Self-Knowledge and Self-Love

Abstract

In this paper I argue for the claim that self-love is a precondition for self-knowledge. This claim is relevant to the contemporary philosophical debate on self-knowledge, but mainly because it draws attention to the role of claims of self-knowledge in the larger context of our ordinary practice of rationalizing and appropriating our actions. In this practice it is crucial for persons to open-mindedly investigate the limits of their own responsible agency, an investigation that requires a warm and gentle kindness to avoid both being too easy in welcoming and too merciless in resisting one’s own imperfections as a minded agent. This kindness, I argue, is grounded in an evaluative relation of caring, a type of relation that is incompatible with self-hatred.