SOURCE: Jack, M. R. “Religion and Ethics in Mandeville.” In Mandeville Studies: New Explorations in the Art and Thought of Dr. Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733), edited by Irwin Primer, pp. 34-42. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975.

[In the following essay, Jack examines Mandeville's “naturalistic” view of religion and ethics as having psychological rather than theological bases.]

At the beginning of his full-length work on religion entitled Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness, Mandeville defines religion as “an Acknowledgment of an Immortal Power.”¹ He later says that “Men of Sense, and good Logicians” have vainly wasted their time arguing about and discussing the subject since time immemorial, for knowledge of God is something “which no Language can give them the least Idea of.”² God is ineffable, religion is mysterious, and “no Man therefore ought to be too dogmatical in Matters of Faith.”³ Mandeville has thus ruled out the possibility of religion on epistemological grounds: being a matter outside human comprehension, nothing can be known about God and nothing worthwhile can be said on this subject. He thus leaves himself free to concentrate on what really interests him in the rest of the book, namely, a general review of religious phenomena as an aspect of human behavior, an exposé of the corrupt practices of the clergy through the ages and a plea for toleration if not permissiveness.⁴

It will be my contention in this essay that it is essential to understand this point, clearly evidenced in Mandeville's works, before any meaningful discussion of his treatment of religion and ethics can take place. For in taking the position outlined above, Mandeville has declared his lack of interest in religion for its own sake. He has announced that he will not indulge in what has been called “the grand subterfuge” of the seventeenth century, that is, the fear of examining “religious emotion nakedly as an aspect of human nature.”⁵ At the same time there can be no doubt about his interest in the phenomenon of moral behavior, but it is an interest that is altogether divorced from the otherworldly. This divorce, I believe, can be interpreted in the light of his Calvinist background, but it has to be emphasized that Mandeville has taken the Baylian severance of religion and ethics to its extreme, so that any interpretation relying heavily on assuming a theological basis to his thinking on ethical matters is bound to be misleading. It may help us to understand the origin of the kind of distinction Mandeville makes between religion and ethics to consider the matter in terms of the Calvinist distinction between grace and nature, but it obscures his intentions as a psychologist interested in giving a naturalistic account of ethical phenomena.

My contention is, therefore, that Mandeville must be read as primarily one who is uninterested in religion for its own sake and one who is concerned with giving a naturalistic account of ethical behavior. This account is naturalistic both in the sense of its being unrelated to any transcendent theological position and in the sense of its being an explanation of morality in terms of human nature. I shall argue that most modern critical studies of these aspects of Mandeville's thought, by concentrating on elucidating his views in the light of some theological framework such as Calvinism, miss his main intention and interest. As much of this modern discussion has arisen within the framework sketched by F. B. Kaye in what is the standard modern edition of The Fable of the Bees, I will begin by considering this account.

II

Kaye's exposition of Mandeville's ethics depends upon accepting that there are two different standards applied by Mandeville in his assessment of the morality of actions: the first is “rigoristic” (ascetic and rational) and is applied as a criterion for judging the motives of individuals' behavior; the second is “empirical” or “utilitarian” and is applied as a criterion for judging the social consequences of such behavior. Thus for an action to be judged virtuous under the first condition, it must be disinterestedly motivated; that is, the individual must be attempting to deny his own inclination and further he must be doing this because he believes such denial to be good.⁶ For an action to be judged virtuous under the second condition, it is necessary to judge the results which it led to, or, in other words, whether it was publicly beneficial. By holding to both these standards at the same time, Kaye asserts, Mandeville arrived at his paradox that public benefits arose from private vices. However, Kaye then says that in fact Mandeville's adoption of the first condition of “rigorism” was indeed disingenuous and that by insisting upon it at the same time as he insisted upon the utilitarian condition, he was achieving a reductio ad absurdum of rigorism. And this was entirely understandable since, according to Kaye, Mandeville's rigorism was in any case an entirely artificial addition to his thought.⁷

The confusion of Kaye's treatment of Mandeville's ethics has been clearly shown up in an important article by M. J. Scott-Taggart, entitled “Mandeville: Cynic or Fool?”⁸ Scott-Taggart is concerned with rejecting both the traditional view that Mandeville's Fable was a testimonial for vice and Kaye's view that the adoption of two standards led Mandeville to paradox and to a reductio ad absurdum of rigorism. In dealing with Kaye's interpretation, Scott-Taggart holds that there may be no inconsistency in holding to the two standards as Kaye has understood them. “In a footnote,” writes Scott-Taggart, “Kaye explains that he is using the terms ‘rigorism’ and ‘utilitarianism’ loosely, and intends his use of the latter term to mark ‘an opposition to the insistence of “rigoristic” ethics that not results but motivation by right principle determines virtuousness.”⁹ Where Kaye wrote that “The paradox that private vices are public benefits is merely a statement of the paradoxical mixing of moral criteria which runs through the book,”¹⁰ Scott-Taggart would substitute the following revision: “‘The paradox that private vices are public benefits is merely a statement of the paradoxical mixing of appraisal of conduct in terms of motive and appraisal of conduct in terms of consequences.’ But,” adds Scott-Taggart, “there is nothing paradoxical about this mixing as such. We might analogously be interested both in the dexterity and effectiveness of an action, and discover that, although connected, the two were not exactly correlated with one another. To infer from this that one of them must be dropped as in some way impossible would be absurd: we select between them according to the purposes we want served.”¹¹ In short, Mandeville offers to the world two competing varieties of moral principle, without overtly recommending that we adopt the one or the other.¹²

Kaye's interpretation of Mandeville as defending a substantially utilitarian ethic which defines the morality of actions in terms of their social consequences is thus confused and misleading. Mandeville was not concerned with advancing a substantive moral view when he advanced his paradox, “private vices, public benefits”; rather he was concerned with exposing the inconsistency and hypocrisy of those who in his own society did try to retain an ascetic and utilitarian ethic simultaneously. His argument showed, in a characteristically pungent manner, the absurdities which resulted from such combinations. Although we may be tempted to ascertain his own commitment to one ethic or another, such a commitment cannot be deduced from his paradox. Moreover, a concentration on this aspect of his thought—i.e., his satirical intentions—obscures a more interesting and ambitious attempt of Mandeville's, namely, his attempt to derive an explanation of moral motivation from the psychological facts about human nature, to wit, his naturalism.

Mandeville's naturalism can be clearly seen if we examine the context of his initial definition of vice and virtue in An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue. As the title suggests, Mandeville in this work is examining the origins of morality or trying to give an account of the way in which man became a moral being. He does this by saying that “Lawgivers and other wise Men, that have laboured for the Establishment of Society,” having thoroughly examined human nature, agreed upon the need for a “myth” which represented men as either angelic (if they were rational and disinterested) or brutish (if they were “passionate” and selfish).¹³ This mythical division of men into those who by their behavior benefitted society at large and those who benefitted none but themselves, was the first distinction made between virtue and vice, for the former men's actions were characterized as virtuous while the latter's were characterized as vicious. According to this myth, the lawgivers relied upon the natural instinct of man to seek the esteem of his fellows to lead men to try to emulate the virtuous. Although in the second part of The Fable Mandeville shows that social norms evolved over vast epochs (that in fact the literal “invention” of morality by particular men was to be read as an allegory), the basic understanding of moral behavior as a reaction to the opinion of other men remained Mandeville's basic tenet.

Scott-Taggart explains the way in which Mandeville thereby moves from “you ought” to “I ought” as follows: “The fact that other people have an interest in my being moral entails that I have an interest in being moral, not merely to the extent that other people are able to punish me physically for not being moral, but also to the further extent that other people are able to back up their interest with approval or disapproval.”¹⁴ In the social context as a whole, Mandeville sees this motivation as making for stability; each individual, in pursuing his need for the approbation of his fellows (ultimately deriving from what Mandeville calls “self-liking”), contributes to the welfare of society as a whole. This is thus his view of the harmony of interests. Whenever there is a threat to this naturally smooth-running order of things, it is the responsibility of political leaders to suppress or control this potential disturbance.

To continue this line of discussion would be to enlarge upon Mandeville's social theory, whereas my intention has been only to establish the naturalistic basis of his ethics. It is therefore to consider his religion that I now turn.

III

To support my contention that a naturalistic interpretation also gives us a clearer idea of the place of religion in Mandeville's thought, I propose to consider his Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness. Although this work, as its title implies, is concerned with religion, the Church and questions of faith and happiness, it is also, as soon becomes apparent to the reader, a plea for toleration and an end to sectarian schism. However, what might be called the political intention of the book—the strict control of the clergy in the public interest—covers up yet another aspect of the author's interest, namely, his obsession with “anatomizing” human nature.¹⁵ Although an understanding of the theological background to his plea for toleration helps us to understand one part of the Free Thoughts, it does little to shed light on this really important intention—the exploration of the motives and behavior of men in religious matters.

One of the most striking features about the Free Thoughts is Mandeville's tendency to avoid religious controversy altogether. He does this on the grounds that the traditional controversies are too complicated for him or any man to solve. Thus it is his view that men have wasted their time in trying to solve the problem of how God can be both one and three persons at the same time. They have vainly wrestled with the complex problems of free-will and predestination, mysteries which were beyond the competence even of St. Paul to elucidate. They have taken to arguing about such matters as the symbolic function of the cross and various other rites and ceremonies of the Christian religion. Mandeville's attitude in these matters has, of course, been seen as part of what I have called the political intention of the book, that is, the aim of getting the Church entirely under the control of the state. This aim has been interpreted in the light of events and ideas in seventeenth-century Holland (which Mandeville knew well), as well as in the context of Augustan England. Thus G. S. Vichert traces the growth of toleration in Holland after the bitter sectarian struggle between the Calvinists and the Arminian Remonstrants and remarks that these events were followed closely in England.¹⁶ In addition, Englishmen themselves had seen religious disputes cause major disruptions in their own country and were therefore well-disposed towards latitudinarianism.

While this type of explanation helps to make clear the likely considerations which gave rise to Mandeville's plea for tolerance, it does not convey the sense in which his avoidance of theological discussion is inextricably linked to his desire to pursue the subject from the point of view of a psychologist examining human actions and responses. Thus in the examples I have referred to, when discussing the problem of the trinity, Mandeville is more interested in the way men come to accept ideas contrary to their senses and to reason, than in the theological merits of the various views on this subject. He anticipates the modern school of behaviorist psychology when he speculates upon the manipulation of religious belief: “… were Men to be taught from their Infancy that it was a Mystery, that on a certain occasion Two and Two made Seven, with an addition to be believ'd on pain of Damnation, I am perswaded, that at least Seven in Ten would swallow the shameful Paradox. …”¹⁷ In a similar manner his consideration of the question of free will and determinism is largely taken up with an analysis of human behavior only tenuously connected with the theological problem itself. He asserts that everyone “can wish what he pleases,” but not will what he pleases, for,

was the one as Arbitrary as the other, there would be more Virtue, and not half the Misery, and what are call'd Misfortunes in the World, of what we now see Men labour under. There is hardly a Person so debauch'd, but what has often wish'd, tho' but for his Health's or Fortune's sake, that it was in his Power to lead a more regular Life: What is it hinders him, but his Appetites and Inclinations, that influence and seduce his Will, and do him the same Prejudice he could receive from a fatal and unavoidable Necessity of Sinning?¹⁸

Not only does such a passage reveal that Mandeville is back to his favorite pastime of scrutinizing human motives, but it confirms his treatment of moral behavior as being comprehensible in psychological terms. The other example mentioned above, that of the symbolic role of the cross in Christianity, is also discussed in the context of a psychological examination, this time into the role of rites and their impact on the human psyche.

If Mandeville's concern in the Free Thoughts is with a pathology of the religious instinct in man and a psychological account of religious behavior, this concern remains active in his other works on religion. The title of his last work, An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War, suggests that he is again investigating how men reconcile their religious beliefs with their behavior. Once again this interest can be understood in terms of a Calvinist background, but an extended treatment of his thought in terms of a doctrinal position is liable to obscure rather than clarify what he is doing. For example, Vichert observes that “Bayle's view of man is darker and sterner than Mandeville's, but the difference is only of degree. Immediately behind both of them stand the words of the Heidelberg catechism.”¹⁹ Such an approach surely obscures the fact that in Mandeville's hands the doctrine has become entirely secularized: not only has he abandoned redemption for corrupted man, but he concentrates his attention on considering in detail the behavior of fallen man. When his views come closest to Calvinism, he is being satirical or expressing cynicism. M. M. Goldsmith succinctly elucidates this point as follows:

Rigorous Calvinism or Augustinianism can produce a condemnation of human beings so thorough that it caricatures itself. If all men sin all the time, if no man can be righteous, the distinction between good and evil seems meaningless. If men are damned for helping others because they do it as a result of their natural desire to win the approval of other men (approbativeness, a form of pride) and damned for gratifying themselves and ignoring others, damned if they do and if they don't, then, says the cynic, why not do as you please?²⁰

It is the entire inability of such versions as E. Chiasson's to account for this secular, not to say wordly, tone of Mandeville's which make them so unconvincing.²¹ Not only does such a strictly “doctrinal” account render his satire unintelligible, but it greatly obscures his real interests which are in the psychology of religion rather than in theology or dogma.

IV

I have argued in this paper that Mandeville's religion and ethics are best understood as naturalistic. By this I mean that they are a reflection of his worldly, as opposed to otherworldly, interests and that they derive from his psychology. The approaches taken by Kaye, Vichert, Chiasson and others to an understanding of Mandeville's ethics and religion err to the extent that each attributes to Mandeville a kind of religious concern or involvement, more or less, which results from a misreading of the general drift of his writings. Their misreadings in this area result from an unwillingness to accept the fact that his discussions of religion do not proceed upon any assumptions of the value of piety and do not aspire to advance the cause of any specific sect. This is not to say, however, that Kaye and Vichert show no appreciation of the importance of the empirical side of Mandeville; they seem not to emphasize sufficiently how committed Mandeville was to his naturalistic outlook. Religion, for Mandeville, presents social and political problems. He is not concerned with worship, redemption and so forth; he is concerned with keeping the different sects “tractable” or manageable from a political point of view. As for ethics, he is far more interested in analyzing the hidden springs of human behavior than in prescribing cures for the behavioral problems in society.

These were closer to his central interests. As M. M. Goldsmith put it, “By showing that prosperity and power were based on luxury and pride, Mandeville confronted the eighteenth century with a set of problems that stimulated others to attempt solutions.”²² These problems Goldsmith broadly considers as problems of moral theory, of economics and of history or evolution. They are problems of social science rather than of theology or substantive ethics. Thus Mandeville is concerned above all with a psychological theory about how men actually behave; he says little about how they ought to behave, making only a limited satirical plea for consistency. Temperamentally Mandeville is worldly, and he makes no effort to have us believe otherwise. With Walpole he would happily have joined in saying he was no saint, no Spartan, no reformer.

Notes

1. London, 1720, p. 1; all future references to his work are to this edition, the first.

2. Ibid., 67.

3. Ibid., 68.

4. Mandeville's anticlericalism is quite marked. He believed that since it was against their own interest, the clergy would not encourage compromise or reasonable behavior. It was also an aspect of his notion that the professions live off the vices and deficiencies of men.

5. Frank E. Manuel, The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods (Harvard Univ. Press, 1959), 21.

6. Thus he says virtue is applicable to “every Performance, by which Man, contrary to the impulse of Nature, should endeavor the Benefit of others, or the Conquest of his own Passions out of a Rational Ambition of being good.” The Fable of the Bees, ed. F. B. Kaye (Oxford Univ. Press, 1924), I, 48-9.

7. See Kaye, I, lii-lvi. This is also the view taken by J. Viner who regarded “the advocacy, real or pretended, of unqualified rigorism in morals” as “an essential element of Mandeville's system of thought.” Viner supported Kaye's view in saying that Mandeville achieved a reductio ad absurdum of rigorism, though unlike Kaye he insisted that this is a deliberate part of Mandeville's intention. See J. Viner, The Long View and the Short (Glencoe, Ill., 1958), 334.

8. In Philosophical Quarterly, v. 16, no. 64 (July, 1966).

9. Scott-Taggart, 228.

10. Loc. cit.

11. Loc. cit. J. C. Maxwell also takes this view in his essay “Ethics and Politics in Mandeville,” Philosophy, XXVI (1951), 242-52.

12. Scott-Taggart, 228.

13. Kaye, I, 42.

14. Scott-Taggart, 230-31.

15. Thus Mandeville speaks of “The curious, that are skill'd in anatomizing the invisible Part of Man. …” Kaye, I, 145.

16. G. S. Vichert, A Critical Study of the English Works of Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733), Ph.D. Thesis, U. of London, 1964, 166-67.

17. Free Thoughts, 80.

18. Ibid., 89-90.

19. Vichert, 165-66.

20. M. M. Goldsmith, Introduction to An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War (London, 1971), xvii.

21. See E. J. Chiasson, “Bernard Mandeville: A Reappraisal,” Philological Quarterly, XLIX, 4 (October 1970), 489-519. Chiasson is concerned with refuting the view that Mandeville is to be read as an exponent of “segregation,” i.e., a complete division between grace and nature. He maintains that Mandeville must be seen in the “massive but flexible” tradition of Christian humanism, as a successor to Hooker in asserting the need for grace and regeneration. Moreover, he observes, “the supposition that Mandeville could seriously propose embracing either the world or religion is a serious misunderstanding of what he means by both terms. For just as he recognizes in his philosophy of man that grace is given to nature to regenerate it, so he recognizes, in his social philosophy, that the purely secular state is a truncated version of what the state might be if grace and revelation were permitted to perform their illuminating function” (p. 515).

    There seems to be little evidence from the texts to support Chiasson's main argument and where he does quote from Mandeville to support his position, his references often seem to ignore entirely the contexts from which they are removed. Thus his reference to Mandeville's acknowledgement of the possibility of knowledge of an infinite and eternal being (Kaye, II, 208) appears in the context of Mandeville's explanation of savage man; prompted by fear, the savage begins to entertain “some glimmering Notions of an invisible Power” (Kaye, II, 207). In this passage Mandeville explores the psychological origins of the religious impulse—a factor ignored by Chiasson.

    Later on, quoting from Mandeville to show his awareness of man's obligation to God, Chiasson neglects to point out that this remark is to be found in a passage dealing with the development of the religious instinct in man, once man had advanced beyond paying “his Respects to the Tree, he gathers Nuts from” (Kaye, II, 211). The type of analysis Mandeville pursues in this part of The Fable seems to be entirely ignored by Chiasson. Mandeville's concern here is to relate the religious impulse in men to the passions and to trace the development of the ideas man had of the supernatural as society advanced. Thus he clearly says, “Another Reason, why Fear is an elder Motive to Religion, than Gratitude, is, that an untaught Man would never suspect; that the same Cause, which he receiv'd Good from, would ever do him Hurt; and Evil, without doubt, would always gain his Attention first” (Kaye, II, 212).

    When he deals with Mandeville's attitude to reason, Chiasson again seems to miss the point, for rather than reason guiding the passions, the reverse is Mandeville's stated view. According to Mandeville, “… we are ever pushing our Reason which way soever we feel Passion to draw it, and Self-love pleads to all human Creatures for their different Views, still furnishing every individual with Arguments to justify their Inclinations” (Kaye, I, 333). At least part of Mandeville's satire rests upon ridiculing those who pretend that this is not the case. In the end, Chiasson seems to provide his own refutation by alluding (p. 504n.) to Mandeville's “patience with the immoralities of men resulting from his tendency to look at these matters as a sociologist rather than a moralist …” [my italics] for he thereby casts doubt on the idea which he began with, that of regarding Mandeville as a Christian moralist.

22. M. M. Goldsmith, xvii.