Philosophy of Love

1. Introduction

The philosophical treatment of love transcends a variety of
sub-disciplines including epistemology, metaphysics, religion, human
nature, politics and ethics. Often statements or arguments concerning
love, its nature and role in human life for example, connect to one or
all the central theories of philosophy, and is often compared with, or
examined in the context of, the philosophies of sex and gender. The
task of a philosophy of love is to present the appropriate issues in a
cogent manner, drawing on relevant theories of human nature, desire,
ethics, and so on. This brief introduction examines the nature of love
and some of the ethical and political ramifications.
2. The Nature of Love: Eros, Philia, and Agape

The philosophical discussion regarding love logically begins with
questions concerning its nature. This implies that love has a
'nature', a proposition that some may oppose arguing that love is
conceptually irrational, in the sense that it cannot be described in
rational or meaningful propositions. For such critics, who are
presenting a metaphysical and epistemological argument, love may be an
ejection of emotions that defy rational examination; on the other
hand, some languages, such as Papuan do not even admit the concept,
which negates the possibility of a philosophical examination. In
English, the word 'love', which is derived from Germanic forms of the
Sanskrit lubh (desire), is broadly defined and hence imprecise, which
generates first order problems of definition and meaning, which are
resolved to some extent by the reference to the Greek terms, eros,
philia, and agape.
a. Eros

The term eros (Greek erasthai) is used to refer to that part of love
constituting a passionate, intense desire for something, it is often
referred to as a sexual desire, hence the modern notion of 'erotic'
(Greek erotikos). In Plato's writings however, eros is held to be a
common desire that seeks transcendental beauty-the particular beauty
of an individual reminds us of true beauty that exists in the world of
Forms or Ideas (Phaedrus 249E: "he who loves the beautiful is called a
lover because he partakes of it." Trans. Jowett). The
Platonic-Socratic position maintains that the love we generate for
beauty on this earth can never be truly satisfied until we die; but in
the meantime we should aspire beyond the particular stimulating image
in front of us to the contemplation of beauty in itself.

The implication of the Platonic theory of eros is that ideal beauty,
which is reflected in the particular images of beauty we find, becomes
interchangeable across people and things, ideas, and art: to love is
to love the Platonic form of beauty-not a particular individual, but
the element they posses of true (Ideal) beauty. Reciprocity is not
necessary to Plato's view of love, for the desire is for the object
(of Beauty), than for, say, the company of another and shared values
and pursuits.

Many in the Platonic vein of philosophy hold that love is an
intrinsically higher value than appetitive or physical desire.
Physical desire, they note, is held in common with the animal kingdom
and hence of a lower order of reaction and stimulus than a rationally
induced love, i.e., a love produced by rational discourse and
exploration of ideas, which in turn defines the pursuit of Ideal
beauty. Accordingly, the physical love of an object, an idea, or a
person in itself is not be a proper form of love, love being a
reflection of that part of the object, idea, or person, that partakes
in Ideal beauty.
b. Philia

In contrast to the desiring and passionate yearning of eros, philia
entails a fondness and appreciation of the other. For the Greeks, the
term philia incorporated not just friendship, but also loyalties to
family and polis-one's political community, job, or discipline. Philia
for another may be motivated, as Aristotle explains in the Nicomachean
Ethics, Book VIII, for the agent's sake or for the other's own sake.
The motivational distinctions are derived from love for another
because the friendship is wholly useful as in the case of business
contacts, or because their character and values are pleasing (with the
implication that if those attractive habits change, so too does the
friendship), or for the other in who they are in themselves,
regardless of one's interests in the matter. The English concept of
friendship roughly captures Aristotle's notion of philia, as he
writes: "things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing
them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done"
(Rhetoric, II. 4, trans. Rhys Roberts).

Aristotle elaborates on the kinds of things we seek in proper
friendship, suggesting that the proper basis for philia is objective:
those who share our dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what
we do, who are temperate, and just, who admire us appropriately as we
admire them, and so on. Philia could not emanate from those who are
quarrelsome, gossips, aggressive in manner and personality, who are
unjust, and so on. The best characters, it follows, may produce the
best kind of friendship and hence love: indeed, how to be a good
character worthy of philia is the theme of the Nicomachaen Ethics. The
most rational man is he who would be the happiest, and he, therefore,
who is capable of the best form of friendship, which between two "who
are good, and alike in virtue" is rare (NE, VIII.4 trans. Ross). We
can surmise that love between such equals-Aristotle's rational and
happy men-would be perfect, with circles of diminishing quality for
those who are morally removed from the best. He characterizes such
love as "a sort of excess of feeling". (NE, VIII.6)

Friendships of a lesser quality may also be based on the pleasure or
utility that is derived from another's company. A business friendship
is based on utility–on mutual reciprocity of similar business
interests; once the business is at an end, then the friendship
dissolves. Similarly with those friendships based on the pleasure that
is derived from the other's company, which is not a pleasure enjoyed
for who the other person is in himself, but in the flow of pleasure
from his actions or humour.

The first condition for the highest form Aristotelian love is that a
man loves himself. Without an egoistic basis, he cannot extend
sympathy and affection to others (NE, IX.8). Such self-love is not
hedonistic, or glorified, depending on the pursuit of immediate
pleasures or the adulation of the crowd, it is instead a reflection of
his pursuit of the noble and virtuous, which culminate in the pursuit
of the reflective life. Friendship with others is required "since his
purpose is to contemplate worthy actionsÖto live pleasantlyÖsharing in
discussion and thought" as is appropriate for the virtuous man and his
friend (NE, IX.9). The morally virtuous man deserves in turn the love
of those below him; he is not obliged to give an equal love in return,
which implies that the Aristotelian concept of love is elitist or
perfectionist: "In all friendships implying inequality the love also
should be proportional, i.e. the better should be more loved than he
loves." (NE, VIII, 7,). Reciprocity, although not necessarily equal,
is a condition of Aristotelian love and friendship, although parental
love can involve a one-sided fondness.
c. Agape

Agape refers to the paternal love of God for man and for man for God
but is extended to include a brotherly love for all humanity. (The
Hebrew ahev has a slightly wider semantic range than agape). Agape
arguably draws on elements from both eros and philia in that it seeks
a perfect kind of love that is at once a fondness, a transcending of
the particular, and a passion without the necessity of reciprocity.
The concept is expanded on in the Judaic-Christian tradition of loving
God: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5) and loving
"thy neighbour as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18). The love of God requires
absolute devotion that is reminiscent of Plato's love of Beauty (and
Christian translators of Plato such as St Augustine employed the
connections), which involves an erotic passion, awe, and desire that
transcends earthly cares and obstacles. Aquinas, on the other hand,
picked up on the Aristotelian theories of friendship and love to
proclaim God as the most rational being and hence the most deserving
of one's love, respect, and considerations.

The universalist command to "love thy neighbor as thyself" refers the
subject to those surrounding him, whom he should love unilaterally if
necessary. The command employs the logic of mutual reciprocity, and
hints at an Aristotelian basis that the subject should love himself in
some appropriate manner: for awkward results would ensue if he loved
himself in a particularly inappropriate, perverted manner!
(Philosophers can debate the nature of 'self-love' implied in
this-from the Aristotelian notion that self-love is necessary for any
kind of inter-personal love, to the condemnation of egoism and the
impoverished examples that pride and self-glorification from which to
base one's love of another. St Augustine relinquishes the debate–he
claims that no command is needed for a man to love himself (De bono
viduitatis, xxi.) Analogous to the logic of "it is better to give than
to receive", the universalism of agape requires an initial invocation
from someone: in a reversal of the Aristotelian position, the onus for
the Christian is on the morally superior to extend love to others.
Nonetheless, the command also entails an egalitarian love-hence the
Christian code to "love thy enemies" (Matthew 5:44-45). Such love
transcends any perfectionist or aristocratic notions that some are (or
should be) more loveable than others. Agape finds echoes in the ethics
of Kant and Kierkegaard, who assert the moral importance of giving
impartial respect or love to another person qua human being in the
abstract.

However, loving one's neighbor impartially (James 2:9) invokes serious
ethical concerns, especially if the neighbor ostensibly does not
warrant love. Debate thus begins on what elements of a neighbor's
conduct should be included in agape, and which should be excluded.
Early Christians asked whether the principle applied only to disciples
of Christ or to all. The impartialists won the debate asserting that
the neighbor's humanity provides the primary condition of being loved;
nonetheless his actions may require a second order of criticisms, for
the logic of brotherly love implies that it is a moral improvement on
brotherly hate. For metaphysical dualists, loving the soul rather than
the neighbor's body or deeds provides a useful escape clause-or in
turn the justification for penalizing the other's body for sin and
moral transgressions, while releasing the proper object of love-the
soul-from its secular torments. For Christian pacifists, "turning the
other cheek" to aggression and violence implies a hope that the
aggressor will eventually learn to comprehend the higher values of
peace, forgiveness, and a love for humanity.

The universalism of agape runs counter to the partialism of Aristotle
and poses a variety of ethical implications. Aquinas admits a
partialism in love towards those we are related while maintaining that
we should be charitable to all, whereas others such as Kierkegaard
insist on impartiality. Recently, LaFallotte has noted that to love
those one is partial towards is not necessarily a negation of the
impartiality principle, for impartialism could admit loving those
closer to one as an impartial principle, and, employing Aristotle's
conception of self-love, iterates that loving others requires an
intimacy that can only be gained from being partially intimate
("Personal Relations", Blackwell Companion to Ethics). Others would
claim that the concept of universal love, of loving all equally, is
not only impracticable, but logically empty-Aristotle, for example,
argues: "One cannot be a friend to many people in the sense of having
friendship of the perfect type with them, just as one cannot be in
love with many people at once (for love is a sort of excess of
feeling, and it is the nature of such only to be felt towards one
person)" (NE, VIII.6).
3. The Nature of Love: Further Conceptual Considerations

Presuming love has a nature, it should be, to some extent at least,
describable within the concepts of language. But what is meant by an
appropriate language of description may be as philosophically
beguiling as love itself. Such considerations invoke the philosophy of
language, of the relevance and appropriateness of meanings, but they
also provide the analysis of 'love' with its first principles. Does it
exist and if so, is it knowable, comprehensible, and describable? Love
may be knowable and comprehensible to others, as understood in the
phrases, "I am in love", "I love you", but what 'love' means in these
sentences may not be analyzed further: that is, the concept 'love' is
irreducible-an axiomatic, or self-evident, state of affairs that
warrants no further intellectual intrusion, an apodictic category
perhaps, that a Kantian may recognize.

The epistemology of love asks how we may know love, how we may
understand it, whether it is possible or plausible to make statements
about others or ourselves being in love (which touches on the
philosophical issue of private knowledge versus public behavior).
Again, the epistemology of love is intimately connected to the
philosophy of language and theories of the emotions. If love is purely
an emotional condition, it is plausible to argue that it remains a
private phenomenon incapable of being accessed by others, except
through an expression of language, and language may be a poor
indicator of an emotional state both for the listener and the subject.
Emotivists would hold that a statement such as "I am in love" is
irreducible to other statements because it is a nonpropositional
utterance, hence its veracity is beyond examination. Phenomenologists
may similarly present love as a non-cognitive phenomenon. Scheler, for
example, toys with Plato's Ideal love, which is cognitive, claiming:
"love itselfÖbringing about the continuous emergence of ever-higher
value in the object–just as if it were streaming out from the object
of its own accord, without any exertion (even of wishing) on the part
of the lover. (The Nature of Sympathy, trans. Heath). The lover is
passive before the beloved.

The claim that 'love' cannot be examined is different from that
claiming 'love' should not be subject to examination-that it should be
put or left beyond the mind's reach, out of a dutiful respect for its
mysteriousness, its awesome, divine, or romantic nature. But if it is
agreed that there is such a thing as 'love' conceptually speaking,
when people present statements concerning love, or admonitions such as
"she should show more love", then a philosophical examination seems
appropriate: is it synonymous with certain patterns of behavior, of
inflections in the voice or manner, or by the apparent pursuit and
protection of a particular value ("Look at how he dotes upon his
flowers-he must love them")?

If love does possesses 'a nature' which is identifiable by some
means-a personal expression, a discernible pattern of behavior, or
other activity, it can still be asked whether that nature can be
properly understood by humanity. Love may have a nature, yet we may
not possess the proper intellectual capacity to understand
it-accordingly, we may gain glimpses perhaps of its essence-as
Socrates argues in The Symposium, but its true nature being forever
beyond humanity's intellectual grasp. Accordingly, love may be
partially described, or hinted at, in a dialectic or analytical
exposition of the concept but never understood in itself. Love may
therefore become an epiphenomenal entity, generated by human action in
loving, but never grasped by the mind or language. Love may be so
described as a Platonic Form, belonging to the higher realm of
transcendental concepts that mortals can barely conceive of in their
purity, catching only glimpses of the Forms' conceptual shadows that
logic and reason unveil or disclose.

Another view, again derived from Platonic philosophy, may permit love
to be understood by certain people and not others. This invokes a
hierarchical epistemology, that only the initiated, the experienced,
the philosophical, or the poetical or musical, may gain insights into
its nature. On one level this admits that only the experienced can
know its nature, which is putatively true of any experience, but it
also may imply a social division of understanding-that only
philosopher kings may know true love. On the first implication, those
who do not feel or experience love are incapable (unless initiated
through rite, dialectical philosophy, artistic processes, and so on)
of comprehending its nature, whereas the second implication suggests
(though this is not a logically necessary inference) that the
non-initiated, or those incapable of understanding, feel only physical
desire and not 'love'. Accordingly, 'love' belongs either to the
higher faculties of all, understanding of which requires being
educated in some manner or form, or it belongs to the higher echelons
of society-to a priestly, philosophical, or artistic, poetic class.
The uninitiated, the incapable, or the young and inexperienced-those
who are not romantic troubadours-are doomed only to feel physical
desire. This separating of love from physical desire has further
implications concerning the nature of romantic love.
4. The Nature of Love: Romantic Love

Romantic love is deemed to be of a higher metaphysical and ethical
status than sexual or physical attractiveness alone. The idea of
romantic love initially stems from the Platonic tradition that love is
a desire for beauty-a value that transcends the particularities of the
physical body. For Plato, the love of beauty culminates in the love of
philosophy, the subject that pursues the highest capacity of men's
thinking. The romantic love of knights and damsels emerged in the
early medieval ages (11th Century France, fine amour) a philosophical
echo of both Platonic and Aristotelian love and literally a derivative
of the Roman poet, Ovid and his Ars Amatoria. Romantic love
theoretically was not to be consummated, for such love was
transcendental motivated by a deep respect for the lady; however, it
was to be actively pursued in chivalric deeds rather than
contemplated-which is in contrast to Ovid's persistent sensual pursuit
of conquests!

Modern romantic love returns to Aristotle's version of the special
love two people find in each other's virtues-one soul and two bodies,
as he poetically puts it. It is deemed to be of a higher status,
ethically, aesthetically, and even metaphysically than the love that
behaviourists or physicalists describe.
5. The Nature of Love: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual

Some may hold that love is physical, i.e., that love is nothing but a
physical response to another whom the agent feels physically attracted
to. Accordingly, the action of loving encompasses a broad range of
behaviour including caring, listening, attending to, preferring to
others, and so on. (This would be proposed by behaviourists). Others
(physicalists, geneticists) reduce all examinations of love to the
physical motivation of the sexual impulse-the simple sexual instinct
that is shared with all complex living entities, which may, in humans,
be directed consciously, sub-consciously or pre-rationally toward a
potential mate or object of sexual gratification.

Physical determinists, those who believe the world to entirely
physical and that every event has a prior (physical cause), consider
love to be an extension of the chemical-biological constituents of the
human creature and be explicable according to such processes. In this
vein, geneticists may invoke the theory that the genes (an
individual's DNA) form the determining criteria in any sexual or
putative romantic choice, especially in choosing a mate. However, a
problem for those who claim that love is reducible to the physical
attractiveness of a potential mate, or to the blood ties of family and
kin which forge bonds of filial love, is that it does not capture the
affections between those who cannot or wish not to reproduce-that is,
physicalism or determinism ignores the possibility of romantic,
ideational love-it may explain eros, but not philia or agape.

Behaviourism, which stems from the theory of the mind and asserts a
rejection of Cartesian dualism between mind and body, entails that
love is a series of actions and preferences which is thereby
observable to oneself and others. The behaviourist theory that love is
observable (according to the recognisable behavioural constraints
corresponding to acts of love) suggests also that it is theoretically
quantifiable: that A acts in a certain way (actions X,Y,Z) around B,
more so than he does around C, suggests that he 'loves' B more than C.
The problem with the behaviourist vision of love is that it is
susceptible to the poignant criticism that a person's actions need not
express their inner state or emotions-A may be a very good actor.
Radical behaviourists, such as B F Skinner, claim that observable and
unobservable behaviour such as mental states can be examined from the
behaviourist framework, in terms of the laws of conditioning. On this
view, that one falls in love may go unrecognised by the casual
observer, but the act of being in love can be examined by what events
or conditions led to the agent's believing she was in love: this may
include the theory that being in love is an overtly strong reaction to
a set of highly positive conditions in the behaviour or presence of
another.

Expressionist love is similar to behaviourism in that love is
considered an expression of a state of affairs towards a beloved,
which may be communicated through language (words, poetry, music) or
behaviour (bringing flowers, giving up a kidney, diving into the
proverbial burning building), but which is a reflection of an
internal, emotional state, rather than an exhibition of physical
responses to stimuli. Others in this vein may claim love to be a
spiritual response, the recognition of a soul that completes one's own
soul, or complements or augments it. The spiritualist vision of love
incorporates mystical as well as traditional romantic notions of love,
but rejects the behaviorist or physicalist explanations.

Those who consider love to be an aesthetic response would hold that
love is knowable through the emotional and conscious feeling it
provokes yet which cannot perhaps be captured in rational or
descriptive language: it is instead to be captured, as far as that is
possible, by metaphor or by music.
6. Love: Ethics and Politics

The ethical aspects in love involve the moral appropriateness of
loving, and the forms it should or should not take. The subject area
raises such questions as: is it ethically acceptable to love an
object, or to love oneself? Is love to oneself or to another a duty?
Should the ethically minded person aim to love all people equally? Is
partial love morally acceptable or permissible (that is, not right,
but excusable)? Should love only involve those with whom the agent can
have a meaningful relationship? Should love aim to transcend sexual
desire or physical appearances? May notions of romantic, sexual love
apply to same sex couples? Some of the subject area naturally spills
into the ethics of sex, which deals with the appropriateness of sexual
activity, reproduction, hetero and homosexual activity, and so on.

In the area of political philosophy, love can be studied from a
variety of perspectives. For example, some may see love as an
instantiation of social dominance by one group (males) over another
(females), in which the socially constructed language and etiquette of
love is designed to empower men and disempower women. On this theory,
love is a product of patriarchy, and acts analogously to Marx's view
of religion (the opiate of the people) that love is the opiate of
women. The implication is that were they to shrug off the language and
notions of 'love', 'being in love', 'loving someone', and so on, they
would be empowered. The theory is often attractive to feminists and
marxists, who view social relations (and the entire panoply of
culture, language, politics, institutions) as reflecting deeper social
structures that divide people into classes, sexes, and races.

This article has touched on some of the main elements of the
philosophy of love. It reaches into many philosophical fields, notably
theories of human nature, the self, and of the mind. The language of
love, as it is found in other languages as well as in English, is
similarly broad and deserves more attention.