Amour de soi

'self-love') is a concept in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that refers to the kind of self-love that humans share with brute animals and predates the appearance of society.

Rousseau maintained in Emile that amour de soi is the source of human passion as well as the origin and the principle of all the other desires.

It is considered "always good and always in conformity with order",[2] for it is not malicious, because amour de soi as self-love does not involve pursuing one's self-interest at the expense of others.

Rousseau contrasts it with amour-propre, that kind of self-love found in Thomas Hobbes' philosophy, in which one's opinion of oneself is dependent on what other people think and which arises only with society.

[2] Rousseau suggested that amour de soi was lost during the transition from the pre-societal condition to society, but it can be restored by the use of "good" institutions created with the social contract.