Up until now Aristotle has considered love for other people, but in IX.8 Aristotle asks some probing questions about love of self. All the central qualities of love (summarized in my post about IX.4-7) seem to apply most of all to oneself, such that love toward others seems to grow out of self-love. But how can this be? After all, it also seems that the unserious/unworthy [phaulos] person whose character is corrupted [mochthēros] acts out of pure selfishness. The conflict between these appearances sets up what Aristotle calls an impasse [aporia], and we'll need to find a way through it in order to make further progress toward wisdom and sagacity.
Harkening back to distinctions he introduced in I.8, Aristotle claims that the unserious person succumbs to greed [pleonexia] regarding the kinds of external goods that people fight over: wealth, fame, honor, power, and so on. By constrast, the person who takes life seriously cultivates internal goods like character, knowledge, and wisdom. Because these internal goods are the most beautifully right things in life, the person who is especially serious [spoudaios] about them goes after the very best things and therefore has the highest degree of self-love. Although we don't happen to call such a person a self-lover, in fact that's what he or she is.
Moreoever, it is beautifully right actions that gratify the most authoritative [kurios] part of the soul, which is the mind; as a result, the serious person's doings and feelings are suffused with thinking [meta logou] and the correct account [orthos logos] of human life. Thus the person who takes life seriously experiences inner harmony, whereas the unserious, unworthy person experiences disharmony and constant regrets over doing what ought not to be done.
Finally (although Aristotle doesn't spell it out fully here), the person who engages in the thoroughgoing love and practice of what's beautifully right inherently values and enacts what is most to be loved and cherished [philētos] in life - the very concept he introduced as of paramount importance at the beginning of his discussion of philia in VIII.1. Therefore if we're seeking a relationship based on character rather than use or pleasure, the true self-lover makes for the best friend, whereas the false self-lover is poor material indeed.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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