Rousseau's Theodicy of Self-Love: Evil, Rationality, and the Drive for Recognition

292 Pages·2008·2.76 MB·English

by  Frederick Neuhouser

Rousseau’s Theodicy of Self-Love
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Rousseau’s
Theodicy
of Self-Love
Evil, Rationality, and the Drive
for Recognition
Frederick Neuhouser
1
1
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Acknowledgments
Somanyindividualsandinstitutionshavehelpedmetowritethisbookthat
it is impossible to acknowledge them and their contributions adequately.
Mylargestdebtistothenumerousgraduateandundergraduatestudents—
at Barnard College, Columbia University, Cornell University, and the
J. W. Goethe-Universita¨t, Frankfurt—who have endured my attempts to
work out my thoughts on Rousseau in seminars and lectures and who, in
many cases, have decisively improved them. Thanks are also due to my
many colleagues at the same institutions who have discussed, criticized,
and most of all, supported this project. The secondary work that has
most significantly influenced my thinking on Rousseau is N. J. H. Dent’s
path-breaking Rousseau, which opened my eyes to both the complexity
and the philosophical importance of the ideas I discuss here. Two other
works that treat amour-propre with unusual clarity and insight and that
deserve to be read in conjunction with this book are Andrew Chitty’s
doctoral dissertation, ‘Needs in the Philosophy of History: Rousseau to
Marx’, and Laurence D. Cooper’s Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the
Good Life.
OranMokedconscientiously checkedthebook’smanyfootnotes, made
helpful suggestions regarding my translations from the French, and, most
important,significantlyimprovedthebook’sphilosophicalcontentthrough
his comments on an earlier draft. I am also indebted to the hundreds of
individuals throughout the world who have heard various versions of
these ideas in colloquia and lectures and responded to them with patience,
persistence, and critical insight. I am especially grateful to audiences at
BarnardCollege,ColumbiaUniversity, Princeton University, theUniver-
sity of Cambridge, the University of Arizona, the University of North
Carolina, the University of Illinois-Chicago, Reed College, the Uni-
versity of Toronto, Brown University, the Johns Hopkins University,
Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, Sarah Lawrence
College, the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy, the Columbia
University Seminar on Psychoanalysis and Philosophy, and, in Germany,
viii acknowledgments
the Universities of Frankfurt, Halle, and Gießen. I also received generous
financial support, without which the book could not have been written,
from Barnard College, Cornell University, the Cornell University Society
for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
ToJasonHillIoweadebtthatextendsfarbeyondtheintellectualcontri-
butionshemadetothisbook.Countlesstinyinstallmentsofit—usuallythe
meagerresultsofaday’swork—werereadaloudtohimonanalmostdaily
basis. The book has benefited immeasurably from his insight, criticism,
and encouragement. Even more important, the happiness and well-being
of its author—preconditions of the book’s existence—depended in large
measure on his presence and love throughout the eight years in which it
was written.
Finally, I want to thank the administrators of Barnard College, as well
asmycolleaguesthere,for providing mewithanintellectual and‘spiritual’
home after many years in which I was without one. Among other things,
they have taught me how sweet, beneficent, and stimulating—all at
once—‘rule by women’ can be. Rousseau, for whom finding precisely
this combination was a lifelong psychosexual problem, would surely have
appreciated the value of this gift.
Contents
Abbreviations of Works Cited x
Introduction 1
I. Human Nature and its Passions 27
1. The Nature of Amour-propre 29
II. Diagnosis 55
2. The Dangers of Amour-propre 57
3. TheVarieties of Inflamed Amour-propre 90
4. Why Inflamed Amour-propre IsSo Common 117
III. Prescription 153
5. Social and Domestic Remedies 155
IV. Elevating Humankind by Curing the Malady from
Within 185
6. TheStandpoint of Reason 187
7. Amour-propre’s Role in Forming Rational Subjects 218
Conclusion 265
Bibliography 271
Index 275