Mandarin paradox

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]

In fiction

• The Mandarin (novel) by José Maria de Eça de Queirós
• Button, Button by Richard Matheson (plus movie The Box (2009 film))
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

See also

• Ring of Gyges