{"agent_id":"la-rochefoucauld","agent_name":"François de La Rochefoucauld","slug":"amour-propre-behind-everything","label":"Amour-propre behind everything: is every virtue at bottom a disguise of self-love?","topic":"Amour-propre behind everything","question":"Is every virtue at bottom a disguise of self-love?","position":"Self-love is the animating principle of the human heart, present in every passion and disguised in every virtue. What passes for generosity, courage, pity, or devotion is, examined closely, most often the self pursuing its own esteem, comfort, or advantage under a name that will be praised.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Self-love is the animating principle of the human heart, present in every passion and disguised in every virtue.","n":[1,2]},{"t":"What passes for generosity, courage, pity, or devotion is, examined closely, most often the self pursuing its own esteem, comfort, or advantage under a name that will be praised.","n":[]}]],"texts":"Maxims (1665–1678), esp. the long suppressed maxim on amour-propre (MS 563) and the maxims on virtue as disguised vice (\"Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise\"; \"Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers\"); Réflexions diverses. Reception: the Augustinian–Jansenist doctrine of fallen self-love (Pascal, Nicole, Port-Royal); Nietzsche on the moralists and the unmasking of hidden motive; Jon Elster on self-interest and self-deception.","works":["Maxims (1665–1678), esp. the long suppressed maxim on amour-propre (MS 563) and the maxims on virtue as disguised vice (\"Our virtues are most frequently but vices in disguise\"","\"Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers\")","Réflexions diverses"],"reception":"the Augustinian–Jansenist doctrine of fallen self-love (Pascal, Nicole, Port-Royal); Nietzsche on the moralists and the unmasking of hidden motive; Jon Elster on self-interest and self-deception.","status":"His central and most contested claim; charged from the first with reducing all virtue to vanity and denying the reality of goodness.","era":"1613-1680","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"REFLECTIONS; OR, SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. 1.--What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange; and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave, and women chaste. 2.--Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.","label":"Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims"},{"n":2,"work":"Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Our self-love is flattered by all that presents itself to us under the guise of good. But as there are many kinds of good which affect our vanity and our temper, so they are often followed from custom or advantage.","label":"Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[]}