Growing interest in an ethics of "self-actualization" is being generated in this country and abroad by the new "humanistic" or "third force" psychology, through the writings of such proponents as Abraham H. Maslow, Erich Fromm, Rollo May, and Victor Frankl.
"Self-actualization" offers itself as the up-dated perpetuation of the eudaimonistic "self-realization" of classical humanism. At the heart of both theories lives the doctrine of the priority of self-love. The following citations exhibit concord concerning what is thought to be this doctrine's central weakness.
"If this assumption is sound," writes Gordon Allport, "the outlook for improving human relations is of course dim. Rationalize our self-love as we will, we remain frauds. Human relations cannot be improved; they can only be prettified." 1 More explicitly, Morris Ginsberg contends that "the formula of selfrealization leaves out of consideration the central problem of ethics -that of the relation between self and others." 2 Less conclusively, Pitirim Sorokin agrees that "Eros always has difficulty in finding room for love to man." 3 Conclusively again, Irving Singer summarizes his study of Eros in Plato and Aristotle with the claim that "it could not account for the love of persons." 4
And in still stronger terms Anders Nygren identifies self-love as man's "natural condition" which is responsible for his "perversity of will." 5 According to him, "Eros does not seek the neighbor for himself; it seeks him insofar as it can utilize him as a means for its own ascent." 6
The citations are deliberately drawn from diverse sources to indicate