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7 - Self-Love and Neighbour-Love

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

Katherine Chambers
Katherine Chambers
Affiliation:
University of New England, Australia
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Summary

This chapter finds that Augustine thought of self-love and neighbour-love as both eros and philia and that he found that vicious people were able to love other people unselfishly, even though their love for others would always be sinful as the love for something temporal. This chapter establishes that eros for our neighbours was not a self-centred love – it did not instrumentalise others by making them the ‘means’ to our happiness; rather, for Augustine, eros for the neighbour, whether this love was sinful or virtuous, was a form of benevolence.

Keywords

self-loveneighbour-loveerosbenevolencehappiness
Type
Chapter
Information
Augustine on the Nature of Virtue and Sin , pp. 240 - 268
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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