In Defense of the No-Reasons View of Love
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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.
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Keywords | love reasons well-being emotion |
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References found in this work BETA
Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility.John Martin Fischer & Mark Ravizza - 1998 - Cambridge University Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Do We Love For Reasons?Yongming Han - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (1):106-126.
Can Our Beloved Pets Love Us Back?Ryan Stringer - 2021 - In Simon Cushing (ed.), New Philosophical Essays on Love and Loving. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave-Macmillan. pp. 241-268.
View all 7 citations / Add more citations
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