The Journal of Speculative Philosophy

Emerson's doctrine of self-reliance arguably fits within the tradition of virtue ethics that concerns itself with answering questions about cultivating those excellences conducive to leading a good life as defined by a certain conception of human perfection. Emerson's doctrine of self-reliance, at its core, enjoins everyone to pursue his or her own unique excellence, even in the face of social disapproval. Emerson is more concerned to provoke individuals to value their own excellence than he is with detailing some specific conception of the good life to which all ought to aspire. Self-reliance is more a way of pursuing one's excellence than it is a substantive ideal or good.¹

Many in the virtue tradition maintain that the cultivation of excellence requires the development of affective and perceptual capacities for ethical response. Virtuous people cultivate a direct appreciation for the occasions of virtuous action. This concern with appreciative response, instead of the application of rules, ties naturally to virtue ethics' emphasis on the importance of concrete exemplars for those who train in virtue. If I am unsure of how to act, I can try to vividly imagine how some moral hero would handle the situation.

On the face of it, Emerson's doctrine of self-reliance would appear to advocate appreciation of one's own excellence, as more important than appreciatively regarding moral heroes. Whatever else it might be, self-reliance is an individualistic ideal wary of the all-too-human tendency to worship greatness in others and thereby denigrate one's self. While not altogether false, taking self-reliance to be about "self-assertion" misses the fact that self-reliance is a method of thinking in impersonal terms more than it is the bold assertion of one's own particular virtues.² Second, it would be wrong to think of self-reliance as involving social isolation. Emerson maintains that friendship is vital for sustaining self-reliant living. While Emerson is lukewarm about the use of heroic exemplars in his version of perfectionism, he whole-heartedly celebrates friends as exemplars that inspire excellence in each other.

Nevertheless, Emerson's celebration of friendship sits uneasily with the idea that self-reliant living involves an impersonal attitude that overlooks particulars in favor of transcendent ideals. To put the tension bluntly, how can I love my friends as these particular others when I appreciate them primarily as exemplars [End Page 91] of impersonal ideals? My goal in this paper is to make Emerson's claims about friendship and impersonal value appreciation as coherent as possible. Emerson's account of friendship is a kind of test case for the plausibility of his theory of self-reliance. I will argue that with some modifications and clarifications, Emerson's account of impersonal value appreciation entails a plausible, if demanding, ideal of friendship.

Section I introduces a model of appreciation of impersonal values, drawing on some recent work by Stephen Darwall. In section II, I discuss Emerson's account of the socially induced shame that inhibits self-reliance, bringing out the role that friends and moral exemplars play in cultivating self-reliance. I illustrate these points by developing a fictional example inspired by Bob Dylan's song "To Ramona." Section III explains the precise sense in which the appreciation of excellences of character is an impersonal attitude by briefly explaining Emerson's ontological account of value. Section IV concludes by arguing that Emerson's ideal of friendship would be more plausible on its own terms, and more consistent with his ontology of value, if it acknowledged certain kinds of human vulnerability.