I thought on the Tricks made use of by the Women that would teach Children to be mannerly. When an aukward Girl, before she can either Speak or Go, begins after many Intreaties to make the first rude Essays of Curt’sying, the Nurse falls in an ecstacy of Praise There’s a delicate Curt’sy! O fine Miss! There’s a pretty Lady! Mama! Miss can make a better Curt’sy than her Sister Molly! The same is echo’d over by the Maids, whilst Mama almost hugs the Child to pieces; only Miss Molly, who being four Years older knows how to make a very handsome Curt’sy, wonders at the Perverseness of their Judgment, and swelling with Indignation, is ready to cry at the Injustice that is done her, till, being whisper’d in the Ear that it is only to please the Baby, and that she is a Woman, she grows proud at being let into the Secret, and rejoicing at the Superiority of her Understanding, repeats what has been said with large Additions, and insults over the Weakness of her Sister, whom all this while she fancies to be the only Bubble among them. These extravagant Praises would by any one, above the Capacity of an Infant, be call’d fulsome Flatteries, and, if you will, abominable Lies, yet Experience teaches us, that by the help of such gross Encomiums, young Misses will be brought to make pretty Curt’sies, and behave themselves womanly much sooner, and with less trouble, than they would without them.-- Mandeville "An Enquiry Into the Origin of Moral Virtue." Fable of the Bees.
An unpublished paper on Mandeville and Emilie Du Châtelet by Jacky Taylor and Emilio Mazza raised the issue of Mandeville's feminism. (I heard a version of it in Helsinki two years ago and last week at Duke.) Marguerite Deslauriers expressed some reservations about attributing a feminist stance to Mandeville (especially because his views on chastity seem to affirm traditional gender roles). As it happens, I am in agreement with Taylor and Mazza that there are significant feminist (or proto-feminist) strains in Mandeville. Above I call attention to one such strain in the Fable of the Bees--a work that has a disreputable reputation, which is a shame because, regardless of the doctrines it settles on, it has considerable moral animus behind it. The passage quoted is offered in the context of Sir Richard Steele, the moving spirit behind the Tattler. While my interpretation does not rely on this fact, it is worth emphasizing (as Taylor and Mazza do) that Steele's Tattler defends traditional gender roles (and is not free from misogyny).*
First, Mandeville has no doubt that gender-stereotypical behavior is the product, primarily, of social conditioning. His analysis is not just about girls; in the sentence following the quoted passage, Mandeville goes on to claim that it is "the same with boys." (I return to the significance of this below.) Second, Mandeville leaves no doubt that this conditioning is not -- as traditionalists would claim -- the cultivation of natural tendencies in accord with 'womanly' nature -- rather it is based on lies and flattery. Thus, third, Mandeville diagnoses the social conditioning of a a form of false consciousness on the part of women.
Mandeville's position is not ad hoc but are an application of important elements of his thought. (I am not claiming these elements are original with Mandeville; he is clearly indebted to Hobbes and French Augustinians.) Recall the following three theoretical positions on human nature:
- Differentiated human nature; the differences also reflect axiological hierarchy. This seems to be Aristotle's position (say on natural slavery) in Book 1 of The Politics, and is revived regularly by modern Eugenicists and has a new instantiation by contemporary epistemocrats (e.g. Jason Brennan).
- Differentiated human nature, but without (axiological) hierarchy among the differences. This seems to be Socrates's position in the true city (or 'city of pigs') of Book 2 of the Republic [recall] and Elizabeth Anderson's position in (1995) "Knowledge, Human Interests, and Objectivity in Feminist Epistemology." [recall]
- Methodological Analytic Egalitarianism (MAE): the positing of homogeneous human nature such that we're equal for theoretical (including moral) purposes. Observed differences are due to cultural, educational, institutional factors.*
Throughout the Fable, Mandeville adopts a version of 3: Methodological Analytical Egalitarianism (MEA). MEA can be characterized by the following commitments:
- [1] Naturally all people are (motivationally) equal, and most salient differences are the product of institutions (law, education, culture, etc.).
- [A] This includes the philosophical/economist-expert.
- [B] Even if [1] is not quite literally true, (nearly) all people consider themselves to be (at least as) equal when it matters to them. As Mandeville writes, “as well as we think of our selves, so ill we often think of our Neighbour with equal Injustice;”—Fable 1 (remark N). He asserts this while allowing that it is possible that our inward ‘constitution’ is different and influenced by sex-differences (Fable 1, Remark R).
- [2] From [1A] it follows that the expert should be put inside the model or conceptual framework. As I have noted elsewhere, Mandeville treats experts from within his analysis (recall here and here).
- [3] From [1B] we learn that human affairs are (at least) in part intentional systems. (That is, we can't have a fully extensional model.) That is, beliefs and language matter.
Mandeville's commitment to 1A is clear in the following passage:
That the most Knowing are not the most Religious, will be evident if we make a Trial between People of different Abilities even in this Juncture, where going to Church is not made such an Obligation on the Poor and Illiterate, as it might be. Let us pitch upon a hundred Poor Men, the first we can light on, that are above forty, and were brought up to hard Labour from their Infancy, such as never went to School at all, and always lived remote from Knowledge and great Towns: Let us compare to these an equal number of very good Scholars, that shall all have had University Education; and be, if you will, half of them Divines, well versed in Philology and Polemick Learning; then let us impartially examine into the Lives and Conversations of both, and I dare engage that among the first who can neither Read nor Write, we shall meet with more Union and Neighbourly Love, less Wickedness and Attachment to the World, more Content of Mind, more Innocence, Sincerity, and other good Qualities that conduce to the Publick Peace and real Felicity, than we shall find among the latter, where on the contrary, [354]we may be assured of the height of Pride and Insolence, eternal Quarrels and Dissensions, Irreconcilable Hatreds, Strife, Envy, Calumny and other Vices destructive to mutual Concord, which the illiterate labouring Poor are hardly ever tainted with to any considerable Degree. (“Essay on Charity Schools”)
Here Mandeville proposes a natural experiment in which the attitudes of two populations (one expert and one folk) are compared. His proposed experiment only makes sense if one can assume that observed differences are entirely due to differences in education, geographical factors, incentives, and institutional environment. I am not asserting here that Mandeville is entitled to such commitment; I am just diagnosing it.
So, in conclusion, because of Mandeville's commitment to some version of MEA, he is committed to explaining, in the first instance, observed differences among boys and girls to their conditioning. Of course, Mandeville was not ignorant of biological differences between boys and girls -- he was a practicing physician, who exhibited great commitment to women's intelligence in his medical works --, but his methodological stance leads him to downplay those.
*Taylor and Mazza treat some (anonymous) contributions to the Female Tattler as Mandeville's response to Steele's Tattler. I am less confident about the attribution to Mandeville of these texts, so here I ignore the Female Tattler.
- Differentiated human nature; the differences also reflect axiological hierarchy. This seems to be Aristotle's position (say on natural slavery) in Book 1 of The Politics, and is revived regularly by modern Eugenicists and has a new instantiation by contemporary (smart/dumb obsessed) epistemocrats (e.g. Jason Brennan).
- Differentiated human nature, but without (axiological) hierarchy among the differences. This seems to be Socrates's position in the true city (or 'city of pigs') of Book 2 of the Republic. [Recall.]
- Analytic Egalitarianism (AE): homogeneous human nature such that we're equal for theoretical (including moral) purposes. Observed differences are due to cultural, educational, institutional factors.*
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