1. Human nature

‘Human nature’ looks at the theory of human nature developed by Hume in Books One and Two of A Treatise of Human Nature. In these books, Hume’s theory of nature is presented as an account of the faculty of understanding, of the passions, and of the relation between them. The biographical context for this theory of human nature is important here, in terms of the intellectual crisis that Hume went through in the early 1730s. Key influences on Hume’s theory of human nature included Pierre Bayle, Bernard Mandeville, and John Locke. Hume reformulated his theory of human nature in his later works. There are limitations of the theory as can be revealed in remarks made by Hume about racial difference.

THE FORMATION OF A “SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM” IN UPPER GERMANY: LEONHARD FRONSPERGER’S “ON THE PRAISE OF SELF-INTEREST”

In 1564, Leonhard Fronsperger, a military expert and citizen of the Free Imperial City of Ulm in Upper Germany, publishes the booklet “On the Praise of Self-Interest” (“Von dem Lob deß Eigen Nutzen”). Using the form of a satirical poem, he demonstrates how the individual pursuit of self-interest can lead to the common good. Writing long before Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith, Fronsperger presents a thorough analysis of all kinds of self-interested social, political, and economic relations. His praise of self-interest demonstrates how, over the sixteenth century, the interplay of economic success (in particular in major trading cities), a more realistic conception of human behavior, and some aspects of humanism and the Reformation led to a new understanding of the origins of economic dynamics. This becomes the basis for what Max Weber ([1904–05] 2009) would later term “the spirit of capitalism.”

LE DROIT PENAL DES AFFAIRES ET ASSAINISSEMENT DES ACTIVITES ECONOMIQUES EN RDC

Généralement en économie classique, une idée est parfois admise, selon laquelle, « l’Economie n’a pas besoin du Droit pour se gérer ou pour faire ses preuves » Autrement « l’Economie n’a pas de morale ». Dans cette même ligne, la fable de BERNARD MANDEVILLE vient donner effet positif à cette pensée car celle-ci se résume dans le fait que « les vices prives font les biens publics et la vertu condamne la société à la pauvreté »[1] ; d’où il faut laisser faire les commerçants et les opérateurs économiques… Cette idée est complétée par une théorie développée par le célèbre économiste ADAM SMITH, « La théorie de la main invisible », celle-ci accompagnée de la logique libérale, voudrait « qu’il faut laisser-faire les vices qui favorisent le bien-être commun ou l’intérêt général »[2]. Il ajoute dans la même logique que le marché n’a pas besoin des règles de droit car le marché s’autorégule… car le principe universel des activités économiques est basé sur la liberté de commerce et de l’industrie, qui sont aussi à leur tour résumé dans la liberté d’entreprendre. Les activités économiques, bien que s’autorégulant, mais menées par l’homme pour l’homme, nécessitent au-delà de la logique libérale un certain ordre. Cet ordre est en effet apporté par le Droit Pénal Economique. D’où, bien que l’économie libérale exclut dans le domaine de l’économie la présence du Droit Pénal Economique car ce denier se présente comme un obstacle aux activités économiques, il faut constater aussi que cette logique libérale devient complète lorsqu’elle est adjointe à un minimum de morale et d’éthique, car l’ordre public économique et la libre concurrence comme piliers de l’économie imposent le respect d’un certain nombre de principes. Ce respect est assuré par le Droit Pénal Economique. L’ordre étant par essence un noyau du développement, on comprend logiquement que dans son rôle d’Etat gendarme, l’Etat a toutes les raisons d’intervenir dans le domaine économique par un Droit pénal spécial spécialisée qu’est le Droit pénal des Affaires.

Sociability, Censorship and the Limits of Ridicule from Shaftesbury to Hutcheson

This chapter discusses Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour. The Sensus Communis became the urtext of the ridicule debate for the remainder of the century. The chapter situates Sensus Communis in its political context and shows how Shaftesbury's commitment to ridicule received an early test when the High Churchman Henry Sacheverell used a sermon at St Paul's Cathedral to mock Whig pieties concerning toleration. By agreeing with Whig efforts to suppress Sacheverell's sermonizing through parliamentary impeachment, Shaftesbury conceded that the coercive power of the state was sometimes needed to create space for the more sociable exchanges he preferred. The chapter concludes in the 1720s with two of Shaftesbury's most influential early readers: Bernard Mandeville and Francis Hutcheson. The chapter shows that it was in the disagreement between these two philosophers (one a champion of Shaftesbury, the other his most trenchant critic), that the significance of ridicule to the debate on sociability comes truly into focus.

Francis Hutcheson on Shame

The paper analyzes the conception of shame of the British sentimentalist Francis Hutcheson. It rests on the understanding of moral virtue as a representation of benevolence and the iden­tification of shame with the misery from the unfavorable opinions of others. For Hutcheson, shame complements honour as a second part of the particular human capacity that linked to the moral sense. In ‘An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue’, Hutch­eson is arguing with Bernard Mandeville about the role of shame and honour in the genesis of morality. He tries to show that the general approval of benevolence and the love of public good cannot be born out of self-love and a sensitivity to public opinion. He uses three argu­ments: a) shame is an immediate evil, b) shame is inseparable from the moral sense, b) their link is independent from public opinion. In addition, Hutcheson demonstrates that the sense of honour and shame can deviate from the moral sense in par­ticular instances via some asso­ciations. Hutcheson’ attitude to these deviations is uncertain and ambivalent. In ‘A System of Moral Philosophy’, honour and shame accompany not only the moral sense but also the sense of decency and dignity. This treatise also contains a brief polemics with Aristotle on the role of emotions generated by opinions of others in the pro­cess of moral self-improve­ment. Hutcheson’s conception of shame is a step in the develop­ment of socialized interpreta­tion of this emotion. Theoretically, it is interesting as an attempt to analyze origins of the particular lists of subjects of shame.