Ideas
Mandeville's philosophy gave great offence at the time, and has always been stigmatized as false, cynical and degrading. His main thesis is that the actions of men cannot be divided into lower and higher. The higher life of man is a mere fiction introduced by philosophers and rulers to simplify government and the relations of society. In fact, virtue (which he defined as "every performance by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the benefit of others, or the conquest of his own passions, out of a rational ambition of being good") is actually detrimental to the state in its commercial and intellectual progress. This is because it is the vices (i.e., the self-regarding actions of men) which alone, by means of inventions and the circulation of capital (economics) in connection with luxurious living, stimulate society into action and progress.
Read more about this topic: Bernard Mandeville
Famous quotes containing the word ideas:
“Things perceived by the senses are immediately perceived by the senses; and things immediately perceived by the senses are ideas; and ideas cannot exist without the mind, their existence therefore consists in being perceived; when therefore they are actually perceived, there can be no doubt of their existence.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“... we engage in politics because we don’t know anything. This is clearly revealed in the way we go about it. Our parties exist from a fear of theory. The voter fears that one idea can always be contradicted by another. Therefore the parties reciprocally defend themselves against the few old ideas they have inherited. They don’t live from what they promise, but from frustrating the promises of others. This is their silent community of interests.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“For later in the vast gloom of cities, only there you learn
How the ideas were good only because they had to die,
Leaving you alone and skinless, a drawing by Vesalius.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)