Notebook per
Can Private Vice Produce Public Virtue?
Citation (APA): Capizzi, J. (2016). Can Private Vice Produce Public Virtue? [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com
Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 2
Can Private Vice Produce Public Virtue? By Joseph Capizzi
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 11
Some philosophers, notably Bernard Mandeville, claimed that vices such as avarice, pride, and vanity are necessary for a well-functioning economy— and a well-functioning economy, they argued, is critical to the public good.
Nota - Posizione 13
MANDEVILLE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 17
For centuries, many thinkers in the West agreed with certain classical Greek and Roman authors who saw a link between private (or personal) virtue and the public good, between the health of the soul and that of the city. In Book II of Plato’s Republic, for example, Socrates draws an analogy between man’s justice and the justice of the polis.
Nota - Posizione 19
PLATONE SOCRATE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 25
As Socrates explains to his interlocutor: “Recall the general likeness between the city and the man,
Nota - Posizione 26
ANALOGIA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 29
Many of the great thinkers of the Christian theological and philosophical traditions, including both Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, agreed in the main with this account of how private virtue is connected to the public good.
Nota - Posizione 31
TOMMASO E AGO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 34
The political theorist David Miller begins his wonderful Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2003) by musing on the fourteenth-century fresco series by Ambrogio Lorenzetti called The Allegory of Good and Bad Government. Emerging from the classical tradition, Lorenzetti takes for granted that the moral characters of both rulers and subjects are deeply connected.
Nota - Posizione 38
LORENZETTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 40
Fear dominates the vicious city: “a city under military occupation, and a barren countryside devastated by ghostly armies,”
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 43
“Luxury,” Bernard Mandeville wrote in 1705, “employ’d a million of the Poor, and odious Pride a Million more.”
Nota - Posizione 44
IL LUSSO FA LAVORARE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 44
Mandeville’s long poem The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turn’d Honest defended vice against the moralism of English political ideology famously expressed by Jonathan Swift, among others.
Nota - Posizione 46
MANDEVILLE VS SWIFT
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 46
Envy itself, and Vanity, Were Ministers of Industry;
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 53
But this is merely one half of Mandeville’s account. If an abundance of certain vices can lead to paradise, an abundance of certain virtues leads to despair and poverty.
Nota - Posizione 54
VIRTÙ MORTIFERE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 60
Unable to protect itself and unmotivated towards industry, art, or craft, the hive relocates to the hollow of a tree to live
Nota - Posizione 61
ARTI MANUFATTI E GENIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 66
Later Enlightenment philosophers, including Adam Smith and David Hume, would echo and elaborate on Mandeville’s ideas.
Nota - Posizione 67
SMITH HUME
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 74
First, recent economic developments may suggest the unsustainability of ever-increasing patterns of consumption. This is only partly a claim about environmental degradation.
Nota - Posizione 75
AMBIENTE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 79
Second, even advocates of the Mandevillian approach praise the older virtues, whether implicitly or explicitly. This we might call the “eternal return of virtue.”
Nota - Posizione 80
LE VITÙ BORGHESI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 90
Rulers and lawmakers would encourage people to behave in these now “virtuous” ways, while genuinely vicious people— pursuing their self-interest to the point of cruelty toward others— would break these laws and harm the public good.
Nota - Posizione 92
VIZIOSI TOTALI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 102
Was de Mandeville being polemical when he claimed that “vice” is the basis of the public good?
Nota - Posizione 102
SOLO POLEMICA?
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 107
Yes, he was being polemical; he was challenging a dominant view
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 115
But as Machiavelli stated, a prince can’t use evil all the time but only when there are emergencies such as when a nation is being founded, to abolish corruption, and to banish obstreperous elements and mass migration invasions when necessary.
Nota - Posizione 117
MACHIAVELLI E IL MALE NECESSARIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 121
Was Truman evil in using an A-bomb on Japan? Was Churchill evil in allowing the German bombing of the English City of Coventry instead of evacuating the city
Nota - Posizione 122
POLITICA E MALE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 135
Think of the family: in a family, a true community by almost any consideration, parents have obligations and privileges that children do not.
Nota - Posizione 136
GOVERNO E GENITORI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 141
The political philosopher Michael Walzer has written a great deal on this. He calls it the “problem of dirty hands,” and no doubt he and you are right that those in authority often dirty their hands with evil acts.
Nota - Posizione 143
MANI SPORCHE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 148
Mandeville has not made an argument, he has observed a fact.
Nota - Posizione 148
FATTI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 148
Modern developments have not challenged that, on the contrary they have reinforced it. “unsustainability” arguments are Malthusian nonsense– that even Malthus ultimately rejected.
Nota - Posizione 150
SVILUPPO INSOSTENIBILE: CONCETTO MALTHUSIANO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 150
Steve Jobs has done more to improve the world than Mother Theresa. That offends our values, but it is still true.
Nota - Posizione 151
STEVE JOBS MADRE TERESA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 162
Does the classical view you describe make any sense in a pluralistic context, where different citizens (or communities of citizens) may have different, sometimes conflicting, conceptions of “virtue”?
Nota - Posizione 163
PLURALISMO E CLASSICITÀ
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 178
From a Christian perspective, it sounds like the world you describe does not take into consideration the Fall.
Nota - Posizione 178
PECCATO E VIZIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 178
Arguably, couldn’t it be the case that something like Mandeville’s view is the best we can hope for in a fallen state, when people are vicious by nature?
Nota - Posizione 179
SISTEMA IDEALE X IL PECCATORE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 183
You’re right if you’re suggesting that despite the “virtues” of good governance, sin will still occur and no society will be absent its influence.
Nota - Posizione 184
PUBLIC CHOICE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 186
Mandeville’s account, in my view, is parasitic on virtue. All the productivity of the hive he champions really is explicable not in terms of vice but of virtue, even in imperfect men and women. Because most shopkeepers are not actually motivated by selfishness (vice) but by some real good (e.g., the desire to bake good pizza, or interest in taking apart and fixing cars, or love of teaching— all virtues),
Nota - Posizione 189
CONTROLETTURA DI MANDEVILLE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 194
Could a vicious leader produce a virtuous society?
Nota - Posizione 194
VIZIOSITÀ DELLA POLITICA
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 197
Yes, Allan, but despite himself.
Nota - Posizione 198
NN INTENZIONALE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 206
as the just state requires the emergence of a Platonic guardian king, I think it’s fair to say the Republic is more so about the process of a just individual.
Nota - Posizione 207
REPUBBLICA DI PLATONE
