Mandeville and Wither: Individualism and the Workings of Providence

Abstract

The most compelling aspect of Mandeville’s thought, to the modern reader at least, is his sensitivity to the complex processes that produce and sustain society. The moral wrench once administered by his paradoxes has long ago been softened by familiarity. It is not then his critique of moral rigorism — the doctrine that true virtue must be both unselfish and dispassionate¹ — or even his supposed departures from economic orthodoxy that most attracts the historian of social thought. Rather, it is the general mode of analysis, displayed in his discovery of the fabric of society in human frailty. Sumptuary laws, charity schools and the transportation of criminals have ceased to exercise informed opinion. Perhaps the boldest of his hypotheses — the notion of a self-equilibrating market that ensured brothels a supply of ruined women — has also fallen victim to social change. However, the social sciences remain committed to a study of the unintended consequences of human behaviour, finding some of their proudest monuments in the demonstration of counter-intuitive conclusions.