The context: Jansenism and the discourse on the passions
From the second half of the sixteenth century, the Wars of Religion and episodes of political unrest provoked important discussions over the nature and role of the passions in society and how to neutralise them.
The main fields of knowledge were concerned by these developments: religion, morals, philosophy, politics, but also physics, medicine and even art with Charles Le Brun’s Expression des passions de l,ame.[44] Many publications ensued like De l'usage des passions (1641) by the Oratorian Jean-Franςois Senault (1599-1672), some of them being still considered today as important philosophical works: such is Les passions de l'ame (1649) by Rene Descartes (1596-1650).Jansenism and the “siecle du Moi Soleil”
Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, one line of thought was to prove of utmost importance for the development of economic thought: the Jansenist theology and its moral and political philosophy. The substantive “Jansenism” is derived from the name of the Flemish theologian Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) - Jansenius in Latin - a Catholic bishop of Ypres, whose magnum opus, Augustinus seu doctrina sancti, was published posthumously in 1641. Jansenius and his disciples developed a dark theological vision based on the fundamental “fact” of Original Sin. It was a very pessimistic version of Augustinian thought, which, on some points, looked close to some Protestant doctrine, and which, for this reason, was persecuted by the French monarchy and condemned by Rome. The Jansenist approach to morals and society nevertheless greatly influenced the intellectual life of the Grand Siecle.[45]
What are some of the main points at issue? In a nutshell, the main assertion is that, as a result of “Adam’s sin” and the Fall, the nature of men is totally corrupted. In their hearts, men replaced the love of God with an exclusive love for themselves - that is, with “amour-propre” (“self-love”) or selfishness.
Consequently, they are obliged to act in a hostile environment and to cope with other men’s self-love in an everlasting fight. In this context, three fundamental questions were raised: theological, moral and political.(1) If, in their hearts, men substituted their own self-love for the love of God, how could they be saved? This is the theological but also very practical problem of grace, which deeply worried, for example, the scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).
(2) If men act selfishly in all circumstances, no morality can ever exist. Whenever an action or a thought looks charitable, altruistic or benevolent from the outside, it is considered actually to conceal strict egoistic motivations, as powerfully illustrated in Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales (1665) by Franςois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) or La faussete des vertus humaines (1678) by Jacques Esprit (1611-1677). The “siecle du Roi-Soleil” is also the “siecle du Moi Soleil”.
(3) The problem of social cohesion is also raised, and this is the most important point for our subject: if the actions of men are only directed at meeting their own selfish desires, how could society ever be maintained in this context? A war of all against all necessarily ensues.
Nicole’s moment
Two friends of Blaise Pascal, the Jansenist theologian Pierre Nicole (1625-1695), in the first volumes of his Essais de morale (published between 1670 and 1675),[46] and after him the lawyer Jean Domat (1625-1696) in his Traitte des loix (1689), tried to answer these questions, focusing especially on the third one. “For a society to be maintained, men must love and respect each other”, Nicole wrote, but “others’ self-love stands in the way of all the desires of our own”: all men are thus “at battle with one another” (Nicole 1675, III, 116). The situation seems desperate. Man’s reason is very weak after the Fall and his depravity is too potent to allow anything other than destructive passions to direct his behaviour.
But there is a hope: the remedy lies in the ill itself. “From so evil a cause as our self-love, and from a poison so contrary to the mutual love which ought to be the foundation of society, God created one of the remedies which enables it to survive” (Domat 1689, xxxix). People realise that they cannot achieve their selfish aims if they attempt to use coercion. This is the reason why, unable to “domesticate” their passions through reason, men instead use their reason to follow their passions: they are thus willing to submit to other men’s wishes and self-interest, but only in order to fulfil their own desires. Nicole calls this type of conduct “amour-propre eclaire” (“enlightened self-love”), and the best example he gives thereof is that of market activities, driven by “cupidity”. This is the image of the innkeeper, to be found again later in Boisguilbert and Smith:For example, when travelling in the country, we find men ready to serve those who pass by and who have lodgings ready to receive them almost everywhere. We dispose of their services as we wish. We command them; they obey They never excuse themselves from rendering us the assistance we
ask from them. What could be more admirable than these people if they were acting from charity? It is cupidity which induces them to act.
(Nicole 1670, 204)
Thanks to this intelligent self-love, a society seems to be able to endure and develop. Oddly enough, this society, which is absolutely deprived of love, appears to be full of charity. Passions are no longer destructive and generate strong positive social results. As regards the production of material wealth, they are even incomparably more efficient than charity: cupidity achieves things that ordinary charity cannot (Nicole 1670, 204). All these themes are fundamental. They were later to be picked up and developed in various ways by Boisguilbert and, to a lesser extent, by the Protestant theologian Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) and Bernard de Mandeville (1670-1733).
Bayle, for example, wrote in his Continuation des pensees diverses, in a chapter titled “In what sense is Christianity able or unable to maintain societies?”:Would you like that a nation be strong enough to resist her neighbours? Leave the maxims of Christianity to the preachers: keep all this for the theory and bring back the practice to the laws of Nature... which incite us... to become richer and of a better condition than our fathers.[47] Preserve the vivacity of greediness and ambition, and just forbid them robbery and fraud.... Neither the cold nor the heat, nothing should stop the passion of growing rich.
(Bayle 1705, 600)
While necessary, however, enlightened behaviour is still not a sufficient condition for a peaceful social life. Nicole and Domat stress that this attitude and an enduring social order cannot be achieved without the help of bonds of a different kind, the most important of which are the rules of propriety and honour, religion and above all the “political order”, that is, a very strong political organisation of society involving differentiated and stratified estates (the traditional three estates of the realm) and inequality between men (on all these points, see, for example, Taveneaux 1965; Viner 1978; Faccarello 1986). In Nicole and Domat, the basic social link is still political and moral.
2.