Date of Award
5-1-2010
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Delahoussaye, Gerard
Abstract
This paper attempts to provide an explanation for the strange tension between man's eudemonistic impulse and his tendency to engage in self-destructive actions as expressed in Augustine's work the City of God. The reason why both of these seemingly contradicting tendencies can occur at the same is because both are founded on the more fundamental moral and psychological motivation of self-love. As man falls more in love with his self-image, which is primarily associated with man's mind, without knowing the archetype (God) on which the prototype of the mind is based, the more man's self-love becomes disordered and perverse. The practical results of this disordered self-love is a tyrannical attitude towards others, seeing them as a means to one's perverse idea of happiness, and an unforgiving and hateful attitude towards one's self.
Access
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