Principle Of Self Love Essay

By hypothesis, the principle of self-love (“Always seek your own happiness”) is an objective principle. I will assume, as seems plausible, that the assumption behind the principle of self-love is that each person’s own happiness is something that each rational being (by hypothesis, given that the principle of self-love is an objective principle) has the same ground for seeking.

The contradiction in willing the principle of self-love to be a universal law would be that in doing what he has objective grounds to do he thereby frustrates his own ends

(he cannot achieve his ends, because in seeking them he would thereby frustrate them).

By willing that each agent seek his own happiness, the egoist would thereby thwart his own end of seeking his

If, by trying to will what he has objective ground to will, he thereby frustrates the very thing he has objective ground to will, then it is not possible to will the principle of self-love to be universal law.19 If Wood is correct in his interpretation of Kant, then he seems to have provided a successful counterexample to

Kant’s argument for FUL.20

19This example assumes that the principle of self-love is an objective principle on the basis of the objectivity of the end of happiness. However, it seems possible that the (hypothetical) objectivity of the end of happiness is better captured by some other practical principle. Perhaps there is another principle that is grounded in the end of happiness that actually could be willed to be universal law. Wood does not consider this possibility, but it seems relevant to the example.

20It is somewhat unclear whether Wood intends the violation of the categorical imperative to be a contradiction in the will of the egoist, or whether the result is a contradiction in conception/nature. The case’s striking resemblance to Kant’s example of the impermissibility of false promising suggests that it is a contradiction in conception/nature. However, Wood’s own discussion, while not taking a clear