Abstract:

Moral practice often invokes self-love, and imperatives to “radical self-love” in social justice discourse have even become an urgent call to solidarity and resistance for oppressed groups to have “pride” in their marginalized identities. Although appeals to self-love pervade moral life, it remains largely neglected in the philosophical literature on moral self-regard. Moreover, the moral tradition tends to treat self-love as an inevitable feature of human psychology that we must curb for the sake of others. Indeed Kant infamously regards self-love as the chief antagonist to morality. His is paradigmatic of the moral tradition’s treatment of self-love as a form of self-interest and thus non-moral (if not immoral). And yet, the aforementioned appeals to radical self-love indicate a need for moral theory to articulate a moral kind of self-love that can account for a duty to it as members of the moral community.

Despite Kant’s purported hostility to self-love, and skepticism of the moral significance of love generally, I pursue an unlikely alliance with his moral theory. Given that Kant distinguishes between varieties of love for others in moral friendship, it’s striking that he doesn’t consider a similar distinction in kinds of love towards ourselves. If he did, we might expect a corresponding conception of moral self-love. Nonetheless, I argue that such a conception of moral self-love, distinct from self-interest, can (and should) be drawn from a Kantian picture of moral friendship.

Zoom Link: https://ucr.zoom.us/j/98968430896?pwd=IV288NhlbLgaQNaYvbfUSjXQh0S80b.1