Love of Self at The Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris

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This sculpture titled "Love of Self" is a bronze masterpiece by Charles Cumberworth (1811-1852). A student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1829, Cumberworth showcased his work at the Salon of Paris from 1833 to 1848, primarily featuring busts of women and children but also exploring classical allegories. This sculpture represents one of Cumberworth's allegorical pieces. Love of Self is a concept in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy that refers to self-love shared with brute animals, predating the emergence of society. Actions driven by love of self are aimed at individual well-being and tend to be naturally good and not malicious. This type of self-love does not involve pursuing personal interests at the expense of others; instead, it is focused solely on oneself as an absolute and valuable existence. Rousseau contrasts this concept with amour-propre, a kind of self-love found in Thomas Hobbes' philosophy, where one's opinion of themselves depends on what others think. Amour-propre arises only with society. Rousseau suggested that love of self was lost during the transition from the pre-societal condition to society but can be restored through the use of "good" institutions created by a social contract. This renewed passage from the state of nature to the civilized state would bring humans to favor justice over instinct.