Self-Love, Egoism and the Selfish Hypothesis

Analyses of one of the central debates at the dawn of the Enlightenment: are people motivated only by self-interest? The dawn of the Enlightenment saw heated debates on self-love. Do people only act out of self-interest? Or is there a less pessimistic explanation for human behaviour? Maurer delves into the contributions to these debates from both famous and lesser known authors, including Lord Shaftesbury, Bernard Mandeville, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Butler, Archibald Campbell, David Hume and Adam Smith, and puts them in their philosophical, theological and economic context. Maurer identifies five distinct conceptions of self-love and looks at their role within theories of human psychology and morality while drawing attention to the heuristic limits of our contemporary notion of egoism. He compares the central arguments and the different strategies intended to morally rehabilitate human nature and self-love before and during the Enlightenment. Key Features Thoroughly analyses and compares various positions in the debates on self-love in 18th-century British moral philosophy Places the central arguments on self-love in their philosophical and theological context Provides the first analysis of Archibald Campbell's account of self-love in his moral philosophy