Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love

225 Pages·2014·2.6 MB·English

by  Simon Blackburn

Mirror, Mirror
Francois Lemoyne (Le Moine), 1688– 1737, Narcissus contemplates his image mirrored in water.
Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Photo Credit: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY.
Mirror, Mirror
THE USES AND ABUSES OF SELF-LOVE
Simon Blackburn
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 2014 by Simon Blackburn
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be
sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press.
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blackburn, Simon, 1944–
Mirror, mirror : the uses and abuses of self-love / Simon Blackburn.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-16142-6 (hardcover)
1. Self-acceptance. 2. Self-esteem. I. Title.
BF575.S37B54 2014
155.2—dc23
2013031309
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon Next
Printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye
And all my soul and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account;
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount . . .
ShakeSpeare, Sonnet 62
Their vanity was in such good order that they seemed to be quite free of
it, and gave themselves no airs; while the praises attending such
behavior . . . served to strengthen them in believing they had no faults.
Jane auSten, Mansfield Park

Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 The Self: Iris Murdoch and Uncle William 12
Chapter 2 Liriope’s Son 35
Chapter 3 Worth It? 44
Chapter 4 Hubris and the Fragile Self 61
Chapter 5 Self-Esteem, Amour Propre, Pride 79
Chapter 6 Respect 109
Chapter 7 Temptation 132
Chapter 8 Integrity, Sincerity, Authenticity 163
Chapter 9 Envoi 187
Notes 191
Index 203

Preface
There are books that should be read like plays: act 1 precedes act 2
and so on to the end. These unfold a plot; they have a story line,
and to appreciate the book, this story line has to be faithfully fol-
lowed. I am not sure this book is like that; while writing it I have
sometimes thought it is more like a piece of cake that tastes better
when all the layers are chewed together. Perhaps it is more of a
perambulation than a quest or a journey. It is, at any rate, an explo-
ration and a meditation. On the other hand, it does have a moral;
in fact, two morals. They each concern the complexity of the no-
tions I talk about: pride, vanity, self-esteem, and their cousins. This
complexity bedevils the attitudes we should adopt when these
traits rear their heads, and confuse any simple moral reactions to
them. But they also bedevil empirical work that sets out, some-
times naively, to chart their consequences for good or ill. There is,
therefore, a train of thought, but perhaps it is a train in which one
can wander at will from one carriage to another.