In Defense of the No-Reasons View of Love
Abstract |
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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Overcoming a Euthyphro Problem in Personal Love: Imagination and Personal Identity.Gary Foster - 2011 - Philosophical Psychology 24 (6):825 - 844.
Harry G. Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love:The Reasons of Love.Gabriel Richardson Lear - 2005 - Ethics 116 (1):228-234.
Love as a Reactive Emotion.Kate Abramson & Adam Leite - 2011 - Philosophical Quarterly 61 (245):673-699.
Self-Love and the Vices of Self-Preference.Robert Merrihew Adams - 1998 - Faith and Philosophy 15 (4):500-513.
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2010-11-09
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28 ( #14,650 of 2,226,402 )
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