The question I set myself in ‘Loving my neighbour, loving myself’ was whether the injunction to love one's neighbour as oneself makes sense. I said explicitly (156) that I was concerned with ‘love’ in the modern English sense and not with ancient words whose meaning might differ from that of the modern word. Nevertheless two critics think my argument fails because I do not consider other meanings of ‘love’ that have been or might be invoked in understanding the injunction. According to them, the injunction is not, or was not, meant in the ordinary modern sense of ‘love’, and they quote various authorities to this effect.

In Sartre and the Drug Connection, Carole Haynes-Curtis claims that previous commentators on the philosopher's writings have failed to recognize the significance of the impact of a mescalin experiment on Sartre's early philosophical perspective. ‘The residual effects of this nightmarish experience’, Haynes-Curtis claims, ‘haunted him for many years to come’, and was essentially the result of Sartre undergoing what, in modern parlance, is sometimes called a ‘Bad Trip’. (SDC 87)

1. ‘Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can pretend to no other office, but to serve and obey them.’ (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature (THN) 2.3.3) Unfortunately, Hume uses ‘reason’ to mean ‘discovery of truth or falsehood‘ (THN 3.1.1) as well as discovery of logical relations. So suppose we avoid, as Hume I think does not, prejudging the question of how many ingredients are requisite for action, by separating these two claims out:

A. Reason (= logical powers) is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

B. Reason (= belief(s)) is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.