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Usually when we think about how to act, we consider what we owe to others. May I break this promise that I made? How much should I donate to charity? Would I do wrong not to pay for the expensive operation my cat needs? However, we can, it seems, also owe ourselves certain treatment. We owe it to ourselves not to get addicted to opioids and (if we are not terrible people) not to hate ourselves. Some might owe it to themselves to finish that higher degree they started or to cultivate their budding talent at being a gymnast.
But some thinkers are sceptical that there are any genuine duties to oneself, for instance, because what might appear to be an obligation for one’s own sake is, ultimately, a way towards justice for others. Are there genuine obligations to oneself? If so, how must we treat ourselves? Is there anything that all or most duties to oneself have in common?
In what follows, I provide answers to these questions. I do so at times by drawing on perspectives that are salient in some philosophies from the Global South, especially the African tradition. There are ideals pertaining to harmony and vitality that are prominent there, but that are under-considered by contemporary Western philosophers, and promise to shed light on how one ought to treat oneself in the course of a life.
There are two big reasons to doubt that there are, in fact, any duties to oneself. What seems like a situation in which one can owe oneself something may turn out, upon reflection, to be something else. The first sceptical line is that what seem like duties to oneself are instead merely counsels for one’s happiness. Those who are addicted to drugs will be miserable when they run out of them. Hating yourself is hardly a source of joy. Getting educated is well known for earning a higher income, while becoming skilled at a sport would be a source of pride. These actions are not, so the argument goes, what one must do morally; they are simply what one would be wise to do in pursuit of satisfaction.
It is true that sometimes fulfilling what might be thought to be a duty to oneself will avoid misery and produce contentment, but not always. Suppose that you have a steady supply of heroin available. You know you will never run out and so will not have to confront the pain of withdrawal. Even so, you owe it to yourself not to spend major parts of your days in a pleasant haze or asleep after the initial ‘rush’, and not to be physiologically steered into putting the drug above all else. Satisfaction isn’t the only consideration.
Feeling guilty about how you’re treating yourself is a strong sign that you are doing yourself an injustice
A second reason to doubt that there really are duties to oneself is that, while one might have obligations to treat oneself a certain way, ultimately that is because doing so will enable you to do right by others. If you are addicted to heroin, you are not helping your family as much as you could have been, and might even be stealing from them.
However, it becomes harder to continue this reasoning when it comes to gymnastics, for instance. If cultivating athletic talent is something you can owe yourself, it is not merely because it will make other people better off down the road. How could it, unless you were one of the very rare few able to entertain spectators or care for a family from it? In addition, it would be natural for someone to feel guilty for not finishing that dissertation, where they would feel guilt not so much because of what they owe others (imagine no one else has a stake) but instead because of what they owe themselves. Feeling guilty about how you’re treating yourself is a strong sign that you are doing yourself an injustice.
Suppose, then, that duties to oneself do exist. What are they? It would be a tall order to provide a list of literally all of them. However, if readers are willing to accept that one can owe it to oneself to avoid addiction and hating oneself, and to get an education and develop athletic ability, then they’ll be sympathetic to these additional self-regarding duties:
- Not to spend much time watching sitcoms while drinking beer alone.
- Not to associate with those who humiliate you.
- Not to be overly dependent on others’ guidance or approval.
- Not to get into large debt for inessentials.
- Not to engage in wishful thinking or self-deception.
- Not to feel an unreasonable amount of guilt.
- Not to cut one’s arms or stomach to stave off emotional pains.
- Not to take one’s own life to avoid temporary burdens.
- To let others love you or help you.
- To sustain your health.
- To strive to overcome personality disorders or depression.
- To become more aware of unconscious beliefs, desires, emotions.
- To leave an abusive relationship.
- To challenge an exploitive workplace.
- To have foresight and be determined.
- To be proud of accomplishments.
There are surely more.
Even though this is an incomplete list, it reveals a lot about how we ought to live. The list shows that, when making decisions in life, we have strong moral reasons to think not only about the interests of others. Perhaps if we were living ideally, we would prioritise other people, but we at least have some claim to our own time and resources, apart from how others will fare. Giving consideration to oneself isn’t necessarily a matter of ‘being selfish’, since, at least by the list above, one is obligated to do certain things for oneself.
The list also shows that, when giving consideration to ourselves, it is not principally our happiness that we should seek out, at least not from a moral point of view. There is something other than subjective wellbeing that we ought to protect and pursue, as reflection on the neverending supply of heroin case suggests.
What exactly is it that we owe ourselves if not essentially happiness? That is, what might all the duties to oneself above have in common?
In the modern Western philosophical tradition, the standard account of the nature of duties to oneself is that they are all, at bottom, obligations to respect one’s nature as a rational or autonomous being. The idea is that, whereas animals cannot make a deliberate or free decision, we as persons can, and we owe ourselves respect because of that. This approach was articulated most famously by the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, especially in The Metaphysics of Morals (1797). For Kant as for contemporary Kantians, behaviour such as addiction, suicide, self-deception, and putting up with abuse, exploitation and humiliation (when one could reasonably avoid them) are all ways of degrading one’s ability to make reasoned choices or to be self-governing.
Rather than criticise this account, my aim is to show it is not the only plausible view on offer. There are in fact two alternatives that can give the Kantian account a run for its money. They are informed by philosophies from the Global South, which remain largely neglected in mainstream academic forums but, in my view, deserve a hearing.
In many non-Western philosophies, harmony is considered ‘the mother of all values’, as per two philosophers, Daniel A Bell and Yingchuan Mo, who created an index with which to measure it. One broad thought in Global South ethics is that, above all, one ought to harmonise with others. The South African theologian Desmond Tutu has provided a specific interpretation of harmonising with others within an ubuntu ethical framework. The word ‘ubuntu’ means humanness, and in his book No Future Without Forgiveness (1999), Tutu says this of its understanding by indigenous Southern Africans:
Ubuntu … speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say, ‘Yu, u nobuntu’; ‘Hey, he or she has ubuntu.’ This means they are generous, hospitable, friendly, caring, and compassionate … It is not ‘I think therefore I am.’ It says rather: ‘I am human because I belong.’ I participate, I share … Harmony, friendliness, community are great goods. Social harmony is for us the summum bonum – the greatest good.
Participating, in Tutu’s sense, means enjoying a sense of togetherness while cooperating with others, whereas sharing involves improving others’ quality of life out of sympathy and for their sake. That is more or less what it means to be friendly or even loving in a broad sense. Being friendly with another person includes enjoying a common sense of self, engaging in joint projects, making each other better off, and doing so not merely because one expects to benefit in the long run as a result.
If you hated yourself, cut your body, did not let others love or even help you – all ways to make your life go poorly
If that is what it means to harmonise with others, then it is possible to harmonise with oneself as well. That is, one could be more or less friendly towards oneself. That would involve liking being in one’s own company, acting on a voluntary, trustworthy basis that avoids undermining one’s goals, meeting one’s own needs, and doing so out of compassion for oneself and for one’s own sake.
When we violate a duty to oneself, we are failing to treat ourselves in these friendly ways. Being unfriendly or discordant towards oneself might involve being alienated from oneself, deceiving oneself and, more generally, being unable to depend on oneself, making one’s life go worse, or lacking compassion for oneself, if not being cruel to oneself.
This analysis captures much on our list above. Being addicted, incurring large debt, engaging in wishful thinking or being dependent on others’ approval would make it hard to coordinate one’s actions so as to realise many of one’s goals and to rely on oneself, as would, obviously, suicide. In contrast, becoming aware of unconscious mental states or displaying foresight and determination would be clear ways of realising one’s projects over time.
In addition, you would be unfriendly or discordant towards yourself if you hated yourself, cut your body, did not let others love or even help you, experienced disproportionate guilt, or stayed in an abusive relationship. These are all ways to make your life go poorly and to fail to act out of compassion for yourself.
Although Tutu, along with perhaps a majority of African philosophers, prizes social harmony, reflection on how to engage with others reveals something about how to engage with ourselves. Indeed, if we owe others friendly relations (say, because they have dignity), then we owe ourselves the same.
Here is a second lens through which one might understand the nature of duties to oneself. Another value prominent in African philosophy is what is often called ‘life-force’ or ‘vital force’. The traditional thought is that God has the greatest life-force of any being and has imbued everything in the universe with it. God gave humans more vitality than animals, animals more than plants, and plants more than rocks.
To begin to grasp what life-force involves, consider these remarks from the Ghanaian philosopher Noah Dzobo about how, for many indigenous Africans, a human being could enhance vitality or fail to do so:
[T]here is an urge or dynamic creative energy in life … which works towards wholeness and healing, towards building up and not pulling down … Our people, therefore, conceive human life as a force or power that continuously recreates itself and so is characterised by continuous change and growth which depends upon its own inner source of power … Since the essence of the ideal life is regarded as power and creativity, growth, creative work and increase have become essential values. Powerlessness or loss of vitality, unproductive living, and growthlessness become ultimate evils in our indigenous culture.
Despite the religious origins of this vitalist ethic, it can make good sense in secular terms. It is intuitive to think that creativity, health, strength, growth, vibrancy, activity, self-motion, courage and confidence are forms of vitality, and are good. By the same token, disintegration, death, disease, weakness, decay, lethargy, passivity, submission, insecurity and depression involve the absence of some vitality, and are bad.
People cannot be expected to be very lively upon staying in an abusive relationship
It is a compelling idea that when you violate a duty to yourself you are failing to enhance your vitality and are perhaps even reducing it. Being addicted, incurring large debt, and being dependent on others’ approval are far from plausibly described as supporting ‘self-motion’, that is, being moved by one’s inner source of power. Wishful thinking would make it hard to carry out creative work. In contrast, being determined would instantiate productive living, while becoming aware of unconscious mental states and displaying foresight would reliably foster it.
To begin to see how considerations of vitality might account for additional duties to oneself, consider the influential comment of Placide Tempels, a Belgian missionary who in 1945 was reportedly the first European to dignify African thought with the term ‘philosophy’:
Every illness, wound or disappointment, all suffering, depression, or fatigue, every injustice and every failure: all these are held to be, and are spoken of by the Bantu as, a diminution of vital force.
By ‘Bantu’, Tempels means indigenous Africans (many, but not all, of whom speak a Bantu language). Although his remark overly generalises, it remains true of some peoples in Africa (particularly beyond the Southern region, and below the North) and of philosophers informed by them.
From the perspective Tempels sketches, behaviours such as not taking pride in one’s accomplishments, hating oneself, cutting one’s body, not letting others love or even help one, experiencing disproportionate guilt, failing to stay healthy, and not overcoming neurosis are all well construed as either reductions of liveliness or failures to produce it where one could. They are plausibly instances of weakness, passivity, insecurity and depression, or at the very least obstacles to becoming stronger, more active, confident and the like. By the same token, people cannot be expected to feel, or more generally be, very lively upon staying in an abusive relationship, associating with those who humiliate them, or submitting to exploitation.
These two characteristically African values of harmony (friendliness) and vitality (liveliness) constitute two accounts of what all duties to oneself have in common. Each independently explains much of the list of duties to oneself with plausibility. But is one account more promising than the other? Are duties to oneself prescriptions to harmonise with oneself or to enhance one’s vitality?
Of course, it might turn out that there is not just a single feature that accounts for all duties to oneself. Perhaps they involve more than one thing. However, in order to know whether more than one property is involved, philosophers first test to see whether one will suffice.
The two theories differ in terms of the explanations they offer as to why a certain action is required, or forbidden, by a duty to oneself. Consider the obligation not to get addicted to drugs. According to the harmony view, one should not do so because it would be discordant for undermining one’s abilities to carry out one’s projects and meet one’s needs. In contrast, according to the vitality view, one should not get addicted because it would inhibit self-motion, make one dependent, and, if the drug were not available, induce lethargy and inhibit creativity. I find it hard to say that one explanation is obviously preferable to the other; maybe both are indeed essential for a complete explanation.
I have a similar reaction to other cases. Consider the duties to have foresight and to be determined. Do they obtain because, if one did not act in these ways, then one would fail to advance one’s ends coherently over time, or because failing to so act would mean less growth and creativity? It is not clear to me which is the stronger explanation; again, both seem relevant.
Sometimes, being exploited is better than nothing, when it comes to access to economic resources
However, I do find some grounds to prefer the harmony account over the vitality one. Take the duty not to engage in self-deception. The vitalist must say that deceiving oneself would be wrong when, and only when, doing so would be expected to reduce one’s liveliness. But there are some occasions when deceiving oneself would in fact keep one’s spirits high and enable one to go forth and engage in challenging creative pursuits. In that case, on vitalist grounds, one should deceive oneself, but many would say one would still be wronging oneself in a certain respect.
Similar remarks apply to the duty not to get addicted. Consider not heroin, which is depressive, but rather cocaine, which is stimulating. Although the risk of ‘crashing’ is substantial, some people are able to maintain a cocaine addiction for many years, during which they might have been much more productive than they would have been otherwise (perhaps Sigmund Freud was an instance). Liveliness would in such a case prescribe addiction, and yet one would intuitively still have a moral reason to avoid it.
Think, too, about the duty to challenge exploitation in the workplace in the case where the job provides net benefits. Sometimes, being exploited is better than nothing, when it comes to access to economic resources – that’s precisely what enables the exploitation. Imagine a poorly paid sweatshop worker in a developing country who would be unemployed were it not for this opportunity. In this situation, considerations of liveliness would prescribe staying on the job and keeping a low profile. However, many of us would have a lingering judgment that she would owe herself more, and that there would be some moral cost to not standing up for oneself.
There is another important reason to favour harmony/friendliness over vitality/liveliness, which is that the former could be interpreted in such a way as to incorporate the latter, supposing it does indeed have some explanatory power. When interpreting what it means to be friendly toward oneself, I have focused mainly on meeting one’s needs. However, one might suggest including the good of liveliness as something friendliness would promote. If being friendly toward another would involve fostering her health, growth, creativity, confidence and the like, then being friendly toward oneself would involve the same.
So, perhaps the most promising account would combine the two ethics salient in the African philosophical tradition. A further stage of reflection would be intercultural, weighing up perspectives from the Kantian-Western tradition against the largely African account advanced here (or perhaps with an East Asian Confucian account that articulates a different notion of harmony). That kind of debate is rare to encounter in professional philosophical journals but would be a fascinating and important next step.
