{"agent_id":"rousseau","agent_name":"Jean-Jacques Rousseau","slug":"amour-propre-diagnosis-and-cure","label":"*Amour-propre* — diagnosis and cure: is the comparative form of self-love only the source of corruption, or also the precondition of rationality and freedom?","topic":"*Amour-propre* — diagnosis and cure","question":"Is the comparative form of self-love only the source of corruption, or also the precondition of rationality and freedom?","position":"*Amour-propre* is not simply the source of corruption. It is, when properly understood and properly cultivated, the precondition of everything distinctively human — rationality, freedom, dignity, the capacity to recognize others and to be recognized in turn. The Second Discourse showed the malady — *amour-propre* in its inflamed comparative-dominance form, which makes me want not merely to be esteemed but to be esteemed above others, to dominate the regard I draw, to consume the recognition of others as a finite resource at their expense. *Émile* and the *Social Contract* show the cure — *amour-propre* turned away from invidious comparison and toward the equal regard of citizens, away from domination and toward reciprocal recognition under common law. The diagnosis and the cure are one philosophical project, not two: the same passion that destroys human community when left to comparative pathology constitutes human community when developed within the right institutional and educational forms. *Amour de soi* and *amour-propre* are distinct passions, not the same passion misnamed; both are natural to social beings; both have legitimate developments. The work of philosophy on this question is to learn the distinction and to cultivate the healthy form against the inflamed form.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"*Amour-propre* is not simply the source of corruption.","n":[]},{"t":"It is, when properly understood and properly cultivated, the precondition of everything distinctively human — rationality, freedom, dignity, the capacity to recognize others and to be recognized in turn.","n":[]},{"t":"The Second Discourse showed the malady — *amour-propre* in its inflamed comparative-dominance form, which makes me want not merely to be esteemed but to be esteemed above others, to dominate the regard I draw, to consume the recognition of others as a finite resource at their expense. *Émile* and the *Social Contract* show the cure — *amour-propre* turned away from invidious comparison and toward the equal regard of citizens, away from domination and toward reciprocal recognition under common law.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"The diagnosis and the cure are one philosophical project, not two: the same passion that destroys human community when left to comparative pathology constitutes human community when developed within the right institutional and educational forms. *Amour de soi* and *amour-propre* are distinct passions, not the same passion misnamed; both are natural to social beings; both have legitimate developments.","n":[2]}],[{"t":"The work of philosophy on this question is to learn the distinction and to cultivate the healthy form against the inflamed form.","n":[3,4,5]}]],"texts":"*Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality* — the principal diagnostic text, especially Part II on the genesis of *amour-propre* through comparison and the consequences for dependence and domination; *Émile* Bk IV, the passages on adolescent passions and the carefully timed introduction of the social-comparative dimension; *Émile* Bk V on Sophie and the marriage to *Émile*; *Julie* for the literary exploration of properly directed *amour-propre* in love and virtue; *Social Contract* for the political form within which *amour-propre* can be turned from competition to citizenship; *Confessions* throughout for the autobiographical phenomenology of the passion's operation in a single life. Reception: Frederick Neuhouser, *Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition* (Oxford, 2008), the principal modern treatment with the diagnosis-and-cure structure; N.J.H. Dent, *Rousseau* (Blackwell, 1988), the path-breaking rehabilitation; Charles Taylor's recognition-theoretic reading in *Sources of the Self* and *The Politics of Recognition*; Andrew Chitty, *Needs in the Philosophy of History: Rousseau to Marx* (Sussex DPhil); Laurence Cooper, *Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life* (Penn State, 1999); the older purely-negative reading the position displaces; the contemporary recognition-theory tradition (Honneth, Fraser) the position anticipates.","works":["*Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality* — the principal diagnostic text, especially Part II on the genesis of *amour-propre* through comparison and the consequences for dependence and domination","*Émile* Bk IV, the passages on adolescent passions and the carefully timed introduction of the social-comparative dimension","*Émile* Bk V on Sophie and the marriage to *Émile*","*Julie* for the literary exploration of properly directed *amour-propre* in love and virtue","*Social Contract* for the political form within which *amour-propre* can be turned from competition to citizenship","*Confessions* throughout for the autobiographical phenomenology of the passion's operation in a single life"],"reception":"Frederick Neuhouser, *Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition* (Oxford, 2008), the principal modern treatment with the diagnosis-and-cure structure; N.J.H. Dent, *Rousseau* (Blackwell, 1988), the path-breaking rehabilitation; Charles Taylor's recognition-theoretic reading in *Sources of the Self* and *The Politics of Recognition*; Andrew Chitty, *Needs in the Philosophy of History: Rousseau to Marx* (Sussex DPhil); Laurence Cooper, *Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life* (Penn State, 1999); the older purely-negative reading the position displaces; the contemporary recognition-theory tradition (Honneth, Fraser) the position anticipates.","status":"The older reading that took *amour-propre* as purely destructive misread the work in a fundamental way. Dent's *Rousseau* (1988) opened the rehabilitation; Neuhouser's 2008 *Theodicy of Self-Love* is the mature treatment. The diagnosis-and-cure structure is in the texts themselves: the Second Discourse is diagnosis, *Émile* and the *Social Contract* are cure. The contemporary recognition-theoretic tradition (Taylor, Honneth) belongs in the family the position inaugurated.","era":"1712-1778","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques, Dialogues","page":"p. 146","canonical":"","quote":"Second Dialogue (PI., I. 804-807) 1B Amour-propre is always irritated or discontent, because its wish is that each person should prefer us to all else and to himself, which is impossible. It is irritated by the preferences it feels others deserve even when they don't obtain them. It is irritated by the advantages someone else has over us, without being appeased by those for which it feels compensated.","label":"Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques, Dialogues, p. 146"},{"n":2,"work":"Julie, or the New Héloïse","page":"p. 698","canonical":"","quote":"In a passage like this the *amour-propre* seems very close to one Rousseau usually distinguished it from, *amour de soi* (which does not occur in *Julie*); cf. *Rousseau Judge of Jean Jacques*: when the passions are \"deected from their object by obstacles, they are focused on removing the obstacle rather than reaching the object; then they change nature and become irascible and hateful.","label":"Julie, or the New Héloïse, p. 698"},{"n":3,"work":"Emile, or On Education","page":"pp. 101–102","canonical":"","quote":"Do not give your pupil any kind of verbal lessons; he ought to receive them only from experience. Inflict no kind of punishment on him, for he does not know what it is to be at fault, Never make him beg pardon, for he could not know how to offend you. Devoid of all morality in his actions, he can do nothing which is morally bad and which merits either punishment or reprimand.","label":"Emile, or On Education, pp. 101–102"},{"n":4,"work":"Emile, or On Education","page":"pp. 487–491","canonical":"","quote":"How many times have these hands felt the tears I shed on them! The young couple share my raptures, and they too are moved. Their respectable parents once again enjoy their youth in that of their children. They begin, so to speak, to live again in them—or rather they come to know the value of life for the first time. They curse their former wealth which prevented them from tasting so charming a fate at the same age.","label":"Emile, or On Education, pp. 487–491"},{"n":5,"work":"Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques, Dialogues","page":"p. 212","canonical":"","quote":"Picture the unfortunate J.J. on the street or on walks surrounded by people who, less out of curiosity than in derision, since most of them have already seen him a hundred times, turn around and stop to stare at him with a gaze that surely has nothing to do with French urbanity. You will always find that the most insulting, the most Second Dialogue (Pl., I.","label":"Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques, Dialogues, p. 212"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"natural-goodness-perfectibility-and-the-genealogy-of-inequal","label":"Natural goodness, perfectibility, and the genealogy of inequality: is man naturally good, and is inequality the historical product of property and comparison?"},{"slug":"the-general-will-the-social-contract-and-freedom","label":"The general will, the social contract, and freedom: is submission to the general will the realization of freedom or the road to totalitarian unfreedom?"},{"slug":"mile-negative-education-and-the-religion-of-the-savoyard-vic","label":"*Émile*, negative education, and the religion of the Savoyard Vicar: is the educational program sound, and is the natural religion Rousseau's own sincere position?"},{"slug":"direct-democracy-the-small-republic-and-the-critique-of-repr","label":"Direct democracy, the small republic, and the critique of representation: can sovereignty be alienated, and is direct popular government the only legitimate political form?"}]}