In the philosophy of love, the possibility of loving a non-human animal is rarely acknowledged and often explicitly denied. And yet, loving a non-human animal is very common. Evidently, then, there is something wrong with both “human-focused” accounts (e.g. Niko Kolodny, Troy Jollimore), which assume we can only love human beings, and “person-focused” accounts (e.g. David Velleman, Bennett Helm), which understand the nature of love in terms of its being essentially directed toward those with a capacity for normative self-reflection (i.e. (...) “persons”). Even aside from the experiences of those who love a non-human animal, on which I draw, we already have reason to be worried about these latter, “person-focused,” views, insofar as they deny the possibility of loving the various human beings who do not meet their criteria for “personhood,” including at least some human beings with “severe” or “profound” cognitive disabilities. With this in mind, I argue that what we need is the (broader) notion of a “somebody” as a distinctive kind of love-object. This is the notion of a kind of presence of which we are acutely aware when, for example, we look into another’s eyes and see that there is “somebody home.” With this presence, there is a possibility of “togetherness,” and I suggest that it is precisely in the realm of togetherness that the possibility of love arises; the kind of love we speak of when we speak of loving our friends, family and romantic partners, and also, I argue, our animal companions. (shrink)

Many recent critical discussions of anthropocentrism have focused on Bryan Norton's 'convergence hypothesis': the claim that both anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric ethics will recommend the same environmentally responsible behaviours and policies. I argue that even if we grant the truth of Norton's convergence hypothesis, there are still good reasons to worry about anthropocentric ethics. Ethics legitimately raises questions about how to feel, not just about which actions to take or which policies to adopt. From the point of view of norms for (...) feeling, anthropocentrism has very different practical implications from nonanthropocentrism; it undermines some of the common attitudes - love, respect, awe - that people think it appropriate to take toward the natural world. (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is often associated with a certain political mode of relating to another, where a person (“a Citizen”) is a locus of enforceable demands. I claim that Rousseau also articulated an affective mode of relating to another, where a person is seen as the locus of a kind of value (expressive of their being an independent point of view) that cannot be demanded. These are not isolated sides of a distinction, for the political mode constitutes a solution to certain (...) problems that the affective mode encounters in common social circumstances, allowing us to see how these modes might be distinct while the political nevertheless shapes the affective. I contrast this approach with that of some contemporary Kantian writers on affective phenomena (Sarah Buss on shame, and J. David Velleman on love) who, for reasons rooted in Kant’s moral philosophy, have modeled affective ways of relating to others on duty. I claim that Rousseau’s writing provides us with a way of capturing the correct insight of these accounts—that some of our emotional responses to others are ways of appreciating their personhood—while avoiding the characteristic implausibilities of their close association between the affective and the political. (shrink)

Defenders of two Rationality Views of love—the Qualities View and the Personhood View—have drawn on Iris Murdoch's philosophical writings to highlight a connection between love and a “realistic” perspective on the beloved. Murdoch does not inform the basic structure of these views—she is rather introduced as a supplement who shows that in love, we pay accurate, nuanced, unguarded, and unflinching attention to the other. In this paper, I contend that these authors have failed to see that Murdoch offers a distinct (...) view of love and is inappropriate to enlist as an ally. This is in large part because they have missed the full sense of what Murdoch means by connecting love and realism. I contend that for Murdoch, to love someone means seeing them in light of a realistic vision of what it means to be human; this includes an appreciation of the limits of freedom, the formative influence of personal history, and the nature and extent of our differences from one another. This helps us to see why Murdoch variously describes loving attention as realistic, compassionate, tolerant, and extremely difficult. It also sheds light on some important and familiar ways that we criticize one another's grounds for love. (shrink)

In recent discussions of the so-called “value of truth,” it is assumed that what is valuable in the relevant way is not the things that are true, but only various states and activities associated with those things: knowing them, investigating them, etc. I consider all the arguments I know of for this assumption, and argue that none provide good reason to accept it. By examining these arguments, we gain a better appreciation of what the value of the things that are (...) true would be, and why it would matter. We also encounter three indications that what is true really is valuable, each of which provides a promising starting point for a serious argument with that conclusion. (shrink)

I argue that an evaluational conception of love collides with the way we value love. That way allows that love has causes, but not reasons, and it recognizes and celebrates a love that refuses to justify itself. Love has unjustified selectivity, due to its arbitrary causes. That imposes a non-tradability norm. A love for reasons, rational love or evaluational love would be propositional, and it therefore allows that the people we love are tradable commodities. A moralized conception of love is (...) no less committed to treating those we love as tradable commodities; it is just that they are tradable moral commodities. An evaluative criterion of adequacy, I suggest, encourages the opposite view ? a non-rational and non-evaluational concept of love. Such a love can set up partial obligations, which may even demand that one sacrifice one's life. Only a love that has causes but not reasons can have the kind of value that we think love has, and thus it would only be rational to pursue and foster such a love. (shrink)

According to an attractive conception of love as attention, discussed by Iris Murdoch, one strives to see one’s beloved accurately and justly. A puzzle for understanding how to love another in this way emerges in cases where more accurate and just perception of the beloved only reveals his flaws and vices, and where the beloved, in awareness of this, strives to escape the gaze of others - including, or perhaps especially, of his loved ones. Though less attentive forms of love (...) may be able to render one’s continued love coherent and justifiable in these cases, they risk further alienating the beloved precisely because they are less attentive and because of the operations of the beloved’s shame. I argue that attentive love is well-suited to alleviate this problem of alienation, but that in order to do so, it must be supplemented with grace. I propose a conception of gracious love as an affectionate love for the qualities of human nature, distinguishing this from a love of humanity, and show how this complex emotion, in being responsive to the complexities of shame, is able to alleviate the problem of alienation. (shrink)

Argues for an interpretation of Iris Murdoch on which her account of moral reasons has Platonic roots, and on which she gives an ontological proof of the reality of the Good. This reading explains the structure of Sovereignty, how Murdoch's claims differ from a focus on "thick moral concepts," and how to find coherent arguments in her book.

Argues that there is no one it is irrational to love, that it is rational to act with partiality to those we love, and that the rationality of doing so is not conditional on love. It follows that Anscombe and Taurek are right: you are not required to save three instead of one, even when those you could save are perfect strangers.

This paper is about the similarity between the appreciation of a piece of art, such as a cherished music album, and the loving appreciation of a person whom one knows well. In philosophical discussion about the rationality of love, the Qualities View (QV) says that love can be justified by reference to the qualities of the beloved. I argue that the oft-rehearsed trading-up objection fails to undermine the QV. The problems typically identified by the objection arise from the idea that (...) love-worthy qualities could be coarse-grained, when in fact they must be fine-grained. The analogy with appreciation of aesthetic qualities helps to draw out this point. Once the fine-grained nature of love-worthy qualities is properly understood, it is clear that critics of the QV cannot rely on the trading-up objection to motivate its rejection. Moreover, the paper’s core argument helps to illuminate the persistently aesthetic nature of interpersonal affections. (shrink)

: In the last few years, there has been a revival of interest in the philosophy of Iris Murdoch. Despite this revival, however, certain aspects of Murdoch's views remain poorly understood, including her account of a concept that she famously described as ‘central’ to moral philosophy—i.e., love. In this paper, I argue that the concept of love is essential to any adequate understanding of Murdoch's work but that recent attempts by Kieran Setiya and David Velleman to assimilate Murdoch's account of (...) love to neo-Aristotelian or neo-Kantian theories of moral agency are misconceived. We will not understand what Murdoch is trying to do unless we understand her position as a radical alternative to such theories. Here, I present a reading of Murdoch's account of love as a form of Platonic eros directed toward two objects: the Good and the particular individual. It is in navigating the tension between these two objects that we find ourselves facing what Murdoch famously described as ‘the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real’. When properly understood, Murdoch's account of love opens up conceptual space for an alternative approach to some of the central questions in contemporary moral theory. (shrink)

On Kant's view, the feeling of respect is the mark of moral agency, and is peculiar to us, animals endowed with reason. Unlike any other feeling, respect originates in the contemplation of the moral law, that is, the idea of lawful activity. This idea works as a constraint on our deliberation by discounting the pretenses of our natural desires and demoting our selfish maxims. We experience its workings in the guise of respect. Respect shows that from the agent's subjective perspective, (...) morality is the experience of being bound and necessitated, but also of being free and emancipated from inclinations. (shrink)

On Kant's view, the feeling of respect is the mark of moral agency, and is peculiar to us, animals endowed with reason. Unlike any other feeling, respect originates in the contemplation of the moral law, that is, the idea of lawful activity. This idea works as a constraint on our deliberation by discounting the pretenses of our natural desires and demoting our selfish maxims. We experience its workings in the guise of respect. Respect shows that from the agent's subjective perspective, (...) morality is the experience of being bound and necessitated, but also of being free and emancipated from inclinations.Respect is a feeling that is generated by the agent's reflection on the nature of her own agency. It is not directed to anybody in particular, but to the very idea of rational agency, which is characterized by self-mastery and self-legislation. Contrary to animals, we do not derive our ends from nature, but we are capable of setting ends of our own, by exercising practical reason, that is, by engaging in the activity of law making. (shrink)

Is love essential to ethical life, or merely a supplement? In Kant's view, respect and love, as duties, are in tension with each other because love involves drawing closer and respect involves drawing away. By contrast, Irigaray says that love and respect do not conflict because love as passion must also involve distancing and we have a responsibility to love. I argue that love, understood as passion and based on respect, is essential to ethics.

Is love essential to ethical life, or merely a supplement? In Kant's view, respect and love, as duties, are in tension with each other because love involves drawing closer and respect involves drawing away. By contrast, Irigaray says that love and respect do not conflict because love as passion must also involve distancing and we have a responsibility to love. I argue that love, understood as passion and based on respect, is essential to ethics.

Is love essential to ethical life, or merely a supplement? In Kant’s view, respect and love, as duties, are in tension with each other because love involves drawing closer and respect involves drawing away. By contrast, Irigaray says that love and respect do not conflict because love as passion must also involve distancing and we have a responsibility to love. I argue that love, understood as passion and based on respect, is essential to ethics.

Through careful analysis of a specific example, Parfit’s ‘fission argument’ for the unimportance of personal identity, I argue that our judgements concerning imaginary scenarios are likely to be unreliable when the scenarios involve disruptions of certain contingent correlations. Parfit’s argument depends on our hypothesizing away a number of facts which play a central role in our understanding and employment of the very concept under investigation; as a result, it fails to establish what Parfit claims, namely, that identity is not what (...) matters. I argue that Parfit’s conclusion can be blocked without denying that he has presented an imaginary case where prudential concern would be rational in the absence of identity. My analysis depends on the recognition that the features that explain or justify a relation may be distinct from the features that underpin it as necessary conditions. (shrink)

Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedly central to our lives, in part because the special concern we have for our friends must have a place within a broader set of concerns, including moral concerns, and in part because our friends can help shape who (...) we are as persons. Given this centrality, important questions arise concerning the justification of friendship and, in this context, whether it is permissible to “trade up” when someone new comes along, as well as concerning the possibility of reconciling the demands of friendship with the demands of morality in cases in which the two seem to conflict. (shrink)

If you love someone, is it good to believe better of her than epistemic norms allow? The partiality view says that it is: love, on this view, issues norms of belief that clash with epistemic norms. The partiality view is supposedly supported by an analogy between beliefs and actions, by the phenomenology of love, and by the idea that love commits us to the loved one’s good character. I argue that the partiality view is false, and defend what I call (...) the epistemic view. On the epistemic view, love also issues norms of belief. But these say simply that you should adhere to epistemic norms in forming and maintaining beliefs about loved ones. I offer two arguments for the epistemic view. The first appeals to the emotional responses of love, which, when sensitive to what the loved one is really like, can make love great and be morally transformative. The second is a new argument for why caring for a loved one requires true beliefs about him. We see that there may be some boundaries, such as stuffy traditions, that love is right to defy, but that epistemic boundaries are not among them. (shrink)

Abstract In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant refers to the pleasure that we feel when judging that an object is beautiful as the pleasure of "mere reflection". Yet Kant never makes explicit what exactly is the relationship between the activity of "mere reflection" and the feeling of pleasure. I discuss several contemporary accounts of the pleasure of taste and argue that none of them is fully accurate, since, in each case, they leave open the possibility that one (...) can reflect without having a feeling of pleasure, and hence allow a possible skepticism of taste. I then present my own account, which can better explain why Kant thinks that when one reflects one must also have a feeling of pleasure. My view, which emphasizes the role of attention in Kant, depicts well what we do when we judge something to be beautiful. It can also suggest a way to explain the relation between judgments of taste and moral feeling, and begin to show how the faculty of feeling fills a gap in the system of our cognitive faculties. (shrink)

It is not uncommon for philosophers to name disinterestedness, or some like feature, as an essential characteristic of love. Such theorists claim that in genuine love, one’s concern for her beloved must be non-instrumental, non-egocentric, or even selfless. These views prompt the question, “What, if any, positive role might self-interestedness play in genuine love?” In this paper, I argue that attachment, an attitude marked primarily by self-focused emotions and emotional predispositions, helps constitute the meaning and import of at least some (...) kinds of adult reciprocal love. In this way, attachment represents a type of self-interestedness that not only contributes positively to such relationships but is also essential to them. (shrink)

In Chapter 9 of The Practice of Moral Judgment and her later article Making Room for Character, Barbara Herman offers a distinctive response to a familiar set of concerns with the room left for character and personal relationships in Kantian ethics. She begins by acknowledging the shortcomings of her previous response on this issue and by distancing herself from a standard kind of indirect argument for the importance of personal commitments according to which these have moral weight in virtue of (...) their connection with the psychological health of individuals. Agreeing with an imagined critic’s concern that Kantian ethics must do more than merely tolerate motives of connection, she proposes that we adopt a deliberative field account of practical deliberation incorporating a developmental model of desire formation. I argue that, while this is a subtle and interesting account of desire development, it is not one that will satisfy the critic and should not satisfy the Kantian. I claim that the Kantian cannot forgo instrumental arguments for the importance of personal relationships and commitments and that they should not be shy of endorsing these arguments. (shrink)

My title refers to three accounts of interpersonal love: the rationalist account that Terence Irwin ascribes to Plato; the anti-rationalist but strikingly similar account that Harry Frankfurt endorses in his own voice; and the ‘ekstatic’ account that I – following the lead of Martha Nussbaum – find in Plato's Phaedrus. My claim is that the ekstatic account points to important features of interpersonal love to which the other accounts fail to do justice, especially reciprocity and a regulative ideal of equality.

This article offers a new account of the moral substance of shame. Through careful reflection on the motives and intentional structure of shame, I defend the claim that shame is an egocentric and morally blind emotion. I argue that shame is rooted in our desire for social affirmation and constituted by our ability to sense how we appear to others. What makes shame egocentric is that in shame we are essentially concerned about our own social worth and pained by the (...) perception of our self as socially worthless. In itself, shame entails no morally pertinent concern about others or understanding of what is morally significant. I contrast shame with the possibility of relating to others—and to oneself—with love and care. Indeed, I propose that love is essential for moral understanding and motivation. The argument of the article unfolds through critical appraisals of the main strategies for defending the moral value of shame. First, against the claim that shame entails respect for others, I argue that shame's sensitivity to the opinions of others is motivated by egocentric self-concern. Second, against the view that shame over failures to live up to moral values is morally valuable, I argue that regardless of whether the values guiding our shame are moral or not, the perspective of shame is oblivious to their moral meaning. Third, against the claim that shame is crucial for self-understanding, I argue that the desire for affirmation that drives shame is a powerful source of self-deception. (shrink)

Many Christian theorists notice that love should contain, in additional to benevolence, some kind of interpersonal or unitive component. The difficulty comes in trying to provide an account of this unitive component that is sufficiently interpersonal in other-love and yet is also compatible with self-love. Eleonore Stump is one of the few Christian theorists who directly addresses this issue. Building upon the work of Thomas Aquinas, Stump argues that love is constituted by two desires: the desire for an individual’s good (...) and the desire to be united to that individual. Stump further develops the desire for union within this Thomistic understanding of love, and she maintains that her developed account not only captures the robustly interpersonal nature of one’s love of another but is also compatible with the love of oneself. Unfortunately, Stump’s way of making sense of this latter claim introduces a significant inconsistency in her analyses of the desire for union in self-love and other-love. Nevertheless, the most important features of Stump’s Neo-Thomistic account are salvageable. For there is a way of understanding love’s desire for union that emerges out of Thomas’s views on love and is compatible with the desiderata suggested by Stump, only does not have the same difficulties that beset Stump’s account. What is offered, then, is a modification of Stump’s account that might better serve her purposes. The resulting view of love, however, is one not only relevant to Stump. Rather, the view that emerges is a broadly Thomistic conception of love that is plausible in its own right and captures a certain biblical emphasis on the relational or interpersonal nature of love. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 25-37, January 2022.

One can feel guilty without thinking that one actually is guilty of moral wrongdoing. For example, one can feel guilty about eating an ice cream or skipping aerobics, even if one doesn't take a moralistic view of self-indulgence. And one can feel guilty about things that aren't one's doing at all, as in the case of survivor's guilt about being spared some catastrophe suffered by others. Guilt without perceived wrongdoing may of course be irrational, but I think it is sometimes (...) rational, and I want to explore how it can be. (shrink)

“How can I, who am thinking about the entire, centerless universe, be anything so specific as this: this measly creature existing in a tiny morsel of space and time?” This metaphysically self-deprecating question, posed by Thomas Nagel, holds an insight into the nature of personhood and the ordinary ways we value it, in others and in ourselves. I articulate that insight and apply it to the phenomena of friendship, companionship, sexuality, solitude, and love. Although love comes in many forms, I (...) say, it always involves a sense of wonder at a finite creature thinking infinite thoughts. (shrink)

Abstract I argue that meaning in life is importantly influenced by bioloical ties. More specifically, I maintain that knowing one's relatives and especially one's parents provides a kind of self-knowledge that is of irreplaceable value in the life-task of identity formation. These claims lead me to the conclusion that it is immoral to create children with the intention that they be alienated from their bioloical relatives?for example, by donor conception.

My paper is on the republican version of patriotism and its justification, as developed most systematically by Philip Pettit and Maurizio Viroli. The essence of the justification is as follows: patriotism is to be viewed as valuable insofar as it is an indispensable instrument for the upholding of the central republican ideal, namely freedom understood as non-domination. My primary aim is to evaluate the normative force of this justification. In the first section, I introduce minimal descriptive definitions of the concepts (...) of patriotism and the patria. Second, I reconstruct the republican patria-ideal to which patriotism is linked to. In the third section, I reconstruct the republican justification of patriotism. Finally, I ask what we justify when we justify republican patriotism. Two views are prevalent in this regard. According to the first, republican patriotic motivation, similarly to its justification, ought to be instrumental itself too. I argue that this view is untenable, since it is in tension with the minimal definition of patriotism. The conclusion is that the other view – according to which the patriotic motivation ought to be of intrinsic character – possesses greater normative force. (shrink)

Lovers often disagree. We may reject the specific goals our loved ones pursue or the broad values they hold. Some philosophers suggest that such evaluative conflict makes romantic love in its ideal form deficient. I argue that this is mistaken. On the contrary, our ideal of love holds that we can love people for ‘who they are’ (as we say), even as we profoundly disagree with them. My argument draws on intuitive cases from screwball comedy about love amid conflict, love (...) across political party lines, as well as ‘forbidden’ love across religions and cultures. At a deeper level, I sketch an ideal of love I call intimate independence and argue that this ideal is (i) fully compatible with any evaluative conflict, (ii) embedded in our ordinary attitudes towards mature love between equals, and (iii) an ideal worth achieving. As long as intimate independence is a compelling ideal, deep conflict will not seem like an obstacle to true love. The ideal reminds us that love can bring together people with radically different points of view, and that to insist on shared ends or values is thus to miss a part of the meaning and power of love. (shrink)

The current rise of populism is often associated with affects. However, the exact relationship between populism and affects is unclear. This article addresses the question of what is distinctive about populist (appeals to) affects. It does so against the backdrop of a Laclauian conception of populism as a political logic that appeals to a morally laden frontier between two homogenous groups, ‘the people’ and ‘those in power’, in order to establish a new hegemonic order. I argue that it is distinctive (...) of populism that it breaks with the dominating feeling rules by overtly appealing to affects and reclaiming them for the realm of the political. The article explores three groups of affective phenomena: discontent, anger, and fear; empathetic, sympathetic, group-based, and shared emotions; and collective passions of enthusiasm and love. It shows how an appeal to these affects relates to the political logic of populism itself by contributing to the concretization, collectivization, and unification of affects. (shrink)

What kind of affective phenomenon is religious zeal and how does it relate to other affective phenomena, such as moral anger, hatred, and love? In this paper, I argue that religious zeal can be both, and be presented and interpreted as both, a love-like passion and an anger-like emotion. As a passion, religious zeal consists of the loving devotion to a transcendent religious object or idea such as God. It is a relatively enduring attachment that is constitutive of who the (...) zealot is, and it expresses itself in a distinctive set of mental and behavioral dispositions. Most importantly, it motivates uncompromising actions and involves intense, hot, and deep emotions. As an anger-like emotion, religious zeal is an occurrent affective state of mind that is intentionally directed towards a specific object, characteristically a person or group of persons. It condemns the violation of a religious norm that is taken to be of absolute validity and general applicability. It motivates an action aiming at vengeance and retaliation, and it involves intense and hot feelings of hostility towards its object. I argue that rather than reducing the complex phenomenon of religious zeal to one of these two manifestations, we should reflect upon the question of how the two distinct conceptualizations relate to each other. (shrink)

In Simon Wiesenthal's book The Sunflower: On the Possibility and Limits of Forgiveness, Wiesenthal tells the story of a dying German soldier who was guilty of horrendous evil against Jewish men, women, and children, but who desperately wanted forgiveness from and reconciliation with at least one Jew before his death. Wiesenthal, then a prisoner in a camp, was brought to hear the German soldier's story and his pleas for forgiveness. As Wiesenthal understands his own reaction to the German soldier, he (...) did not grant the dying soldier the forgiveness the man longed for. In The Sunflower, Wiesenthal presents reflections on this story by numerous thinkers. Their responses are noteworthy for the highly divergent intuitions they express. In this paper, I consider the conflicting views about forgiveness on the part of the respondents in The Sunflower.I argue that those respondents who are convinced that forgiveness should be denied the dying German soldier are mistaken. Nonetheless, I also argue in support of the attitude that rejects reconciliation with the dying German soldier. I try to show that, in some cases of grave evil, repentance and making amends are not sufficient for the removal of guilt, and that reconciliation may be morally impermissible, whatever the case as regards forgiveness. (shrink)

Can our beloved cats and dogs love us back? This chapter aims to find a satisfactory theory of love that substantiates the claim that they can. It begins by reconstructing and critically evaluating recent attempts by scientists to show that dogs can love humans back. Although these attempts are argued to be unsuccessful, it is further argued that they illuminate the need for an adequate theory of love and offer us some plausible ideas about love that direct us to two (...) recent philosophical theories of love that support the idea that dogs can love humans back. These two theories are discussed in detail before it is argued that dogs, but not cats, seem capable of loving humans under these theories. These theory-based defenses of the belief that dogs can love humans back are then criticized on the grounds that the theories they use are unsatisfactory because they fail to capture three central truths about love. This leads to a third theory of love that, after some friendly amendments, is argued to be a tentatively adequate theory that provisionally vindicates the claim that dogs, but not cats, can love humans back. (shrink)

Consider this propositional function which includes the dyadic predicate “loves”: “X does not love Y unless Y loves X” (or “if Y does not love X”). This function may be treated in four ways. (1) If universally quantified, it states a (purported) conceptual truth about “love” or the nature or essence of love. Love is necessarily reciprocal. (2) If universally quantified, it may alternatively be a nomological generalization stating an empirical or factual truth about human nature, i.e., about a pattern (...) of reciprocity that occurs among people who are independently identified as lovers. (3) If instantiated with constants, it is an empirical proposition about the attitudes or behaviors of particular individuals (a, b, c). Finally, (4) the function may be treated axiologically; it expresses a normative judgment about what love ought to be or what lovers ought to feel or do. Other propositional functions may be constructed for the constancy, exclusivity, and benevolence of love. This essay investigates the implications of these understandings of the function and how they are logically related to each other. (shrink)

Are there normative reasons for love? More specifically, is it possible to rationally justify love? Or can we at best provide explanations for why we love? In Part I of this entry, I discuss the nature of love, theories of emotion, and what it takes to justify an attitude. In Part II, I provide an overview of the various positions one might take on the rational justification of love. I focus on the debate between defenders of the no-reasons view and (...) the reasons view. Along the way, I discuss the significance of falling in love, the problem of trading up, and the notion of irreplaceability. I evaluate attempts to justify love based on the intrinsic and the relational properties of the beloved. (shrink)

An oft-rehearsed objection to the claim that an intention can give one reasons is that if an intention could give us reasons that would allow an agent to bootstrap herself into having a reason where she previously lacked one. Such bootstrapping is utterly implausible. So, intentions to φ cannot be reasons to φ. Call this the bootstrapping objection against intentions being reasons. This essay considers four separate interpretations of this argument and finds they all fail to establish that non-akratic, nonevil, (...) and deliberatively sound intentions cannot be reasons. The first argument is the argument from evil intentions, the second is the argument from akratic intentions, the third is the argument from errors in deliberation, and the last is what I call the ‘wizardry’ argument. This ‘argument’, put forward most clearly by John Broome, claims that intentions are so insubstantial that were they on their own reasons for action, that would amount to creating something out of nothing and that is impossible. The essay argues that the claim that intentions are insubstantial is too strong a premise to put forward without argument. For there are other attitudes that are on their own sufficient to generate reasons, such as loving attitudes. The essay then argues that the bootstrapping objection’s status as dogma in the philosophy of action has led to insufficient attention being paid to the entirely reasonable question of whether intentions are sufficiently like other reason-giving attitudes, such as loving and valuing. It may turn out that, just as loving someone can give the loving person a reason to act in a certain, so too can intending to do something give someone a reason to act in a certain way, but we cannot effectively engage this question without first giving up our commitment to the bootstrapping objection as a central “insight” in philosophy of action. The essay concludes by proposing two research questions that are opened up by the abandonment of the bootstrapping objection as dogma, and proposes that we turn our philosophical attentions to those questions. (shrink)

Recently, the idea that human beings may be totally egoistic has resurfaced in philosophical and psychological discussions. But many of the arguments for that conclusion are conceptually flawed. Psychologists are making a conceptual error when they think of the desire to avoid guilt as egoistic; and the same is true of the common view that the desire to avoid others’ disapproval is also egoistic. Sober and Wilson argue against this latter idea on the grounds that such a desire is relational, (...) but a deeper reason stems from the fact that it places such intrinsic importance on other human beings. And other basic human desires, like the desire for love, the desire for revenge, the impulse to imitate others, and the desire to belong, also treat others as important and on those grounds cannot count as egoistic. Another line of recent argument for egoism stems from the work of Robert Cialdini et al., and claims that the way we identify and feel one with those other people we empathize with and seek to help shows us to be thinking of those others as part of or identical with ourselves. This is supposed to show that our putative altruism is basically self-centered and egoistic, but Cialdini arguably misinterprets what we mean when we speak of feeling one with someone else, and the phenomena he mentions don’t therefore stand in favor of psychological egoism. More generally, many of the positive and negative emotions we feel toward others are best interpreted as non-egoistic, and there is no reason at this point to doubt that humans are capable of altruistic motivation. (shrink)

A recurring theme within Robert Solomon’s writings concerns the central importance of the passions. His high regard for the passions even motivates him to challenge the traditional understanding of virtue. Solomon rejects the Aristotelian view that virtues are dispositions of character developed according to rational principles rather than passions. He offers the counter-example of erotic love as a passion that is not based upon rationality, which he argues ought to be viewed as a virtue. This paper argues that while Solomon’s (...) account of love can accommodate the traditional Aristotelian motivations for rejecting passions as virtues, there are compelling reasons for preferring the Aristotelian account of virtue. Ultimately, Solomon’s argument relies upon an implausible view of the passions and offers inferior resources for examining love in terms of virtue. (shrink)

Offers a conception of love and why it is meaningful.

Despite signifying a negative self-appraisal, shame has traditionally been thought by philosophers to entail the presence of self-respect in the individual. On this account, shame is occasioned by one’s failure to live up to certain self-standards—in displaying less worth than one thought one had—and this moves one to hide or otherwise inhibit oneself in an effort to protect one’s self-worth. In this paper, I argue against the notion that only self-respecting individuals can experience shame. Contrary to the idea that shame (...) presupposes the presence of self-worth, I contend that shame merely requires that one have the desire, rather than the expectation, that one is worthy. Furthermore, I suggest that the desire for concealment fueled by shame is not an inherently self-protective mechanism but can alternatively be understood as an effort to safeguard one’s connection with others. (shrink)

Caring is a complex attitude. At first look, it appears very complex: it seems to involve a wide range of emotional and other dispositions, all focused on the object cared about. What ties these dispositions together, so that they jointly comprise a single attitude? I offer a theory of caring, the Attentional Theory, that answers this question. According to the Attentional Theory, caring consists of just two, logically distinct dispositions: a disposition to attend to an object and hence to considerations (...) pertaining to it, and a disposition to respond to the real or apparent reasons those considerations provide. The emotional and other attitudes involved in caring are instantiations of these two, more general dispositions; and these apparently diverse emotional and other dispositions are connected because the real or apparent reasons to which they are dispositions to respond are connected, in structured “packages.” The fact that the reasons to which a caring agent responds are connected in this way provides the basis for an error theory, explaining why it appears as if the emotions involved in caring are governed by rational coherence requirements. (shrink)

I elucidate a frame of mind that David Wiggins callsrespect for nature, which he understands as a special attitude toward asui generisobject, Natureas such. A person with this frame of mind takes nature to impose defeasible limits on her action, so that there are some courses of action that she will refuse even to entertain, except in circumstances of dire exigency. I defend the reasonableness of respect for nature, drawing upon considerations in Wiggins's work. But I argue that the natural (...) systems that comprise the proper object of respect for nature are notsui generis; they are kindred, for practical reason, to complex social, political, and economic systems that we inhabit. I argue that it is reasonable to treat all such valuable systems with a similar respect, and that this respect is continuous with the respect we owe to persons and to valuable objects more generally. In all of these cases, respect consists, in part, in a disposition to defeasible constraints on practical deliberation. (shrink)

The partiality we display, in so far as we form and sustain personal attachments, is not normatively fundamental. It is a by-product of the deference and responsiveness that are essential to our engagement with the world. We cannot form and sustain valuable personal relationships without seeing ourselves as answerable to the other participants in those relationships. And we cannot develop and sustain valuable projects without responding to the constraints imposed on our activities by the nature and requirements of those projects (...) themselves. More generally, we cannot engage with the world without responding differentially—or displaying partiality—with respect to the objects of our engagement. Partiality is thus a by-product of engagement. We cannot engage with the world at all without exhibiting forms of partiality. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the complex relations between friendship and blame. In the first part, I show that to be friends is to have certain evaluative, emotional and behavioral dispositions toward each other, and distinguish between two kinds of norms of friendship, namely friendship-based obligations and friendship-constituting rules. Friendship-based obligations tag actions of friends as obligatory, permissible or wrong, whereas friendship-constituting rules specify conditions that, if met, make it so that two persons stand in (...) a particular type of relationship defined by various friendship-based obligations. I argue that whereas friendship-based obligations apply to actions under direct voluntary control, friendship-constituting rules apply to emotional and evaluative attitudes. The second part develops an account of friendship blame by comparing Scanlon’s account of blame with Wallace’s Strawsonian account of blame. I demonstrate that Scanlon’s account picks out responses that become appropriate when friends’ attitudes are not in agreement with friendship-constituting rules, whereas Wallace’s account picks out responses that become appropriate when friends violate friendship-based obligations. Arguing that the responses picked out by Scanlon’s account do not amount to blame, I show that, when combined, the views give an illuminating picture of possible reactions to friends who fall short of the standards of friendship. (shrink)

Current analytical philosophies of romantic love tend to identify the essence of such love with one specific element, such as concern for the beloved person, valuing the beloved person or the union between the lovers. This paper will deal with different forms of the union theory of love which takes love to be the physical, psychic or ontological union of two persons. Prima facie, this theory might appear to be implausible because it has several contra-intuitive implications, and yet, I submit, (...) it is more coherent and attractive than it seems to be. I shall distinguish three specific models and thereby offer a differentiated account of the union theory which has not previously been provided in the literature. I will claim that two of these models should be rejected. I shall then defend the third model against certain possible objections ; but nevertheless, I shall conclude by showing how this model, too, faces further significant objections which ultimately expose the limits of the union theory of love. In conclusion, I will sketch the outlines of a non-reductive cluster theory of love. (shrink)