Bernard de Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits (Volume One)

E. J. Hundert (University of British Columbia)
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Bernard Mandeville's importance rests upon the arguments he developed in

The Fable of the Bees

(1714, 1723 and 1728), in which he amplified the meaning of the motto appearing on the book's title page: “Private vices, Public benefits”. In his Preface Mandeville declared himself to be a naturalist performing an “anatomy” of man and society which seeks to lay bare the underlying mechanisms that condition human desires. He claimed that longings for power, esteem and sensual pleasure were innate and indelible, motivating everyone to compete for scarce satisfactions. Contemporary moral standards could not coherently be accounted for in terms of the received platitudes of orthodox ethical reasoning, but rather by inspecting the social history of man conceived of as a necessitous being,…

2957 words

Citation: Hundert, E. J.. "The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits (Volume One)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=944, accessed 28 March 2024.]

944 The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits (Volume One) 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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