Varieties of Love

Love and Difference: Refuting the ‘Risk-Free’ Conception of Romance Love, as a philosophical topic, has a convoluted history. Modern considerations of love, which inherit this history, oscillate within a spectrum that ranges from pessimistic conceptions of love as merely instrumental reproductive sexuality, to an ecstatic fusion that presents love as the harmony of two into one. Each of these positions can be characterized as difference-evading, escapist, and ‘risk-free’ approaches to love, which, Alain Badiou claims, denies the necessary elements that make (...) love possible; namely, a commitment to chance, the experience of vulnerability, and perseverance and fidelity in love. By way of Badiou, this paper attempts a refutation of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic rejection of love, and, following this, attempts to think beyond the relationship of insecurity and dependency that Beauvoir associates with the plight of the ‘woman-in-love.’ As I intend to show, Badiou’s theory of love, which is existential in nature, denies the escapism that is inherent to riskless love. Badiou’s solution to both the pessimistic and fusional hypotheses is to present authentic love as a ‘truth procedure’ wherein lovers form a common subject known as “the Two” which operates beyond the non-connected and incommensurable positions Badiou calls ‘man’ and ‘woman.’ This re-invented conception of love fills up and compensates this non-related Two, who, together, experience a truth made possible by difference—a pursuit which requires the continuous declaration and affirmation that the procedure is worth the risk. (shrink)

When we say that what two people feel for each other is 'true love,' we seem to be doing more than simply clarifying that it is in fact love they feel, as opposed to something else. That is, an experience or relationship might be a genuine or actual instance of love without necessarily being an instance of true love. But what criteria do people use to determine whether something counts as true love? This chapter explores three hypotheses. The first holds (...) that the ordinary concept of true love picks out love that is highly prototypical. The second, that it picks out love that is especially good or valuable. The third, that people distinguish between psychological states that are 'real' or not, and that it picks out love that is real. Two experiments provide evidence against the first hypothesis and in favor of the second and third. Implications for real-life disagreements about love are also discussed. (shrink)

Our ordinary talk reflects a deep tension in the way that we think about love. On the one hand, we regard love as an especially important expression of our agency. Yet, on the other hand, we also think of love as something that happens to us, in the face of which we are passive and can be powerless. While it’s hard to see how to hold these two ways of thinking of love together, in this paper I argue that we (...) must find some way of doing so. I argue that we must think of love as a contentful attitude attributable to its agent, an expression of our selves. But familiar ways of understanding agency sort love into the category of things that happen to us, rather than that of things that we do: You cannot love at will, nor is love an attitude to which you could reason. I conclude that questions about the relationship of our agency to what we love are not superficial, but stem from deep tensions about the relationship between love and reasons. A resolution to these difficulties would provide important insight not only into the character of love, but also the nature of agency, and its relationship to values, reasoning and reasons. (shrink)

This paper explores jealousy in Unamuno’s drama El otro. Drawing on contemporary philosophy of emotion, I will argue that for the Spanish author jealousy gives the subject a sense of self. The paper begins by embedding Unamuno’s philosophical anthropology in the context of contemporary emotion theory. It then presents the drama as an investigation into the affective dimension of self-identity. The third section offers an analysis of jealousy as an emotion of self-assessment. The final section discusses how this drama can (...) be regarded as a piece of philosophical work. (shrink)

Do we love for reasons? It can seem as if we do, since most cases of non‐familial love seem *selective*: coming to love a non‐family‐member often begins with our being drawn to them for what they are like. I argue, however, that we can vindicate love's selectivity, even if we maintain that there are no reasons for love; indeed, that gives us a simpler, and hence better, explanation of love's selectivity. We don't, in short, come to love *for* reasons. That (...) which seemed like evidence for thinking that there are reasons for love, then, turns out to militate against that view: how can these purported reasons be reasons for love, if they don't engender (in virtue of rationalizing) it? (shrink)

What is love? In this paper I argue that love is a psychological syndrome, or an enormously complex cluster of psychological attitudes and dispositions that’s accompanied by a corresponding set of symptoms that flow from it. More specifically, I argue that love is an affectionate loyalty that takes different shapes across cases and that manifests itself in some set of behavioral and emotional expressions, where this set of expressions also varies across cases. After laying down three theoretical constraints that viable (...) theories of love must satisfy, I sketch my syndrome theory of love in detail and then defend it. First, I argue that it has a strong yet defeasible claim to satisfying the three theoretical constraints. Then I defend my theory against two objections that target its extensional adequacy. I conclude that we have good grounds for being optimistic about the theory even though it calls for further development and scrutiny. (shrink)

English Title: From Oppression to Independence: the Philosophy of Love in The Second Sex -/- Beauvoir’s philosophy of love has been studied in a few papers but these papers focus mainly on a description of the forms of love that are analyzed in The Second Sex without questioning the role that Beauvoir’s philosophy of love plays in her general argument on women’s oppression. Although one could think that philosophy of love plays a minor role in The Second Sex, this paper (...) argues that for Beauvoir the transformation of heterosexual love may well be the main way to convert oppression in emancipation at the individual level. Beauvoir’s philosophy of love is this crucial to link her analysis of women’s oppression with her proposing paths towards emancipation. (shrink)

A concern that accompanies the recognition that people are not morally responsible is how this affects our relationships. In particular, there is concern as to whether the absence of these things eliminates or lessens love. Love is relevant on some of the most plausible theories of well-being. In particular, it might be thought to cause pleasure and fulfill desires and thus bring about well-being on hedonist and desire-fulfillment theories of well-being. It might also be included on the objective list of (...) things that make someone’s life go better independent of pleasure and desire-fulfillment. In this article, I argue for the Intense Pro-Attitude Theory, specifically, that love is a disjunctive combination of intense affective, cognitive, intentional, and valuational pro-attitudes that focus on something’s well-being. If this account is correct, then love is empirically and conceptually independent of moral responsibility. Hence, love is independent of moral responsibility. (shrink)

The standard liberal sexual ethic maintains that consent is the only requirement for ethical sexual relations. While consent is certainly necessary for an adequate sexual ethic (and it’s important to know what it involves), I argue that it’s far from sufficient. The key claims that I advance are the following: (1) The consent-only model of sexual ethics affirms a “casual” view of sex and therefore it can’t make sense of and properly combat what’s worst in the sexual domain: namely, the (...) grave evil of sexual violence. (2) The consent-only model of sexual ethics fails properly to recognize the special significance of human sexuality and the nature of erotic love and its role in human sexual fulfillment and therefore it can’t make sense of and properly support what’s best in the sexual domain: namely, a committed erotic loving relationship. A more adequate sexual ethic, I maintain, would be a more traditionalist one that involves the following: it would give proper recognition to the special significance of human sexuality, avoid dehumanization in sexual desire, and encourage and support committed erotic love and its role in human fulfillment. Moreover, it would regard this as requiring that we cultivate sexual virtues such as chastity, modesty, and fidelity, and that we encourage and support life-long monogamous marriage as the proper context for human sexual relationship. (shrink)

This chapter assesses theories of the nature of personal love in Anglophone philosophy from the last two decades, sketching a case for pluralism. After rejecting arationalist views as failing to accommodate cases in which love is irrational, and contemporary quality views as giving love the wrong kind of reason, it argues that other theories only account for different subsets of what a complete theory of love should explain. It therefore concludes that while love always consists in valuing someone as a (...) particular individual, there are multiple ways of doing this, corresponding to multiple kinds of love. (shrink)

In the Ars Amatoria Ovid claims to make his audience experts in love; in the Remedia Amoris he teaches them how to fall out of love. These two poems are masterpieces of satirical comedy. At first glance Ovidian satire seems worlds apart from The Screwtape Letters of C.S. Lewis. While written for entirely different aims and differing in many obvious aspects, both works describe the surest means by which to suffocate love. For Ovid, it is romantic love that must be (...) extinguished; for Screwtape, it is the love of God. While it might seem that the irony of The Screwtape Letters is distinctively modern, Lewis’s special form of irony finds its ancient precedent and model in the master of mock-didacticism, Ovid. Not only can the influence of Ovid’s Remedia Amoris be seen in the broad themes contained in The Screwtape Letters, but many of Screwtape’s specific avenues of attack were recommended by Ovid centuries ago. (shrink)

As Artificial Intelligence researchers attempt to emulate human intelligence and transhumanists work toward superintelligence, philosophers and theologians confront a dilemma: we must either, on the one horn, abandon the view that the defining feature of humanity is rationality and propose an account of spirituality that dissociates it from reason; or, on the other horn, find a way to invalidate the growing faith in a posthuman future shaped by the enhancements of Intelligence Amplification or the progress of Artificial Intelligence. I grasp (...) both horns of the dilemma and offer three recommendations. First, it is love understood as agape, not rational intelligence, which tells us how to live a godly life. Love tells us how to be truly human. Second, the transhumanist vision of a posthuman superintelligence is not only unrealistic, it portends the kind of tragedy we expect from a false messiah. Third, if as a byproduct of AI and IA research combined with H+ zeal the wellbeing of the human species and our planet is enhanced, we should be grateful. (shrink)

According to the theological worldview of J. R. R. Tolkien, the principal work of a Christian is to know, love, and serve God. Why, then, did he devote so much time to creating an entire family of imaginary languages for imaginary peoples in an imaginary world? This paper argues that the stories of these peoples, with their ‘eucatastrophes,’ have consoling value amid the incomplete stories of our own lives. But more fundamentally, secondary creation is proper to the adopted children of (...) God and can be a way of drawing closer to God. Such work also witnesses to the freedom of the children of God, not only to receive salvation from God, but to contribute to the enrichment of creation and eternal life. (shrink)

I consider the question of the possibility of the coexistence of neighborly love (love for strangers) and preferential love (love for persons because of or despite their attributes). This question has long perplexed interpreters of Kierkegaard. I make a threefold intervention into this interpretive debate. First, I aim to show that we shouldn’t privilege preferential love over neighborly love. Second, I reformulate preferential and neighborly love on a ‘topological’ model, so as to get a better grip on them. And third, (...) I argue that preferential love can coexist with neighborly love insofar as the latter is granted primacy over the former. (shrink)

This paper shows how amatonormativity and its attendant social pressures converge at the intersections of race, gender, romantic relationality, and sexuality to generate peculiar challenges to polyamorous African American men in American society. Contrary to the view maintained in the “slut-vs-stud” phenomenon, I maintain that the label ‘player’ when applied to polyamorous African American men functions as a pernicious stereotype and has denigrating effects. Specifically, I argue that stereotyping polyamorous African American men as players estranges them from themselves and it (...) constrains their agency by preemptively foreclosing the set of possibilities of what one’s sexual or romantic relational identities can be. (shrink)

People who experience love often experience break-ups as well. However, philosophers of love have paid little attention to the phenomenon. Here, I address that gap by looking at the grieving process which follows unchosen relationship terminations. I ask which one is the loss that, if it were to be recovered, would stop grief or make it unwarranted. Is it the beloved, the reciprocation of love, the relationship, or all of it? By answering this question I not only provide with an (...) insight on the nature of break-ups, but also make a specific claim about the nature of love. I argue that the object that is universally lost in all break-ups is a person with certain intrinsic qualities, who is in a relationship characterised by certain shared activities and recognized as romantic. That means that, at least in romantic terminations, the beloved and the relationship are not independent objects of grief. So, plausibly, they may not independent objects of value in love. Hence, those who state otherwise should face up to this objection coming from the study of break-ups. (shrink)

I consider the implications of two globally influential love-centred value systems for how to respond to painful memories that are a consequence of large-scale social conflict. More specifically, I articulate a moral-philosophical interpretation of the sub-Saharan worldview of ubuntu, and consider what it entails for responding to such trauma. According to this ethic, one should strive to become a real person, which one can do insofar as one honours those capable of communal (or broadly loving) relationships, ones of identity and (...) solidarity with others. I compare the implications of this ubuntu ethic with those of prominent Christian principles such as the golden rule and the commandment to love one's neighbour, noting some similarities between them, but emphasizing differences. Salient topics addressed are reconciliation with others, reconciliation to one's situation, punishment and forgiveness. (shrink)

The appraisal model of love is object-centred and reasons-based: love is based on reasons derived from the valuable properties of the beloved. The bestowal model of love is subject-centred and non-reasons-based: love is not based on reasons derived from the valuable properties of the beloved, but rather originates in the lover. In this paper, I blend these disparate models, with the aim of preserving their virtues and overcoming their difficulties. I propose a subject-centred, reasons-based account: love arises within the lover, (...) but, within the lover, love is based on the lover’s motivating reasons.Le modèle évaluatif de l’amour est centré sur l’objet et basé sur les raisons : l’amour se fonde sur des raisons dérivées des propriétés appréciables de l’aimé. Le modèle attributif de l’amour est axé sur le sujet et non fondé sur les raisons : l’amour n’est pas basé sur des raisons dérivées des propriétés appréciables de l’aimé, mais provient plutôt de l’amant. Dans cet article, je mélange ces modèles opposés dans le but de préserver leurs vertus et de surmonter leurs difficultés. Je propose un compte rendu de l’amour basé sur des motifs et axé sur le sujet : l’amour éclot chez l’amant mais, en lui, il repose sur les raisons qui motivent l’amant. (shrink)

In this chapter I critique the contemporary Western ideal of unconditional maternal love. In the first section, I draw some preliminary distinctions and clarify the scope and limitations of my inquiry. In the second section, I argue that unloving mothers exist, and are not psychologically abnormal. In the third section, I go further and suggest that lack of maternal love can be fitting and even morally permissible. In the fourth section, I sketch some implications that lack of maternal love and (...) unrequited filial love have for the debate on reasons for love. I conclude with avenues for future research. (shrink)

Psychologists often characterize the infant’s attachment to her primary caregiver as love. Philosophical accounts of love, however, tend to speak against this possibility. Love is typically thought to require sophisticated cognitive capacities that infants do not possess. Nevertheless, there are important similarities between the infant-primary caregiver bond and mature love, and the former is commonly thought to play an important role in one’s capacity for the latter. In this work, I examine the relationship between the infant-primary caregiver bond and love. (...) I argue that while these very early attachments do not represent genuine love, a fuller understanding of them can inform extant philosophical views of love. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that there is an essential difference between social intelligence and creative intelligence, and that they have their foundation in human sexuality. For sex differences, we refer to the vast psychological, neurological, and cognitive science research where problem-solving, verbal skills, logical reasoning, and other topics are dealt with. Intelligence tests suggest that, on average, neither sex has more general intelligence than the other. Though people are equals in general intelligence, they are different in special forms of (...) intelligence such as social intelligence and creative intelligence, the former dominant in women, the latter dominant in men. The dominance of creative intelligence in men needs to be explained. The focus of our research is on the strictly anthropological aspects, and consequently our explanation for this fact is based on the male-female polarity in the mating systems. Sexual dimorphism does not only regard bodily differences but implies different forms of sex life. Sex researchers distinguish between two levels of sexual intercourse: procreative sex and recreational sex, and to these we would add “creative sex.” On all three levels, there is a behavioral difference between men and women, including the subjective experience. These differences are as well attributed to culture as genetically founded in nature. Sexual reproduction is only possible if females cooperate. Their biological inheritance makes females play a decisive role in mate choice. Recreational sex for the purpose of pleasure rather than reproduction results from female extended sexual activity. Creative sex, on the contrary, is a specifically male performance of sexuality. We identify creative sex with eroticism. Eroticism evolved through the transformation of the sexual drive into a mental state of expectation and fantasizing. Hence, sex differences (that nowadays are covered up by cultural egalitarianism) continue to be the evolutionary origin of the difference between social and creative intelligence. (shrink)

Theories concerning love in the West tend to be bound by the problematic constraints of patriarchal conceptions of what counts ontologically as “true” or “universal” love. It seems that feminist love studies must choose between shining light on these constraints or bursting through them. In this article I give a feminist analysis of Augustine of Hippo's theory of love through a philosophical, psychological, and theological reading of his complicated relationships with women. I argue that, given the “embodied” nature of his (...) many loves throughout his life, there is room in Augustine's account of love for a gendered reading of love that is unconstrained by patriarchal notions concerning which gender is capable of which kind of love. Augustine's theory of love is one that is not coldly universal but bodied and personal; indeed, although it is founded inside patriarchal historical constructions, it is capable of bursting out of these constraints and suggesting an egalitarian, nongendered view of love. (shrink)

In some cultures, people tend to believe that it is very important to be sexually exclusive in romantic relationships and idealise monogamous romantic relationships; but there is a tension in this ideal. Sex is generally considered to have value, and usually when we love someone we want to increase the amount of value in their lives, not restrict it without good reason. There is thus a call, not yet adequately responded to by philosophers, for greater clarity in the reasons §why (...) it might be reasonable for a couple to adopt a policy of sexual exclusivity. This article argues that we cannot justify the demand for sexual exclusivity by a need to protect the relationship from the risk of one partner ‘trading-up’, or by appealing to jealousy. However, sexual exclusivity can be intelligible if it supports the romantic relationship and helps to distinguish it from other relationships. Nonetheless, sexual exclusivity ought not to be the hegemonic social norm that it currently is in some societies because this diminishes the potential value it might have and gives the idea of faithfulness the wrong focus. (shrink)

What kind of mental phenomenon is romantic love? Many philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary folk treat it as an emotion. This chapter argues the category of emotion is inadequate to account for romantic love. It examines major emotion theories in philosophy and psychology and shows that they fail to illustrate that romantic love is an emotion. It considers the categories of basic emotions and emotion complexes, and demonstrates they too come short in accounting for romantic love. It assesses the roles of (...) culture and evolution in shaping the romantic love phenomenon and evaluates the ways in which the norms of rationality that are applied to standard emotions fail to apply to love. It considers the category of sentiments and argue that despite coming close, it does not adequately capture the nature of romantic love. Finally, the chapter makes a case for love being best characterized as a syndrome. (shrink)

Can we love and envy the same person at the same time? There is an overwhelming, cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary, consensus that love and envy are deeply incompatible. In this paper, I challenge this consensus, and focus in particular on the normative thesis that true love should be void of envy proper. I first propose an indirect argument. Because love and envy thrive in the same psychological conditions, it is not unlikely to feel envy toward the beloved. If we want ideals (...) that do not go against our psychological propensities, then we should not aim for a love that is wholly void of envy. I then propose a direct argument, in defense of two positive ideals. I argue that a certain kind of envy—emulative envy—can be beneficial to the loving relationship; in turn, a certain kind of love—wise love— which accepts the presence of envy, can be beneficial to our lives. Thus, that love and envy are so linked in our psychology is not something that we should merely tolerate, but wholeheartedly embrace. (shrink)

Taking as its starting-point Eva Illouz's sociological study Why Love Hurts, this paper develops a philosophical framework for understanding love and marriage, particularly in their contemporary manifestations. To begin with, premodern practices in love and marriage during the ancient Greek and Byzantine eras are outlined and contrasted with modern forms of love, whose overriding features are suffering and disappointment. To cast some light upon this great transformation in the fortunes of love the discussion takes an axiological and metaphysical turn by (...) placing the transformation within the context of the kind of relational morality and metaphysics proposed by many idealist philosophers. (shrink)

Lamy’s view coincides with much of the self-expansion model of love, but also suggests potential interesting directions for expanding it and integrating it with other ideas. These include the potential role of anticipated rapid self-development through falling in love itself being a self-expansion motivation, which although consistent with the model, has not been fully tested; and the potential role of stories/scripts of love, which although existing in the literature, have been minimally integrated with other lines of work and not at (...) all with the self-expansion model. (shrink)

The command to love one’s enemies (the ‘LE Principle’ as it shall henceforth be called) is one of the most striking and counterintuitive precepts that have arisen in the Christian tradition. However, it has received little philosophical scrutiny. This paper aims to fill that gap. I shall first answer two questions behind the two main concepts underlying the principle: a) what would count as an enemy; b) and what does it mean to love someone. Then, after clarifying the relevant concepts, (...) I shall try to examine the whether the LE Principle is consistent with two major ethical traditions in philosophy: utilitarianism and deontology. I shall conclude by affirming that despite the psychological barriers inherent in living by the LE Principle, it will be shown to be livable and morally praiseworthy. (shrink)

Desire, Love, and Identity: Philosophy of Sex and Love combines classical readings with contemporary articles exploring love and sex as defining features of our identity. This volume includes readings from a wide variety of perspectives, addressing topics such as sexual objectification, sexual identity, the ethics of sex work, love and sex online, friendship, polyamory, and BDSM. Alongside ancient, modern, and contemporary selections are sixteen original contributions written by emerging voices in the field. A wide-ranging, engaging, accessible introduction to the subject, (...) the text includes further readings and discussion questions to promote thought, discussion, and composition on subjects deeply intertwined with students' identities. (shrink)

Theories concerning love in the West tend to be bound by the problematic constraints of patriarchal conceptions of what counts ontologically as “true” or “universal” love. It seems that feminist love studies must choose between shining light on these constraints or bursting through them. In this article I give a feminist analysis of Augustine of Hippo's theory of love through a philosophical, psychological, and theological reading of his complicated relationships with women. I argue that, given the “embodied” nature of his (...) many loves throughout his life, there is room in Augustine's account of love for a gendered reading of love that is unconstrained by patriarchal notions concerning which gender is capable of which kind of love. Augustine's theory of love is one that is not coldly universal but bodied and personal; indeed, although it is founded inside patriarchal historical constructions, it is capable of bursting out of these constraints and suggesting an egalitarian, nongendered view of love. (shrink)

It is usually taken for granted that romantic relationships will be sexual, but it seems that there is no necessary reason for this, as it is possible for romantic relationships to not include sex. Indeed, sometimes sex is a part of a romantic relationship for only a relatively short period of it. Furthermore, scientific explanations of the link between sex and love don’t seem fully satisfying because they tell us only about the mechanics of sex, rather than its meaning or (...) phenomenology. Therefore, the question of why it is that the archetypal romantic relationship includes sex, calls for philosophical analysis, yet it has been under-explored in philosophy. In this paper, I attempt to remedy this. I argue that sex is important to romantic love because it partly constitutes, builds, and expresses four of the central goods of a romantic relationship: 1) pleasure, 2) union, 3) intimacy, and 4) vulnerability and care. Thus, sex can be, and often is, an important vehicle for romantic love, though it is not essential for it. (shrink)

This new book from Michael Hauskeller explores the currently marketed or projected sex/love products that exhibit some trait of so-called “posthumanistic” theory or design. These products are so designated because of their intention to fuse high technologies, including robotics and computing, with the human user. The author offers several arguments for why the theory behind these products leads to inconsistencies. The book uses a unique approach to philosophical argument by enmeshing the argument’s major points in a concomitant discussion of pieces (...) from world literature pertaining to posthumanism. The method is compelling, heightened by great world authorial insights that rarely find their way into philosophy and shores up some strong argumentative points. Yet some of the argument still needs more elucidating. (shrink)

In a recent article, Sven Nyholm argues that the use of biomedical enhancements in our romantic relationships would fail to secure the final value we attribute to love. On Nyholm's view, one thing we desire for its own sake is to be at the origin of the love others have for us. The satisfaction of this desire, he argues, is incompatible with the use of BE insofar as they are responsible for the attachment characteristic of love. In particular, the use (...) of BE in order to create and sustain the sort of attachment characteristic of love would be less desirable than the creation and sustainment of it by more ordinary means. If one needs such enhancements in order for one's love to be created or sustained, then one's love is of lesser quality than the love we want. In this reply, I raise doubts about the argument. (shrink)

Genesis 2:4–25, the story of the creation of man and woman, has received great attention in modern theology. The text indeed contains the most fundamental teaching of the Bible on the relation between man and woman, on sexuality, and on marriage. In this article, however, I attempt to highlight some of the theoretical/philosophical potential of the text. While I accept the main theological teaching of Genesis 2 about the equality of the sexes, I argue that the text goes beyond the (...) mere presentation of this theological doctrine, and provides a structure that allows for a dynamic interplay between the sexes. I contend, furthermore, that this structure and the ensuing dynamics can be interpreted as a subtle treatment of the issue of the same and the other. Finally, I argue that in this way the biblical text can provide a description of the experience of love and an account of human creativity. In other words, it accounts for the possibility of realizing our divine likeness, the divinity of the human. (shrink)

Do we love someone for their virtue, their beauty, or their moral or other qualities? Are love's characteristic desires altruistic or selfish? Are there duties of love? What do the sciences tell us about love? In this Very Short Introduction, Ronald de Sousa explores the different kinds of love, from affections to romantic love.

ABSTRACT:The paper begins by surveying a range of possible views on the metaphysics of romantic love, organizing them as responses to a single question. It then outlines a position, constructionist functionalism, according to which romantic love is characterized by a functional role that is at least partly constituted by social matters, although this role may be realized by states that are not socially constructed.

In this paper, I outline a Kantian moral psychology and use it to generate an analysis of the emotional attitude, love. At the heart of this moral psychology is a distinction between rational and subrational motives, and the thesis that interpersonal emotional attitudes like love are governed by a norm of respect. I show how an analysis of love that relies on this moral psychology—which I call “the incorporation conception” of love—tightly fits with paradigmatic cases of romantic love, reveals both (...) the continuities and differences between romantic and other forms of love, and also explicates our ambivalence about certain cases. Finally, I argue that this analysis, although it sees love as essentially a bundle of volitions, has the resources to respond to both David Velleman’s and Niko Kolodny’s critiques of volition-based analyses of love. Taken as a whole, the discussion provides an argument for both this analysis of love and the moral psychology it presupposes. (shrink)

A brief history, overview, and assessment of the thesis that beauty is the object of love.

The second of Gregory’s Dialogues, tells the life and miracles of Benedict of Nursia. In this paper, I will first introduce the Gregorian concepts of spiritual “stability” (stabilitas) and of the spiritual “ruler” (rector), along with the spiritual journey by which “stability” is recovered. Second, focusing on episodes that call attention to Benedict’s physical self-disposition (seated, standing, walking), I will read his life doubly. Under one reading, these episodes proffer moral exempla wherein Benedict’s physical self-possession outwardly manifests a spiritual ruler’s (...) proper response to attacks on him and on his community. Under another reading, the organization and emphases of these same episodes add up to an over-arching narration of Gregory’s theology of spiritual progress, all the way to fullness of love and the vision of God. Third, I will argue that the motif of steadfast love rather than of physical claustration is the deepest foundation of this journey and that the dialogue universalizes the “way of Benedict” to guide even non-monastic readers to the heavenly homeland. (shrink)

A unique and interdisciplinary collection in which scholars from Philosophy join those from Film Studies, English, and Comparative Literature to explore the nature and limits of love through in-depth reflection on particular works of literature and film.

One current line of argument against the legalization of same-sex marriage, advocated primarily by the New Natural Lawyers, is that marriage is a pre-political institution that has, as an essential element, a bodily union requirement. They argue that same-sex couples cannot realize bodily union in their sexual activities and thus cannot meet the structural requirements of marriage. Accordingly, they argue that the same-sex marriage debate must be framed as a debate about what marriage is, and not, as it was in (...) the anti-miscegenation precedents, about who can get married. I argue that their position, which promulgates a set of pernicious stereotypes about same-sex couples, is, first of all, internally inconsistent. According to their own metaphysical principles about bodily union, they provide no rational basis for the claim that same-sex couples cannot realize bodily union and thus that same-sex couples cannot be married. Second, I argue for a deflationary account of the significance of bodily union. While same-sex couples, like heterosexual couples, can realize bodily union, this sort of union has no moral significance and thus cannot be the factor that distinguishes marriages from other sorts of relationships. Finally, I suggest that they have no basis for their claims about the inferiority of same-sex relationships. (shrink)

Early in his development, love played the central role in Hegel’s attempts to overcome fragmentation and division both within society and within the self. This initial conception of love was decisively shaped by his early romantic contemporaries. Hegel soon came to see, however, that love so conceived threatens a sense of individuality intrinsic to modern identity and cannot be a basis for modern social cohesion. This form of love binds people so closely that it becomes oppressive. Hegel’s mature alternative to (...) this early view incorporates love into a more complex conception of modern society. Here, love finds expression and plays a central role in the family, but broader social cohesion is underwritten by a diverse range of affective attachments other than love. This strategy motivates a surprisingly subtle account of patriotism together with substantial emphasis on the role of religious institutions in shaping our political dispositions. (shrink)

Dietrich von Hildebrand’s treatise, The Nature of Love, is set in relation to the theological personalism of the Cappadocian fathers of the Church, and to my own earlier work done in this tradition. Several points of divergence are explored, especially points concerning von Hildebrand’s claim that love exists as a response to the beauty of the beloved person. God’s love for human beings does not always seem to fit the paradigm of value-response; His love seems rather to be creative of (...) beauty in us rather than to respond to already existing beauty. But at the same time, the deep kinship of von Hildebrand’s personalism with that of the Cappadocian fathers is stressed; he is at one with them in affirming the heart as distinct from the intellect, in affirming love as the supreme act of the person, and in affirming the place of beauty in the existence of persons. (shrink)

In this essay, I draw the discourses around bestiality/zoophilia into the realm of queer theory in order to point to a new form of animal advocacy, something that might be called, in shorthand, loving animals. My argument is quite simple: if all interdicts against bestiality depend on a firm notion of exactly what sex is (and they do), and if queer theory disrupts that firm foundation by arguing that sexuality is impossible to define beforehand and pervades many different kinds of (...) relations (and it does), then viewing bestiality in the frame of queer theory can give us another way to conceptualize the limitations of human exceptionalism. By focusing on transformative connections between humans and animals, a new form of animal advocacy emerges through the revolutionary power of love. (shrink)

The issue of same-sex marriage continues to be controversial in the United States. Opponents of same-sex marriage offer a variety of objections in defense of their position. One such objection is that legalizing same-sex marriage would promote a counterfeit good as a genuine good, since homosexuals are incapable of genuine, full erotic love. Proponents of ILO argue that homosexuals are incapable of genuine erotic love because all homosexual relationships lack genuine sexual and affective complementarity. Relying on the arguments of Gareth (...) Moore, I argue against ILO, claiming that it rests on an erroneous conception of desire. Once this conception of desire is corrected, the mythof “homosexual desire” is debunked and along with it the main argument in support of the claim that homosexuals are incapable of love. (shrink)