The Fable of the Bees - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

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. In the Fable he shows a society possessed of all the virtues “blest with content and honesty,” falling into apathy and utterly paralyzed. The absence of self-love is the death of progress. The so-called higher virtues are mere hypocrisy, and arise from the selfish desire to be superior to the brutes. He endeavours to show that all social laws are the crystallized results of selfish aggrandizement and protective alliances among the weak.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.