This volume features original essays on the philosophy of love. The essays are organized thematically around the past, present, and future of philosophical thinking about love. In section I, the contributors explore what we can learn from the history of philosophical thinking about love. The chapters cover Ancient Greek thinkers, namely Plato and Aristotle, as well as Kierkegaard's critique of preferential love and Erich Fromm's mystic interpretation of sexual relations. Section II covers current conceptions and practices of love. These chapters (...) explore how love changes over time, the process of falling in love, envy in romantic partnerships, and a new interpretation of grand-parental love. Finally, Section III looks at the future of love. These chapters address technological developments related to love, such as algorithm-driven dating apps and robotic companions, as well as the potential of polyamory as a future romantic ideal. This book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in moral philosophy and social and political philosophy who are working on issues related to philosophy of love. (shrink)

This volume is an interdisciplinary exploration of admiration, examining the nature of this emotion, how it relates to other emotions, and what role it plays in our moral lives.

The book develops a theory of ideals as conceptions of admirable ways of being. It provides a story of what it means to have an ideal and why the rationality of acquiring one’s ideals implies a greater degree of selectivity than does our admiration for the manifestation of ideals in others.