Philosophy of love.

Ophiolite said:

I find the diversity of words for love in Greek to be useful in distinguishing different types of love. To attempt to answer your questions I would need to know which one, or ones you were primarily thinking of.

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public hermit said:

My view is that love desires/seeks the good of the beloved. This idea has been around for a long time. I stumbled upon it as I was wondering and researching the question: What is essential to love? The idea being A is essential to B if and only if B could not exist without A.

What is essential to love? I think there's a tendency to think of certain emotions as being essential to love, e.g., affection, compassion, joy, etc. While love is often attended by these kinds of emotions, they are not essential since love can persist without them.

For example, I can say, without my fingers crossed behind my back, that I love my sister no matter the day or time, i.e., I always love my sister. That being said, I have experienced the whole range of emotions in my relation to her. I have experienced not just warm fuzzy feelings like affection and compassion, but also feelings like sadness, frustration, disappointment, etc. In those times when I am feeling frustration, for instance, I am not feeling those positive emotions often associated with love. I am feeling frustration. Does that mean I don't love her since those feelings associated with love are absent? It does if we assume those feelings are essential to love.

So what is it that remains the same in my love for her as I experience those changing emotions in relation to her? The one thing that remains constant is my desire for her good, for whatever is to her benefit. This, it seems to me, is essential to love. And I would say, if I don't desire the good of the other, I do not love them. Someone who abuses their mate, and then says they love them, are simply lying.

To put this in a Christian context, I think we all have an inherent desire for our own good. Of course, we might do poorly at seeking our own good. As Socrates observed, no one desires evil except out of ignorance. When we make choices that work against us, it is because what seemed good to us was not (it was a misapprehension of the good). But we have a natural desire for our own good, and part of maturity is learning the difference between what is good and what just seems good to us.

When Jesus says love your neighbor as yourself, we can understand that to mean we should extend our natural desire for our own good to others. Just as we naturally desire and seek our own good, we should desire and seek the good of others, as well.

And, what is good? It's whatever works in favor of flourishing life. We don't just desire existence, rocks merely exist. We desire meaningful existence, purpose, fulfilling relationships, etc. So, in general, love seeks what it is good. Love seeks to know what is good, share what is good, benefit what is good, and ultimately abide in goodness. Love seeks goodness.

I will add that loving others, seeking their good, is not manipulative or paternalistic. Love takes into account the dignity and agency of others. This is what can sometimes make love painful because we see our loved one making choices that will work against them, but they are intelligent creatures with agency and cannot simply be forced to do well. So we watch them, encourage them in a good direction, and hope they learn from their mistakes. But, yeah, that's my philosophy of love. Love seeks the good.

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public hermit said:

I think it depends on how we read "turn the other cheek." My take is that it's not a call to pacifism, per se, but to avoiding an endless cycle of retribution (think Hatfield and McCoys).

I'll try not to go on too much, but I'll share my reason for that reading, quickly. In Matthew, Jesus says, "You have heard it said an eye for an eye....But I say, if someone strikes you, turn the other cheek..." He specifically points to the retributive justice of an eye for an eye ethic, which too often devolves into a cycle of retribution that ends worse than it started. I think he's saying, stop the cycle before it happens, which is in the best interests of both parties.

It's also significant he doesn't say, If someone beats you within an inch of your life, go back the next day for more. He seems to be referencing something like a slap, which hurts the pride more than anything. So, it's in the interests of both to not let one's hurt pride devolve into something much more serious and destructive, which is loving in the sense I describe above, I think. That's my reading of it, at any rate.

It's also important he rejects an eye for an eye ethic, which is found in the Hebrew scriptures in several places.



Yes, I agree they do, and I didn't mean to say my philosophy of love is only relevant from a Christian point of view. I think it makes sense regardless of religion or lack thereof. I added the Christian bit because I wish more would see it in that way and act accordingly (myself sometimes too, to be fair).

I'm sorry to hear your experience trying to understand love growing up in a Christian environment didn't go well and that it hasn't fared much better in secular circles. Love is challenging, in my experience.

Even as I describe it, it's challenging because we often know what is needed, for ourselves or others, but it's not what we really want. This is a silly example, perhaps, but it pertains to my own love for myself. I brought a salad for lunch because I need to eat healthy, but I just had to talk myself out of going to get a burger because that's what I really want. Lol. Its not easy! That might seem a harmless enough instance, but that same tension between what is needed and what we really want can become a significant issue in more serious cases.

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