In Defence of Pride: Rousseau’s Challenge to the Augustinians

Rousseau appears to condemn amour-propre as a whole for producing harmful relations of dependence and psychic division. However, recent interpreters have called this traditional view into question and argued that amour-propre can in fact have several beneficial expressions for Rousseau. This article treats the Emile ’s account of anger, one neglected expression of amour-propre that displays its potential to uphold moral freedom when educated into autonomous pride. Attention to this passion reveals that Rousseau’s treatment of amour-propre poses a challenge to a tradition of Christian suspicion towards pride. Rousseau’s analysis of self-love is rooted in a fundamental reversal of the Augustinian distinction between harmful and beneficial amour-propre , a reversal which exculpates a form of human pride that the Augustinians condemned.