This book is a relatively short but very dense and carefully written work on self-love and on the selfish view of human nature and its critics in eighteenth-century British moral philosophy. It is partly based on the author’s doctoral dissertation in philosophy and on some previously published journal articles and book chapters (pp. v, vii). Methodologically, the book is a mix of history of philosophy and intellectual history (p. 6), taking up the challenge to bring to the fore minor figures like Archibald Campbell and, to a lesser extent, Bernard Mandeville. Consequently, the ‘usual suspects’ (David Hume and Adam Smith in particular) are given a less prominent place and role in the story than one would expect, as evidenced by the plan of the book. Indeed, apart from two chapters of introduction and conclusion, the book is made of six chapters of analysis, five of which are devoted to a single author (in the following order: Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury; Mandeville; Francis Hutcheson; Joseph Butler, Campbell), while the sixth and last one deals with Hume, Smith, Thomas Reid, and less-known English figures like John Gay, David Hartley, and (Abraham) Tucker. The main contribution of the book, as I see it, and the author seems to too (see p. 3), is to provide us from the outset with an interesting and very useful distinction between five different conceptions of self-love exposed and discussed in eighteenth-century British moral philosophy (p. 3). Note that this distinction could be fruitfully used to understand the debates on the other side of the Channel at that time too. The first form of self-love (SL) distinguished by Christian Maurer is self-love as egoistic or self-interested desires (SL 1). The second one is self-love as love of praise (SL 2). The third one is self-love as self-esteem or due pride (SL 3). The fourth one is self-love as amour-propre or excessive pride (SL 4). And the fifth one, maybe the least well-known, is self-love as respect of self (SL 5). Let’s see now how Maurer’s reading grid can help us to better understand the thoughts of eighteenth-century British moral philosophers and the debates between them on self-love, the egoistic and non-egoistic principles of human nature, and on the possibility and reality of morality for men.

In chapter 2, the analysis of Shaftesbury sets the stage for the subsequent debate, which was one of the main targets of Mandeville, to which Hutcheson will reply. He rejects the selfish hypothesis, highlighting man’s “natural” benevolent affections, by means of an influential account of natural sociability. Besides, he defends a view of self-love as egoistic desire (SL 1) and yet presents a positive moral assessment of self-love, especially against the Augustinian moralists. For him, our “selfish affections” can be morally good when they are neither too strong nor too weak—that is, in their “natural,” providentially designed degree of affection— thus preserving the individual and promoting the public good.

Chapter 3 deals with Mandeville, the “second cornerstone” of the debate (p. 53), who attacks, especially in Part II of the Fable, what he sees as Shaftesbury’s optimistic view of human nature. Indeed, under the influence of the Augustinians, Mandeville defends a much more pessimistic and egoistic view of human nature, corrupted and dominated by selfish passions. Moreover, Mandeville relies on a conception of self-love based on amour-propre or excessive pride (“self-liking”) and on the love of praise (SL 2 and 4). In particular, Mandeville denies the reality of truly benevolent affections and strictly separates “social virtues” like politeness and honor, which he sees originating in self-liking, from “moral virtue.” And even though he acknowledges that man’s self-liking can have beneficial though unintended consequences for society, it is still vicious for him, because he defends a very demanding, rigoristic view of morality based on motivations and self-denial, which is hardly met in society. For Mandeville, being virtuous goes against our corrupt human nature.

Then in chapter 4, Maurer nicely shows how Hutcheson defends Shaftesbury against Mandeville, rejecting both his corrupt view of human nature and the selfish hypothesis (pp. 92–96). Moreover, Hutcheson underlines the natural principles of morality in men, based mainly, but not only, on disinterested benevolence and on an innate moral sense. And contrary to what many commentators, prominently among them Smith, claimed, the author shows that Hutcheson offers a more positive view of self-love, considered by him as egoistic desire, than generally assumed (p. 101–103). Indeed, for Hutcheson, a “calm,” “reflective” self-love is part of the fully virtuous human being and of self-cultivation (pp. 87, 102–108). He also seems to pave the way towards the rehabilitation of pride to Hume and Smith (p. 92).

Chapter 5, devoted to Butler, shows how the latter defends a very positive view of human nature in which man is “plainly adapted” to virtue as part of God’s design (p. 118), and a unique but influential (p. 135–137) and also quite positive view of self-love, founded on what Maurer calls “respect of the self” (SL 5). In self-love, man must realize his “true,” divinely designed self, as opposed to his actual existing self (p. 123). If he insists on the role of benevolence in his conception of virtue, Butler doesn’t oppose self-love to benevolence because the former belongs to “general” reflexive principles, along with conscience, while the latter is part of “particular” non-reflexive principles. Thus, for Butler, self-love is “a second-order affection that reflectively controls the gratification of first-order principles in view of the agent’s happiness” (p. 123). He also claims that self-love, promoting man’s happiness, and conscience, aimed at moral rightness, always converge (pp. 134–135).

Then in chapter 6, Maurer studies Campbell’s thought on self-love and the often overlooked theological background of the debate.Footnote ¹ Campbell’s moral theory goes against Hutcheson’s assertion according to which proponents of the selfish hypothesis have a pessimistic view of the morality of human nature. In that respect, Campbell defends the selfish hypothesis (for him, benevolence ultimately springs from self-interest, see p. 144) and a hedonistic egoistic view of self-love (SL 1, see p. 143). Yet he defends a very positive view of postlapsarian human nature. For Campbell, who tries to answer both Mandeville’s and Hutcheson’s moral philosophies, we have an interest in being virtuous. “True” self-love can motivate morally virtuous actions when it is a desire for esteem of all other rational agents, including God (pp. 148–149). So, it necessarily involves a concern for the well-being of others whose self-love we will try to gratify (pp. 149, 152). The chapter also contains an interesting analysis of Campbell’s critiques towards Mandeville’s conceptions of luxury and morality. Maurer shows that, for Campbell, it is moral virtue, not vice, that makes a nation richer and stronger (p. 154–157).

Other major and more famous critics of Mandeville and his famous paradox are under scrutiny in the seventh chapter. As Maurer argues, by the second half of the eighteenth century in Scotland, it seems that the selfish hypothesis was considered to have been refuted. Discussions were now more focused on issues of sociability and on the rehabilitation of specific forms of self-love. Against Mandeville, Hume and Smith defend the real though limited power of benevolent affections and a positive view of self-love as due pride for the former, especially in the Treatise of Human Nature, while the latter presents a view of self-love as love of praise, built on his neglected distinction between “vanity,” the “love of true glory,” and the “love of virtue” (SL 2 and 3), as Maurer convincingly shows. While I fully agree with these interpretations of Hume’s and Smith’s thought on self-love, I found them rather incomplete. An important part of Hume’s rehabilitation of the morality of self-love and of “selfish” desires is his inclusion of the qualities “useful” and “immediately agreeable to ourselves” inside his definition of “personal merit” or virtue. This point of Hume’s moral theory can be seen as an answer to Mandeville, and maybe to Hutcheson. Likewise, Smith’s concept and defense of “prudence” aims to highlight, against Hutcheson and others, that self-love can be a morally virtuous principle of action. Considerations of length might have played a role in such omissions, all the more so knowing that the chapter tries to cover the entire second half of the century and to give some space to “minor” English thinkers like Gay, Hartley, Tucker, and to Reid. Generally speaking, a more direct engagement with secondary literature would have been welcome in order to better emphasize the novelty of the interpretations provided by the author.

That being said, the book has the great merit to add new elements in and more clarity to the fascinating though notoriously intricate debate on self-love and selfishness in eighteenth-century British moral philosophy. As such, I believe that it provides a very useful complement to the famous essays by Albert Hirschman (Reference Hirschman1977) and Pierre Force (Reference Force2003), and thus the book will be of interest to the historians of economic thought studying the Scottish Enlightenment but also the intellectual origins of economic science and its first principles. More generally, it is striking how these debates on self-love and the alleged selfishness of human nature in eighteenth-century British moral philosophy find a resonance in contemporary economics, and especially in behavioral and experimental economics in which economists are still debating about the reality of truly disinterested motivations for actions, closely analyzing the desire for fairness and reciprocity, but also altruism and beneficence, or the desire of approbation and more broadly the morality of economic agents. No doubt the book will please philosophers and economists alike.