Online research in philosophy

The duty to love one's neighbor as oneself is at the core of Kierkegaard's Works of Love . In this book, Kierkegaard unfolds the meaning of neighborly love and claims that it is the only valid form of true love. He contrasts between neighborly love and preferential love (which includes romantic love and friendship) and criticizes the latter for being nothing but a form of selfishness. However, in some contexts, Kierkegaard seems to acknowledge the significance of preferential love relationships, and does not disallow them. Therefore, his understanding of preferential love appears to be confused and inconsistent. My essay discusses the tension in Kierkegaard's position regarding preferential love, and by presenting recent readings of Works of Love , it asks whether this tension is resolvable and offers a suggestion for a possible solution.

Introduction: The metaphysics of responsibility and philosophy of education -- Moral responsibility, authenticity, and the problem of manipulation -- A novel perspective on the problem of authenticity -- Forward-looking authenticity in the internalism/externalism debate -- Authentic education, indoctrination, and moral responsibility -- Moral responsibility, hard incompatibilism, and interpersonal relationships -- On the significance of moral responsibility and love -- Love, commendability, and moral obligation -- Love, determinism, and normative education.

Love plays God -- The foundation of Western love : Hebrew scripture -- From physical desire to paradise : Plato -- Love as perfect friendship : Aristotle -- Love as sexual desire : Lucretius and Ovid -- Love as the supreme virtue : Christianity -- Why Christian love isn't unconditional -- Women on top : love and the troubadours -- How human nature became loveable : from the high Middle Ages to the Renaissance -- Love as joyful understanding of the whole : Spinoza -- Love as enlightened romanticism : Rousseau -- Love as religion : Schlegel and Novalis -- Love as the urge to procreate : Schopenhauer -- Love as affirmation of life : Nietzsche -- Love as a history of loss : Freud -- Love as terror and tedium : Proust -- Love reconsidered.

Preface to the Irving Singer library edition -- Preface -- Introduction: Love and meaning -- Two myths about love -- Persons, things, ideals -- Sexual love -- Love in society -- Religious love -- Civilization and autonomy -- Love, and do as you will.

Love plays God -- The foundation of Western love : Hebrew scripture -- From physical desire to paradise : Plato -- Love as perfect friendship : Aristotle -- Love as sexual desire : Lucretius and Ovid -- Love as the supreme virtue : Christianity -- Why Christian love isn't unconditional -- Women on top : love and the troubadours -- How human nature became loveable : from the high Middle Ages to the Renaissance -- Love as joyful understanding of the whole : Spinoza -- Love as enlightened romanticism : Rousseau -- Love as religion : Schlegel and Novalis -- Love as the urge to procreate : Schopenhauer -- Love as affirmation of life : Nietzsche -- Love as a history of loss : Freud -- Love as terror and tedium : Proust -- Love reconsidered.

Part One addresses the question whether the fact that some persons love something, worship it, or deeply care about it, can endow moral status on that thing. I argue that the answer is “no.” While some cases lend great plausibility to the view that love or worship can endow moral status, there are other cases in which love or worship clearly fails to endow moral status. Furthermore, there is no principled way to distinguish these two types of cases, so we must conclude that love or worship never endow moral status. Part Two takes up the hard question of why we have to be careful of things that others love or worship, given that the things do not thereby have moral status. I argue that it is sometimes bad for those who love or worship the things if we mistreat them. I develop an account of when love and worship, and person projects more generally, succeed in expanding the scope of what counts as good or bad for the person engaged in the project.

Introduction: Women in love -- Cupid doffs his blindfold : love as wisdom -- The power of power differentials : love as inequality -- The blade between us : love as transgression -- We must be two before we can be one : love as absence -- On my blood I'll carry you away : love as heroism -- Anonymous except for injury : love as failure -- Carving in the flesh : love as art -- Epilogue: Waging love : toward a new definition of eros.

"Something in between : on the nature of love" -- Love's blindness (1) : love's closed heart -- Love's blindness (2) : love's friendly eye -- Beyond comparison -- Commitments, values, and frameworks -- Valuing persons -- Love and morality -- Afterword. Between the universal and the particular.

Can any being worthy of worship make others worship it? I think not. By way of an analogy to love, I argue that it is perfectly coherent to think that one could be made to worship. However, forcing someone to worship violates their autonomy, not because worship must be freely given, but because forced worship would be inauthentic—much like love earned through potions. For this reason, I argue that one cannot be made to worship properly; forced worship would be unfitting. My principal claim is that no being worthy of worship could exercise the power to make others worship it, since the act of making another worship would necessarily make one unworthy of worship.

I argue that although we can try to explain why we love, we can never justify our love. Love is neither based on reasons, nor responsive to reasons, nor can it be assessed for normative reasons. Love can be odd, unfortunate, fortuitous, or even sadly lacking, but it can never be appropriate or inappropriate. We may have reasons to act on our love, but we cannot justify our loving feelings. Shakespeare's Bottom is right: "Reason and love keep little company together now-a-days." Indeed, they keep none and they never kept any: there are no justifying reasons for love.