The rehabilitation of amour-propre
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Inbar, A. [1]
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[1] Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University
Israel
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- Localización: History of political thought, ISSN 0143-781X, Vol. 40, Nº 3, 2019, págs. 458-483
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Rousseau's moral psychology has traditionally been understood to rest on a distinction between two kinds of self-love: the good and natural amour de soi and the bad and artificial amour-propre. Over the past three decades, however, this understanding has given way to a novel account, premised on the idea that amour-propre is in essence an ethically neutral desire for recognition. The aim of this article is to defend the classic interpretation of amour-propre against this revisionist reading. It suggests, moreover, that since amour-propre is the source of the predicament that Rousseau seeks to alleviate in his political theory, this rehabilitation of amourpropre -- the claim that amour-propre is not necessarily socially disruptive-- muddles our understanding of Rousseau's political project.
