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Rousseau on Self-Love: What We've Learned, What We Might Have Learned

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Laurence D. Cooper
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Extract

Whereas traditionally self–love was considered a moral evil, Rousseau contended that some self–love is benign—and not only benign, but morally necessary and even praiseworthy. The following article offers an interpretation of Rousseau's criteria for distinguishing between good self–love and bad. The distinction between good and bad self–love is neither as simple as many readers think—it does not correspond exactly to the distinction between amour de soi and amour–propre—nor as blurry as many others think. It is, rather, both subtle and coherent. And it might well prove useful in our current efforts to inculcate pride and self-esteem without encouraging complacency or exploitation, efforts which themselves owe much to Rousseau's influence.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , Fall 1998 , pp. 661 - 684
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1998

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References

1. Rousseau of course was not the first to defend self-love. Indeed, the celebration of self–love and pride had been central to classical moral philosophy and had been a source of its critique of Christianity (as well as a source of Christianity's critique of it). But much of Rousseau's defense of self–love was original—most particularly his insistence on the perfect innocence and sufficiency of original self–love and the claim that it is the source of compassion. And it is precisely these elements, and not the more stringent classical teaching, that seem to me to predominate in the contemporary rehabilitation of self–love.

2. Second Discourse, in First and Second Discourses, trans. Masters, Roger D. and Masters, Judith R. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964), pp. 221–22.Google Scholar

3. The overly severe interpretation of amour–propre tends to arise among those whose primary focus is the naturalistic or individualistic Second Discourse rather than the collectivist Social Contract. The program of the latter work actually depends on amour–propre, as we shall see, though amour–propre is never discussed in it. Where amour–propre is discussed, especially in the Second Discourse, more often than not it is in the context of harsh criticism, which surely accounts for the fact that the overly severe interpretation has become, as Dent, N. J. H. observes, “the familiar and widely accepted account” (A Rousseau Dictionary [Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992], pp. 33–34).Google Scholar (The work which presents Rousseau's comprehensive, balanced view of amour–propre is Emile, a work which unfortunately is much less well known than either the Second Discourse or the Social Contract. It is from Emile that the bulk of the ensuing argument is drawn.) For examples of what in my view are overly harsh interpretations of Rousseau's amour–propre, see Charvet, John, The Social Problem in Rousseau's Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 69 and 85,Google Scholar and Horowitz, Asher, Rousseau, Nature, and History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), p. 93.Google Scholar

4. Second Discourse, p. 175.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., pp. 146–47.

6. Ibid., p. 151.

7. Ibid., pp. 149, 151.

8. Emile, or on Education, trans. Bloom, Allan (New York: Basic Books, 1979), III: 205.Google Scholar

9. A qualification: The happiness that Emile possesses is the greatest available to “ordinary minds.” That which is available to someone with the natural gifts of Rousseau himself, the happiness described in the late autobiographical writings, would seem to be the greatest of all.

10. Virtue is always the servant of abstract principle: Rousseau defines it as “obedience to law” (On the Social Contract, in On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy, ed. Masters, Roger D. and trans. Masters, Judith R. [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978], 1. 8. 56),Google Scholar or conforming to the general will (Discourse on Political Economy, in Masters, and Masters, , On the Social Contract, p. 218).Google Scholar

11. Fragments Politique, in Oeuvres Complètes, 4 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliotheque de la Peiade, 1959–1969), vol 3, p. 501.Google Scholar The desire for recognition would seem to be a nearly universal source of motivation. Even the wise man “is not insensitive to glory” (First Discourse, in Master, and Master, , First and Second Discourses, p. 58).Google Scholar

12. Rousseau's insistence on self–love as the psychological basis of virtue reveals the eudaimonistic cast of his moral thought and hence its distance from Kantian moral philosophy.

13. See Emile, IV: 317.Google Scholar

14. Ibid., IV: 221–31.

15. Ibid., IV: 229, emphasis added. That amour–propre plays such an important role in inculcating pity does not alter the fact that the source of pity, i.e., the “stuff” of which it is made, is amour de soi. Amour–propre's role is that of buttress and facilitator. Others have made the same general point, albeit with different notions of the particulars. See, for example, Horowitz, , Rousseau, Nature, and History, p. 237,Google Scholar and Melzer, Arthur, The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau's Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 93.Google Scholar

16. See, for example, The Confessions, in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 5, ed. Kelly, Christopher, Masters, Roger D., and Stillman, Peter S. and trans. Kelly, Christopher (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1986), VI: 218,Google Scholar where Rousseau explains one such incident as follows: “pride might perhaps have as great a part in my resolution as virtue; but if this pride is not virtue itself it has such similar effects that it is pardonable to mistake it for virtue.” The incident in question is one in which Rousseau was inspired by amour–propre (in the form of pride) to pass up a rather seamy assignation. Beyond such instances as this, Rousseau claims that amour–propre produced in him a moral transformation of nearly six years' duration. He refers to the years 1749 to 1754 or 1755 (during which time he wrote both Discourses and conceived of his entire philosophic system) as a period in which “the noblest pride sprang up on the ruins of uprooted vanity” (IX:350).Google Scholar For a different and somewhat harsher view of amour–propre''s role in this moral transformation, see Blum, Carol, Rousseau and the Republic of Virtue (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 40–43.Google Scholar

17. Emile, IV: 264.Google Scholar

18. Reveries of a Solitary Walker, trans. Butterworth, Charles E. (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), VIII: 115–16, emphasis added.Google Scholar

19. For a discussion of Rousseau's views of Cato and Socrates and how they compare to himself, see Kelly, Christopher, Rousseau's Exemplary Life: The Confessions as Political Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 50–57 and 64–75.Google Scholar

20. This fragment appears in Jean–Jacques entre Socrate et Caton, ed. Pichois, Claude and Pintard, René (Paris: José Corti, 1972), p. 54.Google Scholar

21. See Melzer, , Natural Goodness of Man, pp. 256–61, for further discussion of the necessity of amour–propre for moral action. Melzer interprets Rousseau's authorial activity in this light.Google Scholar

22. See Constitutional Project for Corsica, in The Collected Political Writings of Rousseau, trans, and ed. Watkins, Frederick (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), pp. 25–29.Google Scholar What is explicitly advised in Corsica is implicitly advised elsewhere. As Ruth Grant observes, “Rousseau hopes to use pride precisely in order to inculcate integrity” (Hypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the Ethics of Politics [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997], p. 167).Google Scholar Indeed, the inculcation of pride as a source of public–spiritedness can be seen as the centerpiece of the civic ethos, i.e., as the key to successful republicanism, in Rousseau's view. As Judith Shklar writes, “The civic ethos … redirects amour–propre from pursuing personal exploitation to positive public enterprises. The whole political structure of Sparta has no other end” (Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social Theory [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969], p. 19).Google Scholar

23 Corsica, p. 326.Google Scholar

24. Even in the later writings the distinction is not maintained with perfect consistency. See note 28 below.

25. Emile, IV: 215.Google Scholar

26. “I do not accuse the men of this century of having all the vices; they have only the vices of cowardly souls; they are only rogues and knaves” (Last Reply by J.–J. Rousseau of Geneva [to Bordes], in The First and Second Discourses Together with the Replies to Critics and Essay on the Origin of Languages, trans. and ed. Gourevitch, Victor [New York: Harper & Row, 1990], p. 72).Google Scholar“Vile and cowardly even in their vices, they have only small souls” (Emile, IV: 335).Google Scholar

27. See, for example, Plamenatz, John, Man and Society, vol. 2 (London: Longman Group, Limited, 1963), pp. 420–23.Google Scholar

28. Admittedly, Rousseau is not perfectly consistent in his use of the terms pride and vanity. What he lacks in semantic consistency, however, is largely made up by conceptual consistency. That is, it is possible to discern what kinds of amour–propre he approves of and what kinds he does not, and why—and it is that distinction which matters most. (Even Plamenatz, who complains that Rousseau is unclear on the distinction, admits that Rousseau “might have distinguished vanity from pride, if he had ever troubled to do so” [Man and Society, pp. 420–23].)Google Scholar

29. Corsica, p. 236.Google Scholar

30. Ibid.

31. See Confessions, I: 21.Google Scholar

32. One who, like Emile, “does not stop at appearances but judges the happiness of men only by the condition of their hearts will see their miseries in their very successes; he will see their desires and their gnawing cares extend and increase with their fortune; he will see them getting out of breath in advancing without ever reaching their goals” (Emile, IV: 242).Google Scholar

33. Machiavelli's confidence in our ability—or at least his ability—to discern the respective roles of skill and fortune is evident from the title of chapter 25 of The Prince: “How Much Fortune Can Do in Human Affairs, and in What Mode It May Be Opposed” (Prince, trans. Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr. [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985]).Google Scholar

34. For Rousseau's characterization of conscience's dictates as perfect and universal see Emile, IV: 290 and V: 382,Google Scholar and Lettres Morales, in Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 4, pp. 1107–08.Google Scholar

35. Emile, IV: 339.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., p, 245.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., V: 402–05. For the discussion of Alcèste, the title character of the Misanthrope, see Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theater, trans. Bloom, Allan in Politics and the Arts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 34–45.Google Scholar

39. The three versions are: virtuous citizenship in an austere republic; the life of solitary contemplation depicted in the Reveries of the Solitary Walker; and the life of Emile, described as “the natural man living in the state of society” (Emile, III: 205). Rousseau expresses admiration for various other lives, but he does so only to the extent that those lives partake of one of these three ideals.Google Scholar

40. See Reveries, VIII: 117–18Google Scholar and Rousseau, Judge of Jean–Jacques: Dialogues in The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 1, ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher and trans. Bush, Judith R., Kelly, Christopher, and Masters, Roger D. (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1990), II: 106.Google Scholar

41. Emile “is a new system of education the plan of which I present for the study of the wise and not a method for fathers and mothers” (Oeuvres Complètes, III: 783).Google Scholar

42. Such steps toward civilized naturalness are specified in the Lettres morales. The Lettres, ostensibly addressed to the Comtesse d'Houdetot and written at her request, offer specific instructions aimed at achieving a more natural life.

43. Second Discourse, p. 179.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., p. 222.

45. I am indebted to Kelly on this point. See Rousseau's Exemplary Life, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

46. Rousseau concedes in the First Discourse that vanity has led to a certain amount of useful knowledge and invention. But it has led to far more harm than good. Nor can it serve—nor can any private vice serve—as the basis of a good social order. See the Preface to Narcissus, in Gourevitch, , First and Second Discourses, pp. 104–06.Google Scholar Rousseau does seem to suggest that vanity could be used to greater advantage than it has been, however. “Vanity is the greatest spring of human conduct” (Corsica, p. 325).Google Scholar As such, it could be used by the wise legislator. Vanity could even be used against vanity, as it were: Rousseau advises that sumptuary laws could be made effective by the legislator who “make[s] simplicity a point of vanity” (Corsica, p. 324).Google Scholar

47. Corsica, p. 326Google Scholar