All the inclinations together (which can be
reduced to a tolerable system, in which case their satisfaction is
called happiness) constitute self-regard (solipsismus). This is either
the self-love that consists in an excessive fondness for oneself
(philautia), or satisfaction with oneself (arrogantia). The former
is called particularly selfishness; the latter self-conceit. Pure
practical reason only checks selfishness, looking on it as natural and
active in us even prior to the moral law, so far as to limit it to the
condition of agreement with this law, and then it is called rational
self-love. But self-conceit reason strikes down altogether, since
all claims to self-esteem which precede agreement with the moral law
are vain and unjustifiable, for the certainty of a state of mind
that coincides with this law is the first condition of personal
worth (as we shall presently show more clearly), and prior to this
conformity any pretension to worth is false and unlawful. Now the
propensity to self-esteem is one of the inclinations which the moral
law checks, inasmuch as that esteem rests only on morality.
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