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Introduction

Most people, I suspect, would be embarrassed to defend much of Rousseau’s political thought outside an academic setting. In the twentieth century, Rousseau earned a reputation as both a proto-totalitarian and an oversensitive kook. Important World War II–era scholars held him responsible for the most dangerous movements in modern Europe, such as the Jacobin terrors of the French Revolution and the totalitarianism of Nazi fascism.¹ Bertrand Russell remarkably claimed, “Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau.”² Alternatively, in some quarters, he is viewed as a flaky romantic utopist tortured by his imagination and penchant for reverie. According to these critics, he lacks the temperament to honestly and rationally evaluate modern life.³ His emotions overwhelm his reason and lead him down an indulgent path of sentimentality and self-flagellation. This harsh reception of Rousseau in modern society, however unfair, should not be too surprising. Rousseau is perhaps the greatest critic of liberal democracy, and societies tend to scorn the ideas of their ideological enemies.

There are, however, ways to make Rousseau more respectable to our commercial and democratic age. He is much more practical and realistic than is often recognized and occasionally adopts positions that are common in the liberal tradition. For example, in book I, chapter 9, of The Social Contract, he defends the right to private property in terms similar to John Locke and Samuel Pufendorf. In book III, his discussion of regime design resembles Montesquieu’s in Spirit of the Laws. In addition, scholars have frequently linked Rousseau to Immanuel Kant ever since Ernst Cassirer argued that Rousseau’s concept of moral freedom is a precursor to Kant’s moral theory.⁴ Although Kant was sometimes a critic and “never a slavish follower of Rousseau,” Kant’s intellectual and personal development was profoundly influenced by him.⁵ He too was principally dedicated to the freedom and dignity of the common person.⁶

At the same time, there is a danger to emphasizing Rousseau’s similarities with liberal greats such as Locke, Pufendorf, Montesquieu, and Kant. By interpreting Rousseau as a modern liberal, or primarily so, he becomes far less interesting. His value to contemporary readers lies in his critique of modern society—in his ability to offend our sensibilities. To learn from him, we must be willing to entertain his claims that on the surface are too embarrassing to recite in public and are responsible for his reputation as a Nazi and a dreamer but nonetheless provide valuable insight into the nature and pathologies of contemporary life.

This book draws upon the embarrassing Rousseau. It examines his concept of amour-propre, which literally translates as self-love, and uses it as a means to understand and evaluate modern-day commercial democracies. Specifically, it attempts to identify the contours and texture of the modern personality as well as explain why Rousseau thinks inequality is so dangerous.

Amour-Propre Versus Rationality

At first glance, this is a strange goal for a book written in the twenty-first century. Amour-propre in many respects is a classical aristocratic passion. It describes humans as honor loving, glory seeking, and obsessed with superiority. Not surprisingly, in aristocratic Europe—that is, for much of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries—numerous political theorists believed amour-propre to be the defining feature of human nature. As Arthur Lovejoy has convincingly demonstrated, this is true for many modern thinkers from Michel de Montaigne through Kant.⁷

As the feudal institutions died off and were replaced by liberal ones such as a commercial economy and an egalitarian democracy, however, human behavior began to change. The new order made new demands of its inhabitants. People were no longer warriors and stewards of a nation or serfs trapped in lowly social positions. They were all economic competitors fighting for wealth. More than ever before, they had the opportunity to control their fates and make their own fortunes. They had to rely on their own wits and good sense to make their way in the world. Political and social theorists, consequently, began to reconceptualize humans as strategic and calculating—as rational beings chiefly concerned with their self-interest. Although early modern natural law theorists such as Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Locke portray humans as preoccupied with satisfying their desires and survival needs, it is not until the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1776 that the aristocratic language of glory and honor fully disappears from assessments of human nature. These natural law theorists all devote considerable attention to glory, honor, the desire for a good reputation, and envy.⁸ In Wealth, by contrast, Smith adopts a strictly utilitarian approach. His humans are primarily strategic and calculating.⁹ They do not care for glory and honor as much as they do for identifying their “advantage” and satisfying their “interests.”¹⁰ Their motives are depicted in more general and more practical terms.

It is now common to hear that sound moral reasoning involves little more than trying to satisfy vaguely defined personal preferences through strategic thinking.¹¹ By contrast, with a few notable exceptions, political and social theorists have stopped writing about amour-propre. Even among historians of political thought, it attracts comparatively little interest (though, as I will demonstrate shortly, it has recently become popular among Rousseau scholars).

The dominance of utilitarian moral language has made it difficult to even talk about amour-propre and the emotions and cognitive processes commonly associated with it—pride, vanity, envy, desire for honor and glory, self-consciousness, existential angst about self-worth, and notions of selfhood or identity. At best, amour-propre is assimilated into utilitarian analysis as one of many preferences that can be calculated as either a pleasure or a pain. That is, just as individuals would be rational if they took certain steps to purchase a home, the same would be true if they tried to cultivate self-esteem or earn honor. Such desires are merely two of countless goals that can be satisfied through strategic, rational thinking. This argument finds expression in the earliest proponents of classical utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham, for example, includes “the pleasure of a good name” among the fourteen simple pleasures that he identifies as commonly pursued by individuals and the “the pains of an ill name” among the twelve pains most try to avoid. For him, it is no more or less important than any of the thirteen other pleasures or eleven other pains.¹²

Such truncated analysis, however, oversimplifies the passion and fails to capture its elemental nature. In many respects, amour-propre fundamentally differs from other preferences and involves a different set of cognitive processes. It is not like purchasing a box of cereal. On the most general level, the attempt to satisfy a preference is future oriented and relies on a strategic or calculative form of consciousness. Amour-propre, conversely, is more of a backward-thinking exercise that is evaluative rather than strategic. Its questions are not “How can I attain or acquire?” but “What is my value as a person?” and “Do I matter for others?” Its essence is to reflect on one’s intrinsic value. If people sometimes make calculations to determine their self-worth or strategize to improve their social standing, it is nonetheless a mistake to reduce the passion solely to an object of calculation. This is why many modern theorists begin their analysis of amour-propre by first distinguishing it from amour de soi-même, or the desire for survival and well-being. The attempt to absorb amour-propre into utilitarian theory by treating it as just another preference thus makes a categorical mistake of confusing it with its opposite.

To be sure, amour de soi-même and amour-propre can both be at work in the same act. As Rousseau and numerous others have argued, people often try to acquire wealth as much out of amour-propre as amour de soi-même. For example, an individual may purchase a fancy car to impress his or her neighbors as well as for its superior gas mileage. Still, the motivations are analytically distinct and should not be collapsed under the general category of preference.

More negatively, some liberal and utilitarian theorists describe the passions in the amour-propre family—such as pride, envy, jealousy, and vanity—as impediments to utilitarian calculations and rational decision making. They are characterized as unfortunate behavioral tics that need to be overcome.¹³ For example, there is an old maxim that instructs people not to let foolish pride get in the way of attaining their goals. Similarly, envy is typically viewed as counterproductive and contrary to reason. John Rawls, who writes from a neo-Kantian perspective, defines envy as a willingness to harm oneself to deny pleasure to others.¹⁴ Conceived as such, envy appears to be a stupid emotion, or at least one that would not frequently survive a cost-benefit analysis. For instance, Harry Frankfurt argues that contemporary concerns about inequality are often laced with envy and hence are self-destructive. Too many Americans, he worries, foolishly “alienate” themselves by enviously comparing themselves to their more successful neighbors.¹⁵ In terms of mental health, he thinks nothing good can come from such comparisons.

Finally, vanity is often viewed as a puerile superficiality that distracts individuals from pursuing more substantial pleasures. Individuals obsessed with popularity or physical attractiveness may ignore what J. S. Mill termed the “higher pleasures.” In these cases, pride, envy, and vanity are ordinary, unbecoming vices that obstruct strategic thinking about what is truly best for individuals. The message is clear: “thou shalt not” experience pride, envy, or vanity, as if somehow humans would greatly improve as a species if they could expunge many of the passions and emotions that shape how they experience life.

The Limits of Rationality for Understanding Democratic Behavior

The near domination of utilitarianism, however, has been detrimental to political, social, and economic analysis precisely because its understanding of human psychology is confined to a limited set of cognitive processes. Individuals in commercial democracies are not merely calculators of preferences and advantages. They still experience pride, envy, vanity, and other passions associated with self-love. They still ask themselves existential questions of self-worth. While there is no denying the relevance and usefulness of utilitarian language in commercial democracies, there are numerous behaviors in such societies that cannot be understood exclusively through its terms. Indeed, political, economic, and social analysis is complicated business. It is doubtful whether one vocabulary or methodological approach could ever get to the bottom of it.¹⁶ Simply because utilitarianism is helpful for understanding democratic behavior and moral psychology does not mean that other ethical vocabularies have nothing to contribute.

It is noteworthy that at the dawn of commercial democracy a few generations of liberal theorists (as well as Rousseau) thought the psychology of amour-propre adequate for explaining some of the workings and rhythms of the economic and political changes developing right before their eyes. There was not an immediate felt need to revamp the moral and psychological language to accommodate such changes. The old moral language, which included both self-interest and glory, seemed up to the task. Even Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, relies on amour-propre to explain economic motivations in his earlier works. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments he reduces the desire for wealth to vanity: “It is vanity, not the ease or pleasure, which interests us … the rich man glories in his riches, because he feels that they naturally draw upon him the attention of the work.”¹⁷

Moreover, from time to time, contemporary social scientists make use of explanations and language reminiscent of the psychology of amour-propre to fully understand political, social, and economic behavior they observe in the United States, the quintessential commercial democracy. For example, since the Great Depression, psychologists have argued that individuals who lose their job experience feelings of worthlessness and a loss of a sense of self, which may hinder their attempts to reenter the labor force.¹⁸ Their reflective evaluation of their social value, in other words, undermines their strategic calculations to improve their financial condition. A similar dynamic plays out in social and economic inequality. It has long been speculated that the American poor often lack a sense of self-worth. As Michael Harrington once argued, they “are pessimistic and defeated … and … are victimized by mental suffering to a degree unknown in Suburbia.”¹⁹ The mind-set of a poor person, simply put, contains much more than a series of calculations for climbing the economic ladder. They, like all people, possess a “reflective reasoning” that asks existential questions inspired by amour-propre, such as “Do I have value?” These considerations undoubtedly affect their economic behavior. In addition, sociologists and psychologists have successfully proved that racial or gender identity can affect academic performance. Individuals who think they will perform poorly because they are members of a historically oppressed group often do. Their attitude becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.²⁰ Academic success requires confidence and a sense of self-worth in addition to intellect. Lastly, social psychologists and economists have recently published several studies identifying attitudes and behaviors that Rousseau typically associates with amour-propre.²¹ It would be ill advised, therefore, to suggest amour-propre belongs to another age and is inappropriate for understanding modern life. It still has much to teach.

Rousseau’s Argument in Brief: Homeric Undercurrents in Modern Liberalism

Rousseau’s own analysis is far more ambitious than those of either early liberal theorists or twentieth-century social scientists. Rather than merely describe liberalism through amour-propre or identify instances of amour-propre in liberal democratic culture, Rousseau makes a systematic argument in which he demonstrates that liberal institutions and ideologies both awaken and corrupt the passion. His argument is shocking, resting upon two controversial premises.

The first, as previously mentioned, is that amour-propre is a classical aristocratic passion. In ancient Greece, being aristos referred to either those of high birth or those who distinguish themselves as best on the basis of talent and excellence. Rousseau has little sympathy for persons of high birth; he is most interested in the latter sense of the term. He thinks that amour-propre becomes inflamed when it is aroused by publicly rewarding excellences and merit. Although I will not present my case for this contention until Chapter 1, for now it is worth pointing out that his discussions are replete with references to aristocratic terms such as honor and “being best.” In the Second Discourse Rousseau describes amour-propre as “the genuine source of honor” and claims it results from the desire to be the best singer, dancer, orator, athlete, and so forth.²² In addition, in the First Discourse his stated enemies are the intellectuals, not the nobles.

The second premise is that the desire to be aristos in its second meaning, as being honored for excellence, is prevalent in commercial democracies. While modern liberals praise equality and celebrate the dignity of all persons, they also fiercely compete for socioeconomic status and believe social hierarchies reflect individual merit. Commercial democracies have their own aristocrats, whom Rousseau describes as possessing many of the attitudes and psychological traits attributed to the Homeric heroes. This includes amour-propre as well as an inclination to cruelty and a willingness to harm the weaker and poorer members of society.

These two premises lead to a startling conclusion: modern society is more classically aristocratic than is often appreciated and produces individuals who have the same desires and concerns as their counterparts from bygone ages. Rousseau thinks that modern liberals have not created a new age of democratic equality so much as refashioned aristocracy for the commercial age. This is perhaps Rousseau at his most radical, yet also his most relevant. His analysis invites his reader to confront how deeply inequality is imbedded in modern democracies.

Recent Scholarship on Rousseau’s Amour-Propre

This interpretation of Rousseau’s amour-propre is at odds with much of the current literature, which seeks to revive interest in his treatment of the passion by minimizing his radicalism and assimilating it into mainstream liberalism, especially Kantianism. Contrary to earlier generations of scholars, who generally believed amour-propre to be mostly dangerous and destructive, today’s scholars argue that it can be both good and bad. To correct for earlier onesided, grim views of amour-propre, these new scholars have dedicated themselves to uncovering numerous positive uses of it in Rousseau’s works. N. J. H. Dent, the godfather of this new approach, interprets Rousseau as a recognition theorist in the Kantian-Hegelian mold and contends that respect for rights and personhood originate from amour-propre.²³ Laurence D. Cooper argues that amour-propre “is a necessary condition for many good things,”²⁴ including familial and conjugal love,²⁵ virtue, patriotism, compassion, moral heroism, and, from the “Savoyard Vicar” in Emile, self-esteem. Adding to this list, David Lay Williams notes that in the Dialogues Rousseau cites it as an antidote to laziness.²⁶ Frederick Neuhouser, partially following Dent’s Kantian-Hegelian approach, ambitiously contends that “rationality, morality, and freedom—subjectivity itself—would be impossible for humans if it were not for amour-propre”²⁷ In his account, the passion satisfies both cognitive and motivational preconditions for the establishment of the general will. Cognitively, amour-propre is a social and comparative emotion that allows people to view the world from other people’s perspectives. With regard to motivation, it encourages people to value public esteem over individual material gain. If amour-propre is linked to the general will, people will be inclined to conform to the sovereign good even if it violates their individual self-interest.

There is probably little point in contesting these claims. They have been well researched and are backed up with an impressive amount of textual evidence, especially from Emile. A casual perusal of Rousseau’s works confirms their case. Even in the decidedly negative Second Discourse Rousseau asserts that to amour-propre “we owe what is best and worst among men,” though he does qualify this statement by asserting that it is responsible for “a multitude of bad things [and] a small number of good things.”²⁸ And in Emile he similarly claims it “is a useful but dangerous instrument,” though he again qualifies his position by stating that “often it wounds the hand making use of it and rarely does good without evil.”²⁹ It is undeniable that Rousseau’s analysis of amour-propre goes well beyond noxious vanity. Granted, earlier generations of Rousseau scholars were cognizant of Rousseau’s claim of positive amour-propre.³⁰ The “positive amour-propre” theorists—Dent, Cooper, and Neuhouser—devote far more attention to it, however, and put it at the forefront of their interpretations.

To their credit, moreover, the positive amour-propre theorists are careful not to exaggerate the potential utility of amour-propre and are acutely aware of its perils. Dent concedes Rousseau “often” refers to amour-propre in its most perverse sense and is “sharply aware of the potential for damage,”³¹ while Cooper notes “amour-propre never stops being dangerous—indeed, potentially calamitous—and hence needs to be sternly and thoroughly governed.”³² He also acknowledges that Rousseau’s own attempt to transcend it is implausible for an overwhelming portion of the population. Neuhouser is the most cautious of the three, at least in his first book on amour-propre, and does not believe that Rousseau offers a credible solution to the problems created by the passion: “The highly unusual and demanding conditions that these solutions to the problem of evil presuppose—not merely a godlike legislator and an improbably wise tutor but also a complete wiping of the historical slate (in the case of politics) and total seclusion from the particular bonds of family (in the case of education)—must make us wonder exactly what kind of possibility Rousseau takes himself to be demonstrating.”³³ If amour-propre is beneficial in many ways and an ineradicable feature of modern human consciousness, there is nonetheless little chance of limiting its dangerous expressions.

Despite this stipulation, there is something deeply dissatisfying about emphasizing the positive dimensions of amour-propre. By casting Rousseau as a proto-German idealist who holds that equal social standing can satisfy the emotional needs of self-respect often associated with the passion, they blunt the critical edge of his daring political theory. The central message of his various discussions of amour-propre is not that it is a malleable passion capable of redirection toward some social or emotional good. Rather, it is that the emerging eighteenth-century democratic and commercial order corrupts the human need for self-love. It tolerates and nurtures high levels and specific forms of inequality that, combined with amour-propre, often result in domination and cruelty. Indeed, it is impossible to fully understand the view Rousseau has of amour-propre without putting it in the context of his social and political criticism. At its core, his political thought is about inequality in liberal democracies, as is his conceptualization of amour-propre.

To be fair, the three positive amour-propre theorists are not insensitive to Rousseau’s politics. Neuhouser, in particular, recognizes that the Second Discourse is primarily a critique of modern commercial society.³⁴ His discussion is largely abstract, however, and mostly involves identifying the various economic and institutional conditions that “inflame” the passion, such as leisure, luxury, division of labor, individual differentiation, and private property.³⁵ Neuhouser does not fully examine Rousseau’s actual social criticisms and specific political enemies. His is an analytic exercise, which has considerable value but is insufficient to fully grasp Rousseau’s decisively political treatment of amour-propre.³⁶ Consequently, like his fellow positive amour-propre theorists, Neuhouser does not appreciate the radicalness of Rousseau’s criticism of commercial democracy and its tendency to overvalue individual talent.³⁷

Furthermore, by focusing so much on the positive aspects of amour-propre, scholars disregard Rousseau’s powerful critique against his contemporaries. Most seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century thinkers—such as Pierre Nicole, Pierre Bayle, Bernard Mandeville, and others—enthusiastically celebrate amour-propre as a cure for poverty, a catalyst for economic growth, an inspiration for intellectual development, and the emotional glue bonding society together. Rousseau was far more skeptical of amour-propre than his peers, rejecting most of their attempts to extract political, social, and economic value from the passion. When he argues for positive usages of amour-propre, it is mostly to construct healthy moral personalities that transcend the selfishness inherent in it. Amour-propre, in other words, can be transformative. It can create new forms of consciousness. Rousseau rarely argues it should merely be redirected to mimic virtues such as charity or promote economic growth. His utilization of amour-propre for positive ends is much more circumscribed than that of many of the thinkers of his age.

While the desire of the positive amour-propre theorists to correct for the error of earlier scholars who held too dismal a view of Rousseau’s treatment of the passion is welcome, I worry that they overcorrect this problem—especially Dent and Neuhouser in his second book, Rousseau’s Critique of Inequality. Rousseau is not Kant. Rather than try to reconcile him with liberalism, we should embrace his far-reaching social and political criticism and interpret amour-propre in the context of this criticism. We will learn more about him, more about amour-propre, and more about modern life.

The four chapters in this book trace the development of amour-propre from its genealogical roots in the Homeric honor culture to Saint Augustine and medieval Christianity to its rebirth among seventeenth-century French neo-Augustinians. It continues through Rousseau’s debate with the philosophes, and finally to Tocqueville’s interpretation of it as a democratic vice, though one that is ultimately harmless and occasionally useful.

In Chapter 1, I argue that Rousseau defines amour-propre in terms of classical notions of aristocracy and draws upon it in his critique of the philosophe project to become a new aristocracy.

Chapter 2 examines the religious origins of amour-propre through Augustine’s concept of amor sui (translated as self-love in English and amour-propre in French) and traces its development through seventeenth-century neo-Augustinians and early Enlightenment thinkers such as Mandeville. Augustine’s treatment of amor sui is varied and wide-ranging. Augustine offers, however, two narratives of the passion that are of supreme importance in modernity. The first is democratic and seeks to identify instances in which amor sui can be manipulated for some societal benefit. The second is aristocratic and identifies a process in which amor sui degenerates into a more destructive passion—libido dominandi, or lust for domination and control. Surprisingly, most neo-Augustinians hold a more modern, utilitarian interpretation of amor sui and downplay Augustine’s own warnings that it tends to become a gateway emotion to the lust for domination. Instead, they emphasize its social utility in the city of humans, or civitas terrena.

In Chapter 3, I contend that Rousseau’s narrative in the Second Discourse closely mirrors Augustine’s treatment of amor sui as a gateway to domination and despotism. Furthermore, I examine his various solutions to amour-propre and conclude they all are designed to eliminate the aristocratic and commercial conditions most responsible for its most dangerous expressions.

Finally, in Chapter 4, I argue that Tocqueville implicitly challenges Rousseau’s thesis that amour-propre results from aristocratic psychology and is dangerously inflamed by commercial capitalism. While he accepts that “inflamed” amour-propre is most common in commercial societies that sustain social-class fluidity, he also believes the passion to be essentially democratic rather than aristocratic. That is, it results from the commitment to equality more than from the rewarding of excellences. Tocqueville is also less pessimistic than Rousseau and rejects his argument that it degenerates into a desire to dominate and tyrannize over one’s neighbors. The most dangerous tyrannies of the modern age, he thinks, are inspired by weakness and mediocrity, not the excellences of the talented.