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Title: The Fable of the Bees (Penguin Classic) by Bernard Mandeville, Phillip Harth ISBN: 0-14-044541-2 Publisher: Penguin USA (P) Pub. Date: 01 August, 1989 Format: Paperback List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (1 review)
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting
Comment: I first read an extract from this in second year English in university, and thought the author had some interesting ideas. Although the blurb casts the book as part of the great age of 17th-century English satire, it's more of a straight critique of society than a sarcastic diatribe, and probably doesn't warrant comparison with say, Swift's A Modest Proposal.
From what I can remember, the book is all about the changes taking place in society at the time, especially with the growth in the importance of commerce. Much of it concerns hypocrisy and some moral paradoxes that seem to go unnoticed. Mandeville's starting-point is to liken society to a hive, wherein the behaviour of the bees, though individually selfish, aggregates to form a kind of common good. The book was banned by the Grand Jury of Middlessex, and I suspect that much of the controversy resulted from readers mistaking description for prescription. In other words, people seem to have concluded that Mandeville was saying that this is how society ought to behave, whereas he was merely making observations.
His ideas are interesting, but I can't agree with all of them. One egregious error occurs when he makes the sweeping generalisation that morality is frequently selfishly motivated, using the following argument. Most people, if they see a baby falling from a high window, will rush to try and save it, not out of the child's interests, but merely to spare themselves the pain of seeing the child injured or killed. The next obvious question never seems to enter Mandeville's mind: if people are truly selfish, how would they have developed the empathy to feel the child's pain that strongly to begin with? So: a good commentator but perhaps not a brilliant thinker.
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Title: Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary by David, Hume ISBN: 0865970564 Publisher: Liberty Fund Pub. Date: 01 March, 1987 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Basic Political Writings by Jean-Jacques, Rousseau ISBN: 0872200477 Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 November, 1987 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (Great Minds) by David Ricardo ISBN: 1573921092 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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