The Mandarin paradox is an ethical parable used to illustrate the difficulty of fulfilling moral obligations when moral punishment is unlikely or impossible, leading to moral disengagement. [1] It has been used to underscore the fragility of ethical standards when moral agents are separated by physical, cultural, or other distance, especially as facilitated by globalization. [2] It was first posed by French writer Chateaubriand in "The Genius of Christianity" (1802): [3]
I ask my own heart, I put to myself this question: "If thou couldst by a mere wish kill a fellow-creature in China, and inherit his fortune in Europe, with the supernatural conviction that the fact would never be known, wouldst thou consent to form such a wish?"
The paradox is famously used to foreshadow the character development of the arriviste Eugène de Rastignac in Balzac's novel Père Goriot . [1] Rastignac asks Bianchon if he recalls the paradox, to which Bianchon first replies that he is "at [his] thirty-third mandarin," but then states that he would refuse to take an unknown man's life regardless of circumstance. [3] Rastignac wrongly attributes the quote to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which propagated to later writings. [2] [4]
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.
Auguste Émile Faguet was a French author and literary critic.
Le Père Goriot is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), included in the Scènes de la vie privée section of his novel sequence La Comédie humaine. Set in Paris in 1819, it follows the intertwined lives of three characters: the elderly doting Goriot, a mysterious criminal-in-hiding named Vautrin and a naive law student named Eugène de Rastignac.
La Peau de chagrin, known in English as The Magic Skin and The Wild Ass's Skin, is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy. La Peau de chagrin belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's sequence of novels, La Comédie humaine.
La Comédie humaine is Honoré de Balzac's 1829–48 multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48).
Julie; or, The New Heloise, originally entitled Lettres de Deux Amans, Habitans d'une petite Ville au pied des Alpes, is an epistolary novel by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, published in 1761 by Marc-Michel Rey in Amsterdam.
Eugène de Rastignac[ø.ʒɛn də ʁas.ti.ɲak] is a fictional character from La Comédie humaine, a series of novels by Honoré de Balzac. He appears as a main character in Le Père Goriot (1835), and his social advancement in the post-revolutionary French world depicted by Balzac can be followed through Rastignac's various appearances in other books of the series.
The Mercure de France was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group.
Count Georges Vacher de Lapouge was a French anthropologist and a theoretician of eugenics and racialism. He is known as the founder of anthroposociology, the anthropological and sociological study of race as a means of establishing the superiority of certain peoples.
Z. Marcas is a novelette by French author Honoré de Balzac first published in 1840. Set in contemporary Paris, it describes the rise and fall of a brilliant political strategist abandoned by the politicians he helps into power. Destitute and forgotten, he befriends a pair of students who live next door to him in a boarding-house. The story follows their many discussions about the political situation in France.
Le Bal du comte d'Orgel is a French novel by Raymond Radiguet (1903–1923). The second and last novel by the Parisian author, it was published posthumously in 1924. Set as a love triangle during the années folles, it proved controversial, as did his first psychological novel, Le Diable au corps, published in 1923. Le Bal du comte d'Orgel was adapted into a 1970 film.
Ange Antoine Guy du Fresnay was knight of the Order of Carlos III of Spain and director of The Phoenix Companies in France.
Béatrice Dussan, called Béatrix Dussane, was a French stage actress. Admitted at the Comédie-Française in 1903, she became the 363th sociétaire in 1922. A street in the 15th arrondissement of Paris is named after her.
Charles Derennes was a French novelist, essayist and poet, the winner of the Prix Femina in 1924.
In the Presence of Schopenhauer is a 2017 book by the French writer Michel Houellebecq. It is a personal reflection on the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and the effect he has had on Houellebecq.
Léon Séché was a French poet.
The Mandarin is a novella on the sin of avarice by José Maria de Eça de Queirós, also known as Eça de Queiroz. It was first published in Portuguese in 1880. The first English version, translated by Richard Franko Goldman, was published by The Bodley Head in 1965. A translation by Margaret Jull Costa, was published by Dedalus Books in 1993. A revised version was published by Dedalus in 2009, together with three short stories.
Les Secrets de la princesse de Cadignan is a short story by Honoré de Balzac. It was published in 1839 and is one of the Scènes de la vie Parisienne of La Comédie humaine.
Raymond Trousson was a Belgian literary historian, professor emeritus at Free University of Brussels and member of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium. HIs interests were focused on the classical authors of the 18th century.