look for a true source of all arts and sciences, and at the very moment when evil has ceased to exist, it would be necessary The decline, if you do not collapse at all ”[the fable about bees.

At the same time, Mandeville does not act as a defender of vices as such, he only indicates the tendency of social development. He wrote: “I am far from encouraging the vice” and I think, “that if it were possible to completely expel the sin of moral uncleanness from the state, then this would be inexpressible happiness for him, but I am afraid that it is impossible” [fable about bees.

In contrast to Shefttii, “moral feeling” is born in nature, it is a born in nature, it is the product of public life by lawmakers and sages invented morality so that people can restrain their aspirations and coordinate them with social needs, and teach people various moral concepts, such as shame, honor, virtue, vice. So, virtue designated everything that was connected with the desire for the good of others and curbing their own affects.

The vice was called everything that a person does to satisfy his desires, ignoring public interests. The lawmakers, according to Mandeville, received great benefits from all this, since with the help of morality they were able to control "a huge number of people with great ease and safety" [Basnya about bees. Mandevil's concept contains a lot of true.

He revealed the deep psychological reasons for the behavior of people and the role of moral qualities of people in the development of society. The ideas of Mandeville received their further development in the works of later philosophers, although at first they caused a violent polemic. Hegel developed ideas about the role of evil in history in the future.