Kierkegaard and the Problem of Self-Love

'This is the most important book on Kierkegaard and love to appear since Jamie Ferreira's classic Love's Grateful Striving; in particular, it offers the most detailed treatment available on the notion of proper self-love in Works of Love. This work also brings Kierkegaard directly into current debates in moral psychology regarding love for particular others such as family and friends, and their relation to forms of self-love. The discussions of forgiveness, including self-forgiveness and self-respect, are especially rewarding. Lippitt writes clearly and his analyses will be accessible to readers without a prior speciality in Kierkegaard, including anyone interested in theories of love and various forms of love in their own right - and especially in theological contexts.' John J. Davenport, Fordham University 'Building on the resources offered by Kierkegaard's Works of Love, John Lippitt adds a crucial voice to contemporary philosophical discussions of love, such as we find in the work of Frankfurt and many others. Readers to whom any mention of self-love brings to mind an objectionable kind of selfishness ought to be persuaded early in Lippitt's argument that the topic cannot be ignored by anyone seeking to understand moral life. Without knowing what it means to love oneself 'in the right way', as Kierkegaard puts it, we can neither interpret nor comply with the imperative to love the neighbor 'as thyself'.' Rick Furtak, Colorado College