Mandeville e l'uomorismo del male minore

This research provides a comparative reading of the writings of Bernard Mandeville. The aim is to relate moral, ethic and political arguments to the “great thinkers” of his historical period: first of all, Hobbes and Locke. The epistemological framework is structured to draft the method utilized in Mandeville's philosophical reflections and, from here, keeping a level division, to trace the main concepts in reference to booth metaphysical and ontological point of view. So the method based on humorism, as a form of objectifying phenomena †" social and not social †" leads to the definition of the notion of human nature from a conception of corrupt nature metaphysically in itself. This finds in the paradigm of “physiological naturalism” a reference by which the anthropological and moral analysis paints the picture of men in society. An inquiry that finds in the “ethics of lesser evil” a model by which it's possible to evaluate the choices and actions in collective and public fields. The reading of various texts, then, shows how the politics will be influenced by this model in structuring institutions that stimulate the production and the increase of wealth, although this is not for everyone. Economic inequality, then, creating a high collective well-being or benefits, appears as a "lesser evil".