The Management Of Passions: The Study Of Mandeville’s Political Thought

England in the early 18th century was at the center of the transition from traditional society to modern society, people enjoyed various benefits brought by commercial prosperity, but at the same time also experienced deep anxiety about the moral disruption. Bernard Mandeville was one of the greatest writers in this period, his The Fable of the Bees keenly captured the duality of this age, for him, it’s the vices which the conservatives fiercely criticized formed current comfort and prosperity in England. This astonishing opinion aroused numerous arguments and scoldings, but Mandeville was not a propagator of intemperance, his purpose was to defend the new rising secular world, and the reason why he used the old moral language was on purpose to exhibit the great gap between this moral principle and our nowadays way of life.Among the existing research, Mandeville is usually regarded as a pioneer in the laissez-faire ideology or the earliest expositor of spontaneous order, and they regard "Private Vices, Publick Benefits" which is the subtitle of The Fable of the Bees as a typical expression of "the natural harmony of interests" or the order as the unintended consequences of human behavior. However, this paper wants to certify that the understanding of Mandeville in this way excessively depreciates or even disregards the importance of "politicians" in Mandeville. His enquiry into the nature of society did not exclude politicians, by contrast it provided possible guidance for political management. The understanding of this relation between nature and art is the key to grasp Mandeville’s thought. This paper argues that, the main purpose of Mandeville focused on how to defend the new rising secular world, and his vindication contained several closely related levels. Firstly, his theory of human nature constituted the foundation of his whole idea, for Mandeville, human beings are completely egoistic animals, and thus there was not any natural virtue in them, and his depreciation of reason also made it impossible to attain virtue by reason. But precisely his analysis of the characteristics and the interactive principles of various passions, indicated the political art based on passions. Secondly, Regardless of the formation and development of society, or the expansion and prosperity of the modern economy, passions are indispensable power. But most misunderstandings of Mandeville result from their considering the evolution and growth of society as a natural process, which for Mandeville was precisely artificial. Society is essentially the taming of human nature, and man becomes social animal because of customs and laws. This view of society also made Mandeville regard every morality as artificial, they varied from time and place, and politeness and the principle of honour were much more suitable for the humour of this age than virtue. Thirdly, "politician" was not only not disappeared in Mandeville, but also the junction of "private vices" and "publick benefits". In a broad sense, "politician" was a symbol of every effort endeavoring to civilize men, and in its original sense, the establishment and maintenance of legal order, the formulation of public policy and moral education were all inseparable from the role of politicians. For Mandeville, a perfect politician must be expert in taming passions. Mandeville’s thought was inclined to a kind of political utilitarianism, which means only politicians have rights and obligation to pursue the general benefits of the society. But these benefits were entirely secular orientation, which were only worldly greatness and vain glory from the view of prevailing Christian religion, so vindication of these temporal benefits before eternal salvation constituted the fundamental background of Mandeville’s defense of modern society. Mandeville argued that, the only thing politicians could do were the maintenance and prosperity of this world, and soul’s salvation was far beyond politicians’ power. In fact this argument was only Mandeville’s mask, his position of deism or agnosticism made him secretly rejected the possibility of salvation in another world. Religion for him was only a way to tame human nature, and he believed that a society can be well ordered without religion. Thus Mandeville accomplished his complete defense of modern society.The last two chapters of this paper examine Mandeville’s influence in the 18th century and rethink the significance of Mandeville’s defense of modern society for us to understand today’s problems.