“ People who wish to have a high opinion of their own moral excellence have therefore to persuade themselves that they have achieved a degree of unselfishness that it is very unlikely that they have achieved, and hence the endeavour after saintliness comes to be connected with self-deception of a kind that easily leads on to persecution mania. ”
Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930). copy citation
| Author | Bertrand Russell |
|---|---|
| Source | The Conquest of Happiness |
| Topic | persecution unselfishness |
| Date | 1930 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://russell-j.com/beginner/COH-TEXT.HTM |
Context
“I should include among self-regarding motives, from this point of view, those that concern persons biologically connected with oneself, such as the impulse to the defence of wife and children against enemies. This degree of altruism is part of normal human nature, but the degree inculcated in conventional ethics is not, and is very rarely attained genuinely. People who wish to have a high opinion of their own moral excellence have therefore to persuade themselves that they have achieved a degree of unselfishness that it is very unlikely that they have achieved, and hence the endeavour after saintliness comes to be connected with self-deception of a kind that easily leads on to persecution mania.
The second of our four maxims, to the effect that it is unwise to overestimate your own merits, is covered, so far as morals are concerned, by what we have already said. But merits other than moral should equally not be overestimated.”
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