human love essay

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This essay focuses on personal love, or the love of particular persons as such. Part of the philosophical task in understanding personal love is to distinguish the various kinds of personal love. For example, the way in which I love my wife is seemingly very different from the way I love my mother, my child, and my friend. This task has typically proceeded hand-in-hand with philosophical analyses of these kinds of personal love, analyses that in part respond to various puzzles about love. Can love be justified? If so, how? What is the value of personal love? What impact does love have on the autonomy of both the lover and the beloved?

1. Preliminary Distinctions

2. love as union, 3. love as robust concern, 4.1 love as appraisal of value, 4.2 love as bestowal of value, 4.3 an intermediate position, 5.1 love as emotion proper, 5.2 love as emotion complex, 6. the value and justification of love, other internet resources, related entries.

In ordinary conversations, we often say things like the following:

• I love chocolate (or skiing).
• I love doing philosophy (or being a father).
• I love my dog (or cat).
• I love my wife (or mother or child or friend).

However, what is meant by ‘love’ differs from case to case. (1) may be understood as meaning merely that I like this thing or activity very much. In (2) the implication is typically that I find engaging in a certain activity or being a certain kind of person to be a part of my identity and so what makes my life worth living; I might just as well say that I value these. By contrast, (3) and (4) seem to indicate a mode of concern that cannot be neatly assimilated to anything else. Thus, we might understand the sort of love at issue in (4) to be, roughly, a matter of caring about another person as the person she is, for her own sake. (Accordingly, (3) may be understood as a kind of deficient mode of the sort of love we typically reserve for persons.) Philosophical accounts of love have focused primarily on the sort of personal love at issue in (4); such personal love will be the focus here (though see Frankfurt (1999) and Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) for attempts to provide a more general account that applies to non-persons as well).

Even within personal love, philosophers from the ancient Greeks on have traditionally distinguished three notions that can properly be called “love”: eros , agape , and philia . It will be useful to distinguish these three and say something about how contemporary discussions typically blur these distinctions (sometimes intentionally so) or use them for other purposes.

‘ Eros ’ originally meant love in the sense of a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual passion (Liddell et al., 1940). Nygren (1953a,b) describes eros as the “‘love of desire,’ or acquisitive love” and therefore as egocentric (1953b, p. 89). Soble (1989b, 1990) similarly describes eros as “selfish” and as a response to the merits of the beloved—especially the beloved’s goodness or beauty. What is evident in Soble’s description of eros is a shift away from the sexual: to love something in the “erosic” sense (to use the term Soble coins) is to love it in a way that, by being responsive to its merits, is dependent on reasons. Such an understanding of eros is encouraged by Plato’s discussion in the Symposium , in which Socrates understands sexual desire to be a deficient response to physical beauty in particular, a response which ought to be developed into a response to the beauty of a person’s soul and, ultimately, into a response to the form, Beauty.

Soble’s intent in understanding eros to be a reason-dependent sort of love is to articulate a sharp contrast with agape , a sort of love that does not respond to the value of its object. ‘ Agape ’ has come, primarily through the Christian tradition, to mean the sort of love God has for us persons, as well as our love for God and, by extension, of our love for each other—a kind of brotherly love. In the paradigm case of God’s love for us, agape is “spontaneous and unmotivated,” revealing not that we merit that love but that God’s nature is love (Nygren 1953b, p. 85). Rather than responding to antecedent value in its object, agape instead is supposed to create value in its object and therefore to initiate our fellowship with God (pp. 87–88). Consequently, Badhwar (2003, p. 58) characterizes agape as “independent of the loved individual’s fundamental characteristics as the particular person she is”; and Soble (1990, p. 5) infers that agape , in contrast to eros , is therefore not reason dependent but is rationally “incomprehensible,” admitting at best of causal or historical explanations. [ 1 ]

Finally, ‘ philia ’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards family members, business partners, and one’s country at large (Liddell et al., 1940; Cooper, 1977). Like eros , philia is generally (but not universally) understood to be responsive to (good) qualities in one’s beloved. This similarity between eros and philia has led Thomas (1987) to wonder whether the only difference between romantic love and friendship is the sexual involvement of the former—and whether that is adequate to account for the real differences we experience. The distinction between eros and philia becomes harder to draw with Soble’s attempt to diminish the importance of the sexual in eros (1990).

Maintaining the distinctions among eros , agape , and philia becomes even more difficult when faced with contemporary theories of love (including romantic love) and friendship. For, as discussed below, some theories of romantic love understand it along the lines of the agape tradition as creating value in the beloved (cf. Section 4.2 ), and other accounts of romantic love treat sexual activity as merely the expression of what otherwise looks very much like friendship.

Given the focus here on personal love, Christian conceptions of God’s love for persons (and vice versa ) will be omitted, and the distinction between eros and philia will be blurred—as it typically is in contemporary accounts. Instead, the focus here will be on these contemporary understandings of love, including romantic love, understood as an attitude we take towards other persons. [ 2 ]

In providing an account of love, philosophical analyses must be careful to distinguish love from other positive attitudes we take towards persons, such as liking. Intuitively, love differs from such attitudes as liking in terms of its “depth,” and the problem is to elucidate the kind of “depth” we intuitively find love to have. Some analyses do this in part by providing thin conceptions of what liking amounts to. Thus, Singer (1991) and Brown (1987) understand liking to be a matter of desiring, an attitude that at best involves its object having only instrumental (and not intrinsic) value. Yet this seems inadequate: surely there are attitudes towards persons intermediate between having a desire with a person as its object and loving the person. I can care about a person for her own sake and not merely instrumentally, and yet such caring does not on its own amount to (non-deficiently) loving her, for it seems I can care about my dog in exactly the same way, a kind of caring which is insufficiently personal for love.

It is more common to distinguish loving from liking via the intuition that the “depth” of love is to be explained in terms of a notion of identification: to love someone is somehow to identify yourself with him, whereas no such notion of identification is involved in liking. As Nussbaum puts it, “The choice between one potential love and another can feel, and be, like a choice of a way of life, a decision to dedicate oneself to these values rather than these” (1990, p. 328); liking clearly does not have this sort of “depth” (see also Helm 2010; Bagley 2015). Whether love involves some kind of identification, and if so exactly how to understand such identification, is a central bone of contention among the various analyses of love. In particular, Whiting (2013) argues that the appeal to a notion of identification distorts our understanding of the sort of motivation love can provide, for taken literally it implies that love motivates through self -interest rather than through the beloved’s interests. Thus, Whiting argues, central to love is the possibility that love takes the lover “outside herself”, potentially forgetting herself in being moved directly by the interests of the beloved. (Of course, we need not take the notion of identification literally in this way: in identifying with one’s beloved, one might have a concern for one’s beloved that is analogous to one’s concern for oneself; see Helm 2010.)

Another common way to distinguish love from other personal attitudes is in terms of a distinctive kind of evaluation, which itself can account for love’s “depth.” Again, whether love essentially involves a distinctive kind of evaluation, and if so how to make sense of that evaluation, is hotly disputed. Closely related to questions of evaluation are questions of justification: can we justify loving or continuing to love a particular person, and if so, how? For those who think the justification of love is possible, it is common to understand such justification in terms of evaluation, and the answers here affect various accounts’ attempts to make sense of the kind of constancy or commitment love seems to involve, as well as the sense in which love is directed at particular individuals.

In what follows, theories of love are tentatively and hesitantly classified into four types: love as union, love as robust concern, love as valuing, and love as an emotion. It should be clear, however, that particular theories classified under one type sometimes also include, without contradiction, ideas central to other types. The types identified here overlap to some extent, and in some cases classifying particular theories may involve excessive pigeonholing. (Such cases are noted below.) Part of the classificatory problem is that many accounts of love are quasi-reductionistic, understanding love in terms of notions like affection, evaluation, attachment, etc., which themselves never get analyzed. Even when these accounts eschew explicitly reductionistic language, very often little attempt is made to show how one such “aspect” of love is conceptually connected to others. As a result, there is no clear and obvious way to classify particular theories, let alone identify what the relevant classes should be.

The union view claims that love consists in the formation of (or the desire to form) some significant kind of union, a “we.” A central task for union theorists, therefore, is to spell out just what such a “we” comes to—whether it is literally a new entity in the world somehow composed of the lover and the beloved, or whether it is merely metaphorical. Variants of this view perhaps go back to Aristotle (cf. Sherman 1993) and can also be found in Montaigne ([E]) and Hegel (1997); contemporary proponents include Solomon (1981, 1988), Scruton (1986), Nozick (1989), Fisher (1990), and Delaney (1996).

Scruton, writing in particular about romantic love, claims that love exists “just so soon as reciprocity becomes community: that is, just so soon as all distinction between my interests and your interests is overcome” (1986, p. 230). The idea is that the union is a union of concern, so that when I act out of that concern it is not for my sake alone or for your sake alone but for our sake. Fisher (1990) holds a similar, but somewhat more moderate view, claiming that love is a partial fusion of the lovers’ cares, concerns, emotional responses, and actions. What is striking about both Scruton and Fisher is the claim that love requires the actual union of the lovers’ concerns, for it thus becomes clear that they conceive of love not so much as an attitude we take towards another but as a relationship: the distinction between your interests and mine genuinely disappears only when we together come to have shared cares, concerns, etc., and my merely having a certain attitude towards you is not enough for love. This provides content to the notion of a “we” as the (metaphorical?) subject of these shared cares and concerns, and as that for whose sake we act.

Solomon (1988) offers a union view as well, though one that tries “to make new sense out of ‘love’ through a literal rather than metaphoric sense of the ‘fusion’ of two souls” (p. 24, cf. Solomon 1981; however, it is unclear exactly what he means by a “soul” here and so how love can be a “literal” fusion of two souls). What Solomon has in mind is the way in which, through love, the lovers redefine their identities as persons in terms of the relationship: “Love is the concentration and the intensive focus of mutual definition on a single individual, subjecting virtually every personal aspect of one’s self to this process” (1988, p. 197). The result is that lovers come to share the interests, roles, virtues, and so on that constitute what formerly was two individual identities but now has become a shared identity, and they do so in part by each allowing the other to play an important role in defining his own identity.

Nozick (1989) offers a union view that differs from those of Scruton, Fisher, and Solomon in that Nozick thinks that what is necessary for love is merely the desire to form a “we,” together with the desire that your beloved reciprocates. Nonetheless, he claims that this “we” is “a new entity in the world…created by a new web of relationships between [the lovers] which makes them no longer separate” (p. 70). In spelling out this web of relationships, Nozick appeals to the lovers “pooling” not only their well-beings, in the sense that the well-being of each is tied up with that of the other, but also their autonomy, in that “each transfers some previous rights to make certain decisions unilaterally into a joint pool” (p. 71). In addition, Nozick claims, the lovers each acquire a new identity as a part of the “we,” a new identity constituted by their (a) wanting to be perceived publicly as a couple, (b) their attending to their pooled well-being, and (c) their accepting a “certain kind of division of labor” (p. 72):

A person in a we might find himself coming across something interesting to read yet leaving it for the other person, not because he himself would not be interested in it but because the other would be more interested, and one of them reading it is sufficient for it to be registered by the wider identity now shared, the we . [ 3 ]

Opponents of the union view have seized on claims like this as excessive: union theorists, they claim, take too literally the ontological commitments of this notion of a “we.” This leads to two specific criticisms of the union view. The first is that union views do away with individual autonomy. Autonomy, it seems, involves a kind of independence on the part of the autonomous agent, such that she is in control over not only what she does but also who she is, as this is constituted by her interests, values, concerns, etc. However, union views, by doing away with a clear distinction between your interests and mine, thereby undermine this sort of independence and so undermine the autonomy of the lovers. If autonomy is a part of the individual’s good, then, on the union view, love is to this extent bad; so much the worse for the union view (Singer 1994; Soble 1997). Moreover, Singer (1994) argues that a necessary part of having your beloved be the object of your love is respect for your beloved as the particular person she is, and this requires respecting her autonomy.

Union theorists have responded to this objection in several ways. Nozick (1989) seems to think of a loss of autonomy in love as a desirable feature of the sort of union lovers can achieve. Fisher (1990), somewhat more reluctantly, claims that the loss of autonomy in love is an acceptable consequence of love. Yet without further argument these claims seem like mere bullet biting. Solomon (1988, pp. 64ff) describes this “tension” between union and autonomy as “the paradox of love.” However, this a view that Soble (1997) derides: merely to call it a paradox, as Solomon does, is not to face up to the problem.

The second criticism involves a substantive view concerning love. Part of what it is to love someone, these opponents say, is to have concern for him for his sake. However, union views make such concern unintelligible and eliminate the possibility of both selfishness and self-sacrifice, for by doing away with the distinction between my interests and your interests they have in effect turned your interests into mine and vice versa (Soble 1997; see also Blum 1980, 1993). Some advocates of union views see this as a point in their favor: we need to explain how it is I can have concern for people other than myself, and the union view apparently does this by understanding your interests to be part of my own. And Delaney, responding to an apparent tension between our desire to be loved unselfishly (for fear of otherwise being exploited) and our desire to be loved for reasons (which presumably are attractive to our lover and hence have a kind of selfish basis), says (1996, p. 346):

Given my view that the romantic ideal is primarily characterized by a desire to achieve a profound consolidation of needs and interests through the formation of a we , I do not think a little selfishness of the sort described should pose a worry to either party.

The objection, however, lies precisely in this attempt to explain my concern for my beloved egoistically. As Whiting (1991, p. 10) puts it, such an attempt “strikes me as unnecessary and potentially objectionable colonization”: in love, I ought to be concerned with my beloved for her sake, and not because I somehow get something out of it. (This can be true whether my concern with my beloved is merely instrumental to my good or whether it is partly constitutive of my good.)

Although Whiting’s and Soble’s criticisms here succeed against the more radical advocates of the union view, they in part fail to acknowledge the kernel of truth to be gleaned from the idea of union. Whiting’s way of formulating the second objection in terms of an unnecessary egoism in part points to a way out: we persons are in part social creatures, and love is one profound mode of that sociality. Indeed, part of the point of union accounts is to make sense of this social dimension: to make sense of a way in which we can sometimes identify ourselves with others not merely in becoming interdependent with them (as Singer 1994, p. 165, suggests, understanding ‘interdependence’ to be a kind of reciprocal benevolence and respect) but rather in making who we are as persons be constituted in part by those we love (cf., e.g., Rorty 1986/1993; Nussbaum 1990).

Along these lines, Friedman (1998), taking her inspiration in part from Delaney (1996), argues that we should understand the sort of union at issue in love to be a kind of federation of selves:

On the federation model, a third unified entity is constituted by the interaction of the lovers, one which involves the lovers acting in concert across a range of conditions and for a range of purposes. This concerted action, however, does not erase the existence of the two lovers as separable and separate agents with continuing possibilities for the exercise of their own respective agencies. [p. 165]

Given that on this view the lovers do not give up their individual identities, there is no principled reason why the union view cannot make sense of the lover’s concern for her beloved for his sake. [ 4 ] Moreover, Friedman argues, once we construe union as federation, we can see that autonomy is not a zero-sum game; rather, love can both directly enhance the autonomy of each and promote the growth of various skills, like realistic and critical self-evaluation, that foster autonomy.

Nonetheless, this federation model is not without its problems—problems that affect other versions of the union view as well. For if the federation (or the “we”, as on Nozick’s view) is understood as a third entity, we need a clearer account than has been given of its ontological status and how it comes to be. Relevant here is the literature on shared intention and plural subjects. Gilbert (1989, 1996, 2000) has argued that we should take quite seriously the existence of a plural subject as an entity over and above its constituent members. Others, such as Tuomela (1984, 1995), Searle (1990), and Bratman (1999) are more cautious, treating such talk of “us” having an intention as metaphorical.

As this criticism of the union view indicates, many find caring about your beloved for her sake to be a part of what it is to love her. The robust concern view of love takes this to be the central and defining feature of love (cf. Taylor 1976; Newton-Smith 1989; Soble 1990, 1997; LaFollette 1996; Frankfurt 1999; White 2001). As Taylor puts it:

To summarize: if x loves y then x wants to benefit and be with y etc., and he has these wants (or at least some of them) because he believes y has some determinate characteristics ψ in virtue of which he thinks it worth while to benefit and be with y . He regards satisfaction of these wants as an end and not as a means towards some other end. [p. 157]

In conceiving of my love for you as constituted by my concern for you for your sake, the robust concern view rejects the idea, central to the union view, that love is to be understood in terms of the (literal or metaphorical) creation of a “we”: I am the one who has this concern for you, though it is nonetheless disinterested and so not egoistic insofar as it is for your sake rather than for my own. [ 5 ]

At the heart of the robust concern view is the idea that love “is neither affective nor cognitive. It is volitional” (Frankfurt 1999, p. 129; see also Martin 2015). Frankfurt continues:

That a person cares about or that he loves something has less to do with how things make him feel, or with his opinions about them, than with the more or less stable motivational structures that shape his preferences and that guide and limit his conduct.

This account analyzes caring about someone for her sake as a matter of being motivated in certain ways, in part as a response to what happens to one’s beloved. Of course, to understand love in terms of desires is not to leave other emotional responses out in the cold, for these emotions should be understood as consequences of desires. Thus, just as I can be emotionally crushed when one of my strong desires is disappointed, so too I can be emotionally crushed when things similarly go badly for my beloved. In this way Frankfurt (1999) tacitly, and White (2001) more explicitly, acknowledge the way in which my caring for my beloved for her sake results in my identity being transformed through her influence insofar as I become vulnerable to things that happen to her.

Not all robust concern theorists seem to accept this line, however; in particular, Taylor (1976) and Soble (1990) seem to have a strongly individualistic conception of persons that prevents my identity being bound up with my beloved in this sort of way, a kind of view that may seem to undermine the intuitive “depth” that love seems to have. (For more on this point, see Rorty 1986/1993.) In the middle is Stump (2006), who follows Aquinas in understanding love to involve not only the desire for your beloved’s well-being but also a desire for a certain kind of relationship with your beloved—as a parent or spouse or sibling or priest or friend, for example—a relationship within which you share yourself with and connect yourself to your beloved. [ 6 ]

One source of worry about the robust concern view is that it involves too passive an understanding of one’s beloved (Ebels-Duggan 2008). The thought is that on the robust concern view the lover merely tries to discover what the beloved’s well-being consists in and then acts to promote that, potentially by thwarting the beloved’s own efforts when the lover thinks those efforts would harm her well-being. This, however, would be disrespectful and demeaning, not the sort of attitude that love is. What robust concern views seem to miss, Ebels-Duggan suggests, is the way love involves interacting agents, each with a capacity for autonomy the recognition and engagement with which is an essential part of love. In response, advocates of the robust concern view might point out that promoting someone’s well-being normally requires promoting her autonomy (though they may maintain that this need not always be true: that paternalism towards a beloved can sometimes be justified and appropriate as an expression of one’s love). Moreover, we might plausibly think, it is only through the exercise of one’s autonomy that one can define one’s own well-being as a person, so that a lover’s failure to respect the beloved’s autonomy would be a failure to promote her well-being and therefore not an expression of love, contrary to what Ebels-Duggan suggests. Consequently, it might seem, robust concern views can counter this objection by offering an enriched conception of what it is to be a person and so of the well-being of persons.

Another source of worry is that the robust concern view offers too thin a conception of love. By emphasizing robust concern, this view understands other features we think characteristic of love, such as one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved, to be the effects of that concern rather than constituents of it. Thus Velleman (1999) argues that robust concern views, by understanding love merely as a matter of aiming at a particular end (viz., the welfare of one’s beloved), understand love to be merely conative. However, he claims, love can have nothing to do with desires, offering as a counterexample the possibility of loving a troublemaking relation whom you do not want to be with, whose well being you do not want to promote, etc. Similarly, Badhwar (2003) argues that such a “teleological” view of love makes it mysterious how “we can continue to love someone long after death has taken him beyond harm or benefit” (p. 46). Moreover Badhwar argues, if love is essentially a desire, then it implies that we lack something; yet love does not imply this and, indeed, can be felt most strongly at times when we feel our lives most complete and lacking in nothing. Consequently, Velleman and Badhwar conclude, love need not involve any desire or concern for the well-being of one’s beloved.

This conclusion, however, seems too hasty, for such examples can be accommodated within the robust concern view. Thus, the concern for your relative in Velleman’s example can be understood to be present but swamped by other, more powerful desires to avoid him. Indeed, keeping the idea that you want to some degree to benefit him, an idea Velleman rejects, seems to be essential to understanding the conceptual tension between loving someone and not wanting to help him, a tension Velleman does not fully acknowledge. Similarly, continued love for someone who has died can be understood on the robust concern view as parasitic on the former love you had for him when he was still alive: your desires to benefit him get transformed, through your subsequent understanding of the impossibility of doing so, into wishes. [ 7 ] Finally, the idea of concern for your beloved’s well-being need not imply the idea that you lack something, for such concern can be understood in terms of the disposition to be vigilant for occasions when you can come to his aid and consequently to have the relevant occurrent desires. All of this seems fully compatible with the robust concern view.

One might also question whether Velleman and Badhwar make proper use of their examples of loving your meddlesome relation or someone who has died. For although we can understand these as genuine cases of love, they are nonetheless deficient cases and ought therefore be understood as parasitic on the standard cases. Readily to accommodate such deficient cases of love into a philosophical analysis as being on a par with paradigm cases, and to do so without some special justification, is dubious.

Nonetheless, the robust concern view as it stands does not seem properly able to account for the intuitive “depth” of love and so does not seem properly to distinguish loving from liking. Although, as noted above, the robust concern view can begin to make some sense of the way in which the lover’s identity is altered by the beloved, it understands this only an effect of love, and not as a central part of what love consists in.

This vague thought is nicely developed by Wonderly (2017), who emphasizes that in addition to the sort of disinterested concern for another that is central to robust-concern accounts of love, an essential part of at least romantic love is the idea that in loving someone I must find them to be not merely important for their own sake but also important to me . Wonderly (2017) fleshes out what this “importance to me” involves in terms of the idea of attachment (developed in Wonderly 2016) that she argues can make sense of the intimacy and depth of love from within what remains fundamentally a robust-concern account. [ 8 ]

4. Love as Valuing

A third kind of view of love understands love to be a distinctive mode of valuing a person. As the distinction between eros and agape in Section 1 indicates, there are at least two ways to construe this in terms of whether the lover values the beloved because she is valuable, or whether the beloved comes to be valuable to the lover as a result of her loving him. The former view, which understands the lover as appraising the value of the beloved in loving him, is the topic of Section 4.1 , whereas the latter view, which understands her as bestowing value on him, will be discussed in Section 4.2 .

Velleman (1999, 2008) offers an appraisal view of love, understanding love to be fundamentally a matter of acknowledging and responding in a distinctive way to the value of the beloved. (For a very different appraisal view of love, see Kolodny 2003.) Understanding this more fully requires understanding both the kind of value of the beloved to which one responds and the distinctive kind of response to such value that love is. Nonetheless, it should be clear that what makes an account be an appraisal view of love is not the mere fact that love is understood to involve appraisal; many other accounts do so, and it is typical of robust concern accounts, for example (cf. the quote from Taylor above , Section 3 ). Rather, appraisal views are distinctive in understanding love to consist in that appraisal.

In articulating the kind of value love involves, Velleman, following Kant, distinguishes dignity from price. To have a price , as the economic metaphor suggests, is to have a value that can be compared to the value of other things with prices, such that it is intelligible to exchange without loss items of the same value. By contrast, to have dignity is to have a value such that comparisons of relative value become meaningless. Material goods are normally understood to have prices, but we persons have dignity: no substitution of one person for another can preserve exactly the same value, for something of incomparable worth would be lost (and gained) in such a substitution.

On this Kantian view, our dignity as persons consists in our rational nature: our capacity both to be actuated by reasons that we autonomously provide ourselves in setting our own ends and to respond appropriately to the intrinsic values we discover in the world. Consequently, one important way in which we exercise our rational natures is to respond with respect to the dignity of other persons (a dignity that consists in part in their capacity for respect): respect just is the required minimal response to the dignity of persons. What makes a response to a person be that of respect, Velleman claims, still following Kant, is that it “arrests our self-love” and thereby prevents us from treating him as a means to our ends (p. 360).

Given this, Velleman claims that love is similarly a response to the dignity of persons, and as such it is the dignity of the object of our love that justifies that love. However, love and respect are different kinds of responses to the same value. For love arrests not our self-love but rather

our tendencies toward emotional self-protection from another person, tendencies to draw ourselves in and close ourselves off from being affected by him. Love disarms our emotional defenses; it makes us vulnerable to the other. [1999, p. 361]

This means that the concern, attraction, sympathy, etc. that we normally associate with love are not constituents of love but are rather its normal effects, and love can remain without them (as in the case of the love for a meddlesome relative one cannot stand being around). Moreover, this provides Velleman with a clear account of the intuitive “depth” of love: it is essentially a response to persons as such, and to say that you love your dog is therefore to be confused.

Of course, we do not respond with love to the dignity of every person we meet, nor are we somehow required to: love, as the disarming of our emotional defenses in a way that makes us especially vulnerable to another, is the optional maximal response to others’ dignity. What, then, explains the selectivity of love—why I love some people and not others? The answer lies in the contingent fit between the way some people behaviorally express their dignity as persons and the way I happen to respond to those expressions by becoming emotionally vulnerable to them. The right sort of fit makes someone “lovable” by me (1999, p. 372), and my responding with love in these cases is a matter of my “really seeing” this person in a way that I fail to do with others who do not fit with me in this way. By ‘lovable’ here Velleman seems to mean able to be loved, not worthy of being loved, for nothing Velleman says here speaks to a question about the justification of my loving this person rather than that. Rather, what he offers is an explanation of the selectivity of my love, an explanation that as a matter of fact makes my response be that of love rather than mere respect.

This understanding of the selectivity of love as something that can be explained but not justified is potentially troubling. For we ordinarily think we can justify not only my loving you rather than someone else but also and more importantly the constancy of my love: my continuing to love you even as you change in certain fundamental ways (but not others). As Delaney (1996, p. 347) puts the worry about constancy:

while you seem to want it to be true that, were you to become a schmuck, your lover would continue to love you,…you also want it to be the case that your lover would never love a schmuck.

The issue here is not merely that we can offer explanations of the selectivity of my love, of why I do not love schmucks; rather, at issue is the discernment of love, of loving and continuing to love for good reasons as well as of ceasing to love for good reasons. To have these good reasons seems to involve attributing different values to you now rather than formerly or rather than to someone else, yet this is precisely what Velleman denies is the case in making the distinction between love and respect the way he does.

It is also questionable whether Velleman can even explain the selectivity of love in terms of the “fit” between your expressions and my sensitivities. For the relevant sensitivities on my part are emotional sensitivities: the lowering of my emotional defenses and so becoming emotionally vulnerable to you. Thus, I become vulnerable to the harms (or goods) that befall you and so sympathetically feel your pain (or joy). Such emotions are themselves assessable for warrant, and now we can ask why my disappointment that you lost the race is warranted, but my being disappointed that a mere stranger lost would not be warranted. The intuitive answer is that I love you but not him. However, this answer is unavailable to Velleman, because he thinks that what makes my response to your dignity that of love rather than respect is precisely that I feel such emotions, and to appeal to my love in explaining the emotions therefore seems viciously circular.

Although these problems are specific to Velleman’s account, the difficulty can be generalized to any appraisal account of love (such as that offered in Kolodny 2003). For if love is an appraisal, it needs to be distinguished from other forms of appraisal, including our evaluative judgments. On the one hand, to try to distinguish love as an appraisal from other appraisals in terms of love’s having certain effects on our emotional and motivational life (as on Velleman’s account) is unsatisfying because it ignores part of what needs to be explained: why the appraisal of love has these effects and yet judgments with the same evaluative content do not. Indeed, this question is crucial if we are to understand the intuitive “depth” of love, for without an answer to this question we do not understand why love should have the kind of centrality in our lives it manifestly does. [ 9 ] On the other hand, to bundle this emotional component into the appraisal itself would be to turn the view into either the robust concern view ( Section 3 ) or a variant of the emotion view ( Section 5.1 ).

In contrast to Velleman, Singer (1991, 1994, 2009) understands love to be fundamentally a matter of bestowing value on the beloved. To bestow value on another is to project a kind of intrinsic value onto him. Indeed, this fact about love is supposed to distinguish love from liking: “Love is an attitude with no clear objective,” whereas liking is inherently teleological (1991, p. 272). As such, there are no standards of correctness for bestowing such value, and this is how love differs from other personal attitudes like gratitude, generosity, and condescension: “love…confers importance no matter what the object is worth” (p. 273). Consequently, Singer thinks, love is not an attitude that can be justified in any way.

What is it, exactly, to bestow this kind of value on someone? It is, Singer says, a kind of attachment and commitment to the beloved, in which one comes to treat him as an end in himself and so to respond to his ends, interests, concerns, etc. as having value for their own sake. This means in part that the bestowal of value reveals itself “by caring about the needs and interests of the beloved, by wishing to benefit or protect her, by delighting in her achievements,” etc. (p. 270). This sounds very much like the robust concern view, yet the bestowal view differs in understanding such robust concern to be the effect of the bestowal of value that is love rather than itself what constitutes love: in bestowing value on my beloved, I make him be valuable in such a way that I ought to respond with robust concern.

For it to be intelligible that I have bestowed value on someone, I must therefore respond appropriately to him as valuable, and this requires having some sense of what his well-being is and of what affects that well-being positively or negatively. Yet having this sense requires in turn knowing what his strengths and deficiencies are, and this is a matter of appraising him in various ways. Bestowal thus presupposes a kind of appraisal, as a way of “really seeing” the beloved and attending to him. Nonetheless, Singer claims, it is the bestowal that is primary for understanding what love consists in: the appraisal is required only so that the commitment to one’s beloved and his value as thus bestowed has practical import and is not “a blind submission to some unknown being” (1991, p. 272; see also Singer 1994, pp. 139ff).

Singer is walking a tightrope in trying to make room for appraisal in his account of love. Insofar as the account is fundamentally a bestowal account, Singer claims that love cannot be justified, that we bestow the relevant kind of value “gratuitously.” This suggests that love is blind, that it does not matter what our beloved is like, which seems patently false. Singer tries to avoid this conclusion by appealing to the role of appraisal: it is only because we appraise another as having certain virtues and vices that we come to bestow value on him. Yet the “because” here, since it cannot justify the bestowal, is at best a kind of contingent causal explanation. [ 10 ] In this respect, Singer’s account of the selectivity of love is much the same as Velleman’s, and it is liable to the same criticism: it makes unintelligible the way in which our love can be discerning for better or worse reasons. Indeed, this failure to make sense of the idea that love can be justified is a problem for any bestowal view. For either (a) a bestowal itself cannot be justified (as on Singer’s account), in which case the justification of love is impossible, or (b) a bestowal can be justified, in which case it is hard to make sense of value as being bestowed rather than there antecedently in the object as the grounds of that “bestowal.”

More generally, a proponent of the bestowal view needs to be much clearer than Singer is in articulating precisely what a bestowal is. What is the value that I create in a bestowal, and how can my bestowal create it? On a crude Humean view, the answer might be that the value is something projected onto the world through my pro-attitudes, like desire. Yet such a view would be inadequate, since the projected value, being relative to a particular individual, would do no theoretical work, and the account would essentially be a variant of the robust concern view. Moreover, in providing a bestowal account of love, care is needed to distinguish love from other personal attitudes such as admiration and respect: do these other attitudes involve bestowal? If so, how does the bestowal in these cases differ from the bestowal of love? If not, why not, and what is so special about love that requires a fundamentally different evaluative attitude than admiration and respect?

Nonetheless, there is a kernel of truth in the bestowal view: there is surely something right about the idea that love is creative and not merely a response to antecedent value, and accounts of love that understand the kind of evaluation implicit in love merely in terms of appraisal seem to be missing something. Precisely what may be missed will be discussed below in Section 6 .

Perhaps there is room for an understanding of love and its relation to value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal accounts. After all, if we think of appraisal as something like perception, a matter of responding to what is out there in the world, and of bestowal as something like action, a matter of doing something and creating something, we should recognize that the responsiveness central to appraisal may itself depend on our active, creative choices. Thus, just as we must recognize that ordinary perception depends on our actively directing our attention and deploying concepts, interpretations, and even arguments in order to perceive things accurately, so too we might think our vision of our beloved’s valuable properties that is love also depends on our actively attending to and interpreting him. Something like this is Jollimore’s view (2011). According to Jollimore, in loving someone we actively attend to his valuable properties in a way that we take to provide us with reasons to treat him preferentially. Although we may acknowledge that others might have such properties even to a greater degree than our beloved does, we do not attend to and appreciate such properties in others in the same way we do those in our beloveds; indeed, we find our appreciation of our beloved’s valuable properties to “silence” our similar appreciation of those in others. (In this way, Jollimore thinks, we can solve the problem of fungibility, discussed below in Section 6 .) Likewise, in perceiving our beloved’s actions and character, we do so through the lens of such an appreciation, which will tend as to “silence” interpretations inconsistent with that appreciation. In this way, love involves finding one’s beloved to be valuable in a way that involves elements of both appraisal (insofar as one must thereby be responsive to valuable properties one’s beloved really has) and bestowal (insofar as through one’s attention and committed appreciation of these properties they come to have special significance for one).

One might object that this conception of love as silencing the special value of others or to negative interpretations of our beloveds is irrational in a way that love is not. For, it might seem, such “silencing” is merely a matter of our blinding ourselves to how things really are. Yet Jollimore claims that this sense in which love is blind is not objectionable, for (a) we can still intellectually recognize the things that love’s vision silences, and (b) there really is no impartial perspective we can take on the values things have, and love is one appropriate sort of partial perspective from which the value of persons can be manifest. Nonetheless, one might wonder about whether that perspective of love itself can be distorted and what the norms are in terms of which such distortions are intelligible. Furthermore, it may seem that Jollimore’s attempt to reconcile appraisal and bestowal fails to appreciate the underlying metaphysical difficulty: appraisal is a response to value that is antecedently there, whereas bestowal is the creation of value that was not antecedently there. Consequently, it might seem, appraisal and bestowal are mutually exclusive and cannot be reconciled in the way Jollimore hopes.

Whereas Jollimore tries to combine separate elements of appraisal and of bestowal in a single account, Helm (2010) and Bagley (2015) offer accounts that reject the metaphysical presupposition that values must be either prior to love (as with appraisal) or posterior to love (as with bestowal), instead understanding the love and the values to emerge simultaneously. Thus, Helm presents a detailed account of valuing in terms of the emotions, arguing that while we can understand individual emotions as appraisals , responding to values already their in their objects, these values are bestowed on those objects via broad, holistic patterns of emotions. How this amounts to an account of love will be discussed in Section 5.2 , below. Bagley (2015) instead appeals to a metaphor of improvisation, arguing that just as jazz musicians jointly make determinate the content of their musical ideas through on-going processes of their expression, so too lovers jointly engage in “deep improvisation”, thereby working out of their values and identities through the on-going process of living their lives together. These values are thus something the lovers jointly construct through the process of recognizing and responding to those very values. To love someone is thus to engage with them as partners in such “deep improvisation”. (This account is similar to Helm (2008, 2010)’s account of plural agency, which he uses to provide an account of friendship and other loving relationships; see the discussion of shared activity in the entry on friendship .)

5. Emotion Views

Given these problems with the accounts of love as valuing, perhaps we should turn to the emotions. For emotions just are responses to objects that combine evaluation, motivation, and a kind of phenomenology, all central features of the attitude of love.

Many accounts of love claim that it is an emotion; these include: Wollheim 1984, Rorty 1986/1993, Brown 1987, Hamlyn 1989, Baier 1991, and Badhwar 2003. [ 11 ] Thus, Hamlyn (1989, p. 219) says:

It would not be a plausible move to defend any theory of the emotions to which love and hate seemed exceptions by saying that love and hate are after all not emotions. I have heard this said, but it does seem to me a desperate move to make. If love and hate are not emotions what is?

The difficulty with this claim, as Rorty (1980) argues, is that the word, ‘emotion,’ does not seem to pick out a homogeneous collection of mental states, and so various theories claiming that love is an emotion mean very different things. Consequently, what are here labeled “emotion views” are divided into those that understand love to be a particular kind of evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object, whether that response is merely occurrent or dispositional (‘emotions proper,’ see Section 5.1 , below), and those that understand love to involve a collection of related and interconnected emotions proper (‘emotion complexes,’ see Section 5.2 , below).

An emotion proper is a kind of “evaluative-cum-motivational response to an object”; what does this mean? Emotions are generally understood to have several objects. The target of an emotion is that at which the emotion is directed: if I am afraid or angry at you, then you are the target. In responding to you with fear or anger, I am implicitly evaluating you in a particular way, and this evaluation—called the formal object —is the kind of evaluation of the target that is distinctive of a particular emotion type. Thus, in fearing you, I implicitly evaluate you as somehow dangerous, whereas in being angry at you I implicitly evaluate you as somehow offensive. Yet emotions are not merely evaluations of their targets; they in part motivate us to behave in certain ways, both rationally (by motivating action to avoid the danger) and arationally (via certain characteristic expressions, such as slamming a door out of anger). Moreover, emotions are generally understood to involve a phenomenological component, though just how to understand the characteristic “feel” of an emotion and its relation to the evaluation and motivation is hotly disputed. Finally, emotions are typically understood to be passions: responses that we feel imposed on us as if from the outside, rather than anything we actively do. (For more on the philosophy of emotions, see entry on emotion .)

What then are we saying when we say that love is an emotion proper? According to Brown (1987, p. 14), emotions as occurrent mental states are “abnormal bodily changes caused by the agent’s evaluation or appraisal of some object or situation that the agent believes to be of concern to him or her.” He spells this out by saying that in love, we “cherish” the person for having “a particular complex of instantiated qualities” that is “open-ended” so that we can continue to love the person even as she changes over time (pp. 106–7). These qualities, which include historical and relational qualities, are evaluated in love as worthwhile. [ 12 ] All of this seems aimed at spelling out what love’s formal object is, a task that is fundamental to understanding love as an emotion proper. Thus, Brown seems to say that love’s formal object is just being worthwhile (or, given his examples, perhaps: worthwhile as a person), and he resists being any more specific than this in order to preserve the open-endedness of love. Hamlyn (1989) offers a similar account, saying (p. 228):

With love the difficulty is to find anything of this kind [i.e., a formal object] which is uniquely appropriate to love. My thesis is that there is nothing of this kind that must be so, and that this differentiates it and hate from the other emotions.

Hamlyn goes on to suggest that love and hate might be primordial emotions, a kind of positive or negative “feeling towards,” presupposed by all other emotions. [ 13 ]

The trouble with these accounts of love as an emotion proper is that they provide too thin a conception of love. In Hamlyn’s case, love is conceived as a fairly generic pro-attitude, rather than as the specific kind of distinctively personal attitude discussed here. In Brown’s case, spelling out the formal object of love as simply being worthwhile (as a person) fails to distinguish love from other evaluative responses like admiration and respect. Part of the problem seems to be the rather simple account of what an emotion is that Brown and Hamlyn use as their starting point: if love is an emotion, then the understanding of what an emotion is must be enriched considerably to accommodate love. Yet it is not at all clear whether the idea of an “emotion proper” can be adequately enriched so as to do so. As Pismenny & Prinz (2017) point out, love seems to be too varied both in its ground and in the sort of experience it involves to be capturable by a single emotion.

The emotion complex view, which understands love to be a complex emotional attitude towards another person, may initially seem to hold out great promise to overcome the problems of alternative types of views. By articulating the emotional interconnections between persons, it could offer a satisfying account of the “depth” of love without the excesses of the union view and without the overly narrow teleological focus of the robust concern view; and because these emotional interconnections are themselves evaluations, it could offer an understanding of love as simultaneously evaluative, without needing to specify a single formal object of love. However, the devil is in the details.

Rorty (1986/1993) does not try to present a complete account of love; rather, she focuses on the idea that “relational psychological attitudes” which, like love, essentially involve emotional and desiderative responses, exhibit historicity : “they arise from, and are shaped by, dynamic interactions between a subject and an object” (p. 73). In part this means that what makes an attitude be one of love is not the presence of a state that we can point to at a particular time within the lover; rather, love is to be “identified by a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75). Moreover, Rorty argues, the historicity of love involves the lover’s being permanently transformed by loving who he does.

Baier (1991), seeming to pick up on this understanding of love as exhibiting historicity, says (p. 444):

Love is not just an emotion people feel toward other people, but also a complex tying together of the emotions that two or a few more people have; it is a special form of emotional interdependence.

To a certain extent, such emotional interdependence involves feeling sympathetic emotions, so that, for example, I feel disappointed and frustrated on behalf of my beloved when she fails, and joyful when she succeeds. However, Baier insists, love is “more than just the duplication of the emotion of each in a sympathetic echo in the other” (p. 442); the emotional interdependence of the lovers involves also appropriate follow-up responses to the emotional predicaments of your beloved. Two examples Baier gives (pp. 443–44) are a feeling of “mischievous delight” at your beloved’s temporary bafflement, and amusement at her embarrassment. The idea is that in a loving relationship your beloved gives you permission to feel such emotions when no one else is permitted to do so, and a condition of her granting you that permission is that you feel these emotions “tenderly.” Moreover, you ought to respond emotionally to your beloved’s emotional responses to you: by feeling hurt when she is indifferent to you, for example. All of these foster the sort of emotional interdependence Baier is after—a kind of intimacy you have with your beloved.

Badhwar (2003, p. 46) similarly understands love to be a matter of “one’s overall emotional orientation towards a person—the complex of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings”; as such, love is a matter of having a certain “character structure.” Central to this complex emotional orientation, Badhwar thinks, is what she calls the “look of love”: “an ongoing [emotional] affirmation of the loved object as worthy of existence…for her own sake” (p. 44), an affirmation that involves taking pleasure in your beloved’s well-being. Moreover, Badhwar claims, the look of love also provides to the beloved reliable testimony concerning the quality of the beloved’s character and actions (p. 57).

There is surely something very right about the idea that love, as an attitude central to deeply personal relationships, should not be understood as a state that can simply come and go. Rather, as the emotion complex view insists, the complexity of love is to be found in the historical patterns of one’s emotional responsiveness to one’s beloved—a pattern that also projects into the future. Indeed, as suggested above, the kind of emotional interdependence that results from this complex pattern can seem to account for the intuitive “depth” of love as fully interwoven into one’s emotional sense of oneself. And it seems to make some headway in understanding the complex phenomenology of love: love can at times be a matter of intense pleasure in the presence of one’s beloved, yet it can at other times involve frustration, exasperation, anger, and hurt as a manifestation of the complexities and depth of the relationships it fosters.

This understanding of love as constituted by a history of emotional interdependence enables emotion complex views to say something interesting about the impact love has on the lover’s identity. This is partly Rorty’s point (1986/1993) in her discussion of the historicity of love ( above ). Thus, she argues, one important feature of such historicity is that love is “ dynamically permeable ” in that the lover is continually “changed by loving” such that these changes “tend to ramify through a person’s character” (p. 77). Through such dynamic permeability, love transforms the identity of the lover in a way that can sometimes foster the continuity of the love, as each lover continually changes in response to the changes in the other. [ 14 ] Indeed, Rorty concludes, love should be understood in terms of “a characteristic narrative history” (p. 75) that results from such dynamic permeability. It should be clear, however, that the mere fact of dynamic permeability need not result in the love’s continuing: nothing about the dynamics of a relationship requires that the characteristic narrative history project into the future, and such permeability can therefore lead to the dissolution of the love. Love is therefore risky—indeed, all the more risky because of the way the identity of the lover is defined in part through the love. The loss of a love can therefore make one feel no longer oneself in ways poignantly described by Nussbaum (1990).

By focusing on such emotionally complex histories, emotion complex views differ from most alternative accounts of love. For alternative accounts tend to view love as a kind of attitude we take toward our beloveds, something we can analyze simply in terms of our mental state at the moment. [ 15 ] By ignoring this historical dimension of love in providing an account of what love is, alternative accounts have a hard time providing either satisfying accounts of the sense in which our identities as person are at stake in loving another or satisfactory solutions to problems concerning how love is to be justified (cf. Section 6 , especially the discussion of fungibility ).

Nonetheless, some questions remain. If love is to be understood as an emotion complex, we need a much more explicit account of the pattern at issue here: what ties all of these emotional responses together into a single thing, namely love? Baier and Badhwar seem content to provide interesting and insightful examples of this pattern, but that does not seem to be enough. For example, what connects my amusement at my beloved’s embarrassment to other emotions like my joy on his behalf when he succeeds? Why shouldn’t my amusement at his embarrassment be understood instead as a somewhat cruel case of schadenfreude and so as antithetical to, and disconnected from, love? Moreover, as Naar (2013) notes, we need a principled account of when such historical patterns are disrupted in such a way as to end the love and when they are not. Do I stop loving when, in the midst of clinical depression, I lose my normal pattern of emotional concern?

Presumably the answer requires returning to the historicity of love: it all depends on the historical details of the relationship my beloved and I have forged. Some loves develop so that the intimacy within the relationship is such as to allow for tender, teasing responses to each other, whereas other loves may not. The historical details, together with the lovers’ understanding of their relationship, presumably determine which emotional responses belong to the pattern constitutive of love and which do not. However, this answer so far is inadequate: not just any historical relationship involving emotional interdependence is a loving relationship, and we need a principled way of distinguishing loving relationships from other relational evaluative attitudes: precisely what is the characteristic narrative history that is characteristic of love?

Helm (2009, 2010) tries to answer some of these questions in presenting an account of love as intimate identification. To love another, Helm claims, is to care about him as the particular person he is and so, other things being equal, to value the things he values. Insofar as a person’s (structured) set of values—his sense of the kind of life worth his living—constitutes his identity as a person, such sharing of values amounts to sharing his identity, which sounds very much like union accounts of love. However, Helm is careful to understand such sharing of values as for the sake of the beloved (as robust concern accounts insist), and he spells this all out in terms of patterns of emotions. Thus, Helm claims, all emotions have not only a target and a formal object (as indicated above), but also a focus : a background object the subject cares about in terms of which the implicit evaluation of the target is made intelligible. (For example, if I am afraid of the approaching hailstorm, I thereby evaluate it as dangerous, and what explains this evaluation is the way that hailstorm bears on my vegetable garden, which I care about; my garden, therefore, is the focus of my fear.) Moreover, emotions normally come in patterns with a common focus: fearing the hailstorm is normally connected to other emotions as being relieved when it passes by harmlessly (or disappointed or sad when it does not), being angry at the rabbits for killing the spinach, delighted at the productivity of the tomato plants, etc. Helm argues that a projectible pattern of such emotions with a common focus constitute caring about that focus. Consequently, we might say along the lines of Section 4.3 , while particular emotions appraise events in the world as having certain evaluative properties, their having these properties is partly bestowed on them by the overall patterns of emotions.

Helm identifies some emotions as person-focused emotions : emotions like pride and shame that essentially take persons as their focuses, for these emotions implicitly evaluate in terms of the target’s bearing on the quality of life of the person that is their focus. To exhibit a pattern of such emotions focused on oneself and subfocused on being a mother, for example, is to care about the place being a mother has in the kind of life you find worth living—in your identity as a person; to care in this way is to value being a mother as a part of your concern for your own identity. Likewise, to exhibit a projectible pattern of such emotions focused on someone else and subfocused on his being a father is to value this as a part of your concern for his identity—to value it for his sake. Such sharing of another’s values for his sake, which, Helm argues, essentially involves trust, respect, and affection, amounts to intimate identification with him, and such intimate identification just is love. Thus, Helm tries to provide an account of love that is grounded in an explicit account of caring (and caring about something for the sake of someone else) that makes room for the intuitive “depth” of love through intimate identification.

Jaworska & Wonderly (2017) argue that Helm’s construal of intimacy as intimate identification is too demanding. Rather, they argue, the sort of intimacy that distinguishes love from mere caring is one that involves a kind of emotional vulnerability in which things going well or poorly for one’s beloved are directly connected not merely to one’s well-being, but to one’s ability to flourish. This connection, they argue, runs through the lover’s self-understanding and the place the beloved has in the lover’s sense of a meaningful life.

Why do we love? It has been suggested above that any account of love needs to be able to answer some such justificatory question. Although the issue of the justification of love is important on its own, it is also important for the implications it has for understanding more clearly the precise object of love: how can we make sense of the intuitions not only that we love the individuals themselves rather than their properties, but also that my beloved is not fungible—that no one could simply take her place without loss. Different theories approach these questions in different ways, but, as will become clear below, the question of justification is primary.

One way to understand the question of why we love is as asking for what the value of love is: what do we get out of it? One kind of answer, which has its roots in Aristotle, is that having loving relationships promotes self-knowledge insofar as your beloved acts as a kind of mirror, reflecting your character back to you (Badhwar, 2003, p. 58). Of course, this answer presupposes that we cannot accurately know ourselves in other ways: that left alone, our sense of ourselves will be too imperfect, too biased, to help us grow and mature as persons. The metaphor of a mirror also suggests that our beloveds will be in the relevant respects similar to us, so that merely by observing them, we can come to know ourselves better in a way that is, if not free from bias, at least more objective than otherwise.

Brink (1999, pp. 264–65) argues that there are serious limits to the value of such mirroring of one’s self in a beloved. For if the aim is not just to know yourself better but to improve yourself, you ought also to interact with others who are not just like yourself: interacting with such diverse others can help you recognize alternative possibilities for how to live and so better assess the relative merits of these possibilities. Whiting (2013) also emphasizes the importance of our beloveds’ having an independent voice capable of reflecting not who one now is but an ideal for who one is to be. Nonetheless, we need not take the metaphor of the mirror quite so literally; rather, our beloveds can reflect our selves not through their inherent similarity to us but rather through the interpretations they offer of us, both explicitly and implicitly in their responses to us. This is what Badhwar calls the “epistemic significance” of love. [ 16 ]

In addition to this epistemic significance of love, LaFollette (1996, Chapter 5) offers several other reasons why it is good to love, reasons derived in part from the psychological literature on love: love increases our sense of well-being, it elevates our sense of self-worth, and it serves to develop our character. It also, we might add, tends to lower stress and blood pressure and to increase health and longevity. Friedman (1993) argues that the kind of partiality towards our beloveds that love involves is itself morally valuable because it supports relationships—loving relationships—that contribute “to human well-being, integrity, and fulfillment in life” (p. 61). And Solomon (1988, p. 155) claims:

Ultimately, there is only one reason for love. That one grand reason…is “because we bring out the best in each other.” What counts as “the best,” of course, is subject to much individual variation.

This is because, Solomon suggests, in loving someone, I want myself to be better so as to be worthy of his love for me.

Each of these answers to the question of why we love understands it to be asking about love quite generally, abstracted away from details of particular relationships. It is also possible to understand the question as asking about particular loves. Here, there are several questions that are relevant:

• What, if anything, justifies my loving rather than not loving this particular person?
• What, if anything, justifies my coming to love this particular person rather than someone else?
• What, if anything, justifies my continuing to love this particular person given the changes—both in him and me and in the overall circumstances—that have occurred since I began loving him?

These are importantly different questions. Velleman (1999), for example, thinks we can answer (1) by appealing to the fact that my beloved is a person and so has a rational nature, yet he thinks (2) and (3) have no answers: the best we can do is offer causal explanations for our loving particular people, a position echoed by Han (2021). Setiya (2014) similarly thinks (1) has an answer, but points not to the rational nature of persons but rather to the other’s humanity , where such humanity differs from personhood in that not all humans need have the requisite rational nature for personhood, and not all persons need be humans. And, as will become clear below , the distinction between (2) and (3) will become important in resolving puzzles concerning whether our beloveds are fungible, though it should be clear that (3) potentially raises questions concerning personal identity (which will not be addressed here).

It is important not to misconstrue these justificatory questions. Thomas (1991) , for example, rejects the idea that love can be justified: “there are no rational considerations whereby anyone can lay claim to another’s love or insist that an individual’s love for another is irrational” (p. 474). This is because, Thomas claims (p. 471):

no matter how wonderful and lovely an individual might be, on any and all accounts, it is simply false that a romantically unencumbered person must love that individual on pain of being irrational. Or, there is no irrationality involved in ceasing to love a person whom one once loved immensely, although the person has not changed.

However, as LaFollette (1996, p. 63) correctly points out,

reason is not some external power which dictates how we should behave, but an internal power, integral to who we are.… Reason does not command that we love anyone. Nonetheless, reason is vital in determining whom we love and why we love them.

That is, reasons for love are pro tanto : they are a part of the overall reasons we have for acting, and it is up to us in exercising our capacity for agency to decide what on balance we have reason to do or even whether we shall act contrary to our reasons. To construe the notion of a reason for love as compelling us to love, as Thomas does, is to misconstrue the place such reasons have within our agency. [ 17 ]

Most philosophical discussions of the justification of love focus on question (1) , thinking that answering this question will also, to the extent that we can, answer question (2) , which is typically not distinguished from (3) . The answers given to these questions vary in a way that turns on how the kind of evaluation implicit in love is construed. On the one hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of the bestowal of value (such as Telfer 1970–71; Friedman 1993; Singer 1994) typically claim that no justification can be given (cf. Section 4.2 ). As indicated above, this seems problematic, especially given the importance love can have both in our lives and, especially, in shaping our identities as persons. To reject the idea that we can love for reasons may reduce the impact our agency can have in defining who we are.

On the other hand, those who understand the evaluation implicit in love to be a matter of appraisal tend to answer the justificatory question by appeal to these valuable properties of the beloved. This acceptance of the idea that love can be justified leads to two further, related worries about the object of love.

The first worry is raised by Vlastos (1981) in a discussion Plato’s and Aristotle’s accounts of love. Vlastos notes that these accounts focus on the properties of our beloveds: we are to love people, they say, only because and insofar as they are objectifications of the excellences. Consequently, he argues, in doing so they fail to distinguish “ disinterested affection for the person we love” from “ appreciation of the excellences instantiated by that person ” (p. 33). That is, Vlastos thinks that Plato and Aristotle provide an account of love that is really a love of properties rather than a love of persons—love of a type of person, rather than love of a particular person—thereby losing what is distinctive about love as an essentially personal attitude. This worry about Plato and Aristotle might seem to apply just as well to other accounts that justify love in terms of the properties of the person: insofar as we love the person for the sake of her properties, it might seem that what we love is those properties and not the person. Here it is surely insufficient to say, as Solomon (1988, p. 154) does, “if love has its reasons, then it is not the whole person that one loves but certain aspects of that person—though the rest of the person comes along too, of course”: that final tagline fails to address the central difficulty about what the object of love is and so about love as a distinctly personal attitude. (Clausen 2019 might seem to address this worry by arguing that we love people not as having certain properties but rather as having “ organic unities ”: a holistic set of properties the value of each of which must be understood in essential part in terms of its place within that whole. Nonetheless, while this is an interesting and plausible way to think about the value of the properties of persons, that organic unity itself will be a (holistic) property held by the person, and it seems that the fundamental problem reemerges at the level of this holistic property: do we love the holistic unity rather than the person?)

The second worry concerns the fungibility of the object of love. To be fungible is to be replaceable by another relevantly similar object without any loss of value. Thus, money is fungible: I can give you two $5 bills in exchange for a $10 bill, and neither of us has lost anything. Is the object of love fungible? That is, can I simply switch from loving one person to loving another relevantly similar person without any loss? The worry about fungibility is commonly put this way: if we accept that love can be justified by appealing to properties of the beloved, then it may seem that in loving someone for certain reasons, I love him not simply as the individual he is, but as instantiating those properties. And this may imply that any other person instantiating those same properties would do just as well: my beloved would be fungible. Indeed, it may be that another person exhibits the properties that ground my love to a greater degree than my current beloved does, and so it may seem that in such a case I have reason to “trade up”—to switch my love to the new, better person. However, it seems clear that the objects of our loves are not fungible: love seems to involve a deeply personal commitment to a particular person, a commitment that is antithetical to the idea that our beloveds are fungible or to the idea that we ought to be willing to trade up when possible. [ 18 ]

In responding to these worries, Nozick (1989) appeals to the union view of love he endorses (see the section on Love as Union ):

The intention in love is to form a we and to identify with it as an extended self, to identify one’s fortunes in large part with its fortunes. A willingness to trade up, to destroy the very we you largely identify with, would then be a willingness to destroy your self in the form of your own extended self. [p. 78]

So it is because love involves forming a “we” that we must understand other persons and not properties to be the objects of love, and it is because my very identity as a person depends essentially on that “we” that it is not possible to substitute without loss one object of my love for another. However, Badhwar (2003) criticizes Nozick, saying that his response implies that once I love someone, I cannot abandon that love no matter who that person becomes; this, she says, “cannot be understood as love at all rather than addiction” (p. 61). [ 19 ]

Instead, Badhwar (1987) turns to her robust-concern account of love as a concern for the beloved for his sake rather than one’s own. Insofar as my love is disinterested — not a means to antecedent ends of my own—it would be senseless to think that my beloved could be replaced by someone who is able to satisfy my ends equally well or better. Consequently, my beloved is in this way irreplaceable. However, this is only a partial response to the worry about fungibility, as Badhwar herself seems to acknowledge. For the concern over fungibility arises not merely for those cases in which we think of love as justified instrumentally, but also for those cases in which the love is justified by the intrinsic value of the properties of my beloved. Confronted with cases like this, Badhwar (2003) concludes that the object of love is fungible after all (though she insists that it is very unlikely in practice). (Soble (1990, Chapter 13) draws similar conclusions.)

Nonetheless, Badhwar thinks that the object of love is “phenomenologically non-fungible” (2003, p. 63; see also 1987, p. 14). By this she means that we experience our beloveds to be irreplaceable: “loving and delighting in [one person] are not completely commensurate with loving and delighting in another” (1987, p. 14). Love can be such that we sometimes desire to be with this particular person whom we love, not another whom we also love, for our loves are qualitatively different. But why is this? It seems as though the typical reason I now want to spend time with Amy rather than Bob is, for example, that Amy is funny but Bob is not. I love Amy in part for her humor, and I love Bob for other reasons, and these qualitative differences between them is what makes them not fungible. However, this reply does not address the worry about the possibility of trading up: if Bob were to be at least as funny (charming, kind, etc.) as Amy, why shouldn’t I dump her and spend all my time with him?

A somewhat different approach is taken by Whiting (1991). In response to the first worry concerning the object of love, Whiting argues that Vlastos offers a false dichotomy: having affection for someone that is disinterested —for her sake rather than my own—essentially involves an appreciation of her excellences as such. Indeed, Whiting says, my appreciation of these as excellences, and so the underlying commitment I have to their value, just is a disinterested commitment to her because these excellences constitute her identity as the person she is. The person, therefore, really is the object of love. Delaney (1996) takes the complementary tack of distinguishing between the object of one’s love, which of course is the person, and the grounds of the love, which are her properties: to say, as Solomon does, that we love someone for reasons is not at all to say that we only love certain aspects of the person. In these terms, we might say that Whiting’s rejection of Vlastos’ dichotomy can be read as saying that what makes my attitude be one of disinterested affection—one of love—for the person is precisely that I am thereby responding to her excellences as the reasons for that affection. [ 20 ]

Of course, more needs to be said about what it is that makes a particular person be the object of love. Implicit in Whiting’s account is an understanding of the way in which the object of my love is determined in part by the history of interactions I have with her: it is she, and not merely her properties (which might be instantiated in many different people), that I want to be with; it is she, and not merely her properties, on whose behalf I am concerned when she suffers and whom I seek to comfort; etc. This addresses the first worry, but not the second worry about fungibility, for the question still remains whether she is the object of my love only as instantiating certain properties, and so whether or not I have reason to “trade up.”

To respond to the fungibility worry, Whiting and Delaney appeal explicitly to the historical relationship. [ 21 ] Thus, Whiting claims, although there may be a relatively large pool of people who have the kind of excellences of character that would justify my loving them, and so although there can be no answer to question (2) about why I come to love this rather than that person within this pool, once I have come to love this person and so have developed a historical relation with her, this history of concern justifies my continuing to love this person rather than someone else (1991, p. 7). Similarly, Delaney claims that love is grounded in “historical-relational properties” (1996, p. 346), so that I have reasons for continuing to love this person rather than switching allegiances and loving someone else. In each case, the appeal to both such historical relations and the excellences of character of my beloved is intended to provide an answer to question (3) , and this explains why the objects of love are not fungible.

There seems to be something very much right with this response. Relationships grounded in love are essentially personal, and it would be odd to think of what justifies that love to be merely non-relational properties of the beloved. Nonetheless, it is still unclear how the historical-relational propreties can provide any additional justification for subsequent concern beyond that which is already provided (as an answer to question (1) ) by appeal to the excellences of the beloved’s character (cf. Brink 1999). The mere fact that I have loved someone in the past does not seem to justify my continuing to love him in the future. When we imagine that he is going through a rough time and begins to lose the virtues justifying my initial love for him, why shouldn’t I dump him and instead come to love someone new having all of those virtues more fully? Intuitively (unless the change she undergoes makes her in some important sense no longer the same person he was), we think I should not dump him, but the appeal to the mere fact that I loved him in the past is surely not enough. Yet what historical-relational properties could do the trick? (For an interesting attempt at an answer, see Kolodny 2003 and also Howard 2019.)

If we think that love can be justified, then it may seem that the appeal to particular historical facts about a loving relationship to justify that love is inadequate, for such idiosyncratic and subjective properties might explain but cannot justify love. Rather, it may seem, justification in general requires appealing to universal, objective properties. But such properties are ones that others might share, which leads to the problem of fungibility. Consequently it may seem that love cannot be justified. In the face of this predicament, accounts of love that understand love to be an attitude towards value that is intermediate between appraisal and bestowal, between recognizing already existing value and creating that value (see Section 4.3 ) might seem to offer a way out. For once we reject the thought that the value of our beloveds must be either the precondition or the consequence of our love, we have room to acknowledge that the deeply personal, historically grounded, creative nature of love (central to bestowal accounts) and the understanding of love as responsive to valuable properties of the beloved that can justify that love (central to appraisal accounts) are not mutually exclusive (Helm 2010; Bagley 2015).

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Aristotle , Nicomachean Ethics , translated by W.D. Ross.
• Moseley, A., “ Philosophy of Love ,” in J. Fieser (ed.), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

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Do You Know What Love Really Is?

Is it just a second-hand emotion?

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Emily is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, Vox, and Verywell.

Verywell / Laura Porter

• How Do You Know You're Feeling Love for Someone?

Is Love Influenced By Biology or Culture?

How to show love to another person.

• Tips for Cultivating

Negative Emotions Associated With Love

Take the love quiz.

When it comes to love, some people would say it is one of the most important human emotions . Love is a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust.

Many say it's not an emotion in the way we typically understand them, but an essential physiological drive. 

Love is a physiological motivation such as hunger, thirst, sleep, and sex drive.

There are countless songs, books, poems, and other works of art about love (you probably have one in mind as we speak!). Yet despite being one of the most studied behaviors, it is still the least understood. For example, researchers debate whether love is a biological or cultural phenomenon.

How Do You Know You're Feeling Love for Someone?

What are some of the signs of love? Researchers have made distinctions between feelings of liking and loving another person.

Zick Rubin's Scales of Liking and Loving

According to psychologist Zick Rubin, romantic love is made up of three elements:

• Attachment : Needing to be with another person and desiring physical contact and approval
• Caring : Valuing the other person's happiness and needs as much as your own
• Intimacy : Sharing private thoughts, feelings, and desires with the other person

Based on this view of romantic love, Rubin developed two questionnaires to measure these variables, known as Rubin's Scales of Liking and Loving . While people tend to view people they like as pleasant, love is marked by being devoted, possessive, and confiding in one another. 

Are There Different Types of Love?

Yup—not all forms of love are the same, and psychologists have identified a number of different types of love that people may experience.

These types of love include:

• Friendship : This type of love involves liking someone and sharing a certain degree of intimacy.
• Infatuation : This form of love often involves intense feelings of attraction without a sense of commitment; it often takes place early in a relationship and may deepen into a more lasting love.
• Passionate love : This type of love is marked by intense feelings of longing and attraction; it often involves an idealization of the other person and a need to maintain constant physical closeness.
• Compassionate/companionate love : This form of love is marked by trust, affection, intimacy, and commitment.
• Unrequited love : This form of love happens when one person loves another who does not return those feelings.

Robert Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love

Specifically, psychologist Robert Sternberg developed his well-regarded triangular theory of love in the early 1980s. Much research has built upon his work and demonstrated its universality across cultures.

Sternberg broke love into three components—intimacy, passion, and commitment—that interact to produce seven types of love .

Love is most likely influenced by both biology and culture. Although hormones and biology are important, the way we express and experience love is also influenced by our own conceptions of love.

Some researchers suggest that love is a basic human emotion just like happiness or anger, while others believe that it is a cultural phenomenon that arises partly due to social pressures and expectations. 

Research has found that romantic love exists in all cultures, which suggests that love has a strong biological component. It is a part of human nature to seek out and find love. However, culture can significantly affect how individuals think about, experience, and display romantic love.

Is Love an Emotion?

Psychologists, sociologists, and researchers disagree somewhat on the characterization of love. Many say it's not an emotion in the way we typically understand them, but an essential physiological drive. On the other hand, the American Psychological Association defines it as "a complex emotion." Still, others draw a distinction between primary and secondary emotions and put love in the latter category, maintaining that it derives from a mix of primary emotions.

There is no single way to practice love. Every relationship is unique, and each person brings their own history and needs. Some things that you can do to show love to the people you care about include:

• Be willing to be vulnerable.
• Be willing to forgive.
• Do your best, and be willing to apologize when you make mistakes.
• Let them know that you care.
• Listen to what they have to say.
• Prioritize spending time with the other person.
• Reciprocate loving gestures and acts of kindness.
• Recognize and acknowledge their good qualities.
• Share things about yourself.
• Show affection.
• Make it unconditional.

How Love Impacts Your Mental Health

Love, attachment, and affection have an important impact on well-being and quality of life. Loving relationships have been linked to:

• Lower risk of heart disease
• Decreased risk of dying after a heart attack
• Better health habits
• Increased longevity
• Lower stress levels
• Less depression
• Lower risk of diabetes

Tips for Cultivating Love

Lasting relationships are marked by deep levels of trust, commitment, and intimacy. Some things that you can do to help cultivate loving relationships include:

• Try loving-kindness meditation. Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is a technique often used to promote self-acceptance and reduce stress, but it has also been shown to promote a variety of positive emotions and improve interpersonal relationships. LKM involves meditating while thinking about a person you love or care about, concentrating on warm feelings and your desire for their well-being and happiness.
• Communicate. Everyone's needs are different. The best way to ensure that your needs and your loved one's needs are met is to talk about them. Helping another person feel loved involves communicating that love to them through words and deeds. Some ways to do this include showing that you care, making them feel special, telling them they are loved , and doing things for them.
• Tackle conflict in a healthy way . Never arguing is not necessarily a sign of a healthy relationship—more often than not, it means that people are avoiding an issue rather than discussing it. Rather than avoid conflict, focus on hashing out issues in ways that are healthy in order to move a relationship forward in a positive way. 

As Shakespeare said, the course of love never did run smooth. Love can vary in intensity and can change over time. It is associated with a range of positive emotions, including happiness, excitement, life satisfaction, and euphoria, but it can also result in negative emotions such as jealousy and stress.

No relationship is perfect, so there will always be problems, conflicts, misunderstandings, and disappointments that can lead to distress or heartbreak.

Some of the potential pitfalls of experiencing love include:

• Increased stress
• Obsessiveness
• Possessiveness

While people are bound to experience some negative emotions associated with love, it can become problematic if those negative feelings outweigh the positive or if they start to interfere with either person's ability to function normally. Relationship counseling can be helpful in situations where couples need help coping with miscommunication, stress, or emotional issues.

History of Love

Only fairly recently has love become the subject of science. In the past, the study of love was left to "the creative writer to depict for us the necessary conditions for loving," according to Sigmund Freud . "In consequence, it becomes inevitable that science should concern herself with the same materials whose treatment by artists has given enjoyment to mankind for thousands of years," he added.  

Research on love has grown tremendously since Freud's remarks. But early explorations into the nature and reasons for love drew considerable criticism. During the 1970s, U.S. Senator William Proxmire railed against researchers who were studying love and derided the work as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Despite early resistance, research has revealed the importance of love in both child development and adult health.  

Our fast and free love quiz can help you determine if what you've got is the real deal or simply a temporary fling or infatuation.

Burunat E. Love is not an emotion .  Psychology . 2016;07(14):1883. doi:10.4236/psych.2016.714173

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University

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From songs and poems to novels and movies, romantic love is one of the most enduring subjects for artworks through the ages. But what about the science?

Historical, cultural and even evolutionary evidence suggests love existed during ancient times and across many parts of the world. Romantic love has been found to exist in 147 of 166 cultures looked at in one study.

The complexity of love has much to do with how people experience it differently and how it can change over time.

Read more: Friday essay: finding spaces for love

Like, love, or ‘in love’?

Psychological research over the past 50 years has investigated the differences between liking someone, loving someone and being “in love”.

Liking is described as having positive thoughts and feelings towards someone and finding that person’s company rewarding. We often also experience warmth and closeness towards the people we like. In some instances we choose to be emotionally intimate with these people.

When we love someone we experience the same positive thoughts and experiences as when we like a person. But we also experience a deep sense of care and commitment towards that person.

Being “ in love ” includes all the above but also involves feelings of sexual arousal and attraction. However, research into people’s own views of love suggests that not all love is the same.

Passionate vs companionate love

Romantic love consists of two types: passionate and companionate love. Most romantic relationships, whether they be heterosexual or same sex , involve both these parts.

Passionate love is what people typically consider being “in love”. It includes feelings of passion and an intense longing for someone, to the point they might obsessively think about wanting to be in their arms.

The second part is known as companionate love . It’s not felt as intensely, but it’s complex and connects feelings of emotional intimacy and commitment with a deep attachment toward the romantic partner.

How does love change over time?

Research looking at changes in romantic love over time typically finds that although passionate love starts high, it declines over the course of a relationship.

There are various reasons for this.

As partners learn more about each other and become more confident in the long-term future of the relationship, routines develop. The opportunities to experience novelty and excitement can also decline, as can the frequency of sexual activity . This can cause passionate love to subside.

Although a reduction in passionate love is not experienced by all couples, various studies report approximately 20-40% of couples experience this downturn. Of couples who have been married in excess of ten years, the steepest downturn is most likely to occur over the second decade .

Life events and transitions can also make it challenging to experience passion. People have competing responsibilities which affect their energy and limit the opportunities to foster passion. Parenthood is an example of this.

Read more: Love by design: when science meets sex, lust, attraction and attachment

In contrast, companionate love is typically found to increase over time.

Although research finds most romantic relationships consist of both passionate and companionate love, it’s the absence or reductions in companionate love, moreso than passionate love, that can negatively affect the longevity of a romantic relationship.

But what’s the point of love?

Love is an emotion that keeps people bonded and committed to one another. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, love evolved to keep the parents of children together long enough for them to survive and reach sexual maturity .

Read more: What is this thing called love?

The period of childhood is much longer for humans than other species. As offspring rely on adults for many years to survive and to develop the skills and abilities needed for successful living, love is especially important for humans.

Without love, it’s difficult to see how the human species could have evolved .

A biological foundation too

Not only is there an evolutionary foundation to love, love is rooted in biology. Neurophysiological studies into romantic love show that people who are in the throes of passionate love experience increased activation in brain regions associated with reward and pleasure.

Read more: Love lockdown: the pandemic has put pressure on many relationships, but here's how to tell if yours will survive

In fact, the brain regions activated are the same as those activated by cocaine.

These regions release chemicals such as oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine, which produce feelings of happiness and euphoria that are also linked to sexual arousal and excitement.

Interestingly, these brain regions are not activated when thinking about non-romantic relationships such as friends. These findings tell us that liking someone is not the same as being in love with someone.

What’s your love style?

Research has found three primary styles of love. First coined by psychologist John Lee , the love styles are eros, ludus and storge. These styles include people’s beliefs and attitudes about love and act as a guide for how to approach romantic relationships.

This style of love refers to erotic love and is focused on physical attraction and engaging in sex, the quick development of strong and passionate feelings for another and intense intimacy.

This style involves being emotionally distant and often involves “game-playing”. It’s not surprising people who endorse this love style are unlikely to commit, feel comfortable ending relationships and often start a new relationship before ending the current one.

Storge is often regarded as a more mature form of love. Priority is given to having a relationship with a person who has similar interests, affection is openly expressed and there is less emphasis on physical attractiveness. People high on storge love are trusting of others and are not needy or dependent on others.

Or is a mixture more your style?

You may see yourself in more than one of these styles.

Evidence suggests some people possess a mixture of the three main love styles; these mixtures were labelled by Lee as mania, pragma and agape.

Read more: Darling, I love you ... from the bottom of my brain

Manic love includes intense feelings for a partner as well as worry about committing to the relationship. Pragmatic love involves making sensible relationship choices in finding a partner who will make a good companion and friend. Agape is a self-sacrificing love that is driven by a sense of duty and selflessness.

Why do you love the way you do?

A person’s love style has little to do with their genetics . Rather, it’s associated with the development of personality and a person’s past relationship experiences.

Some studies have found people who are high on dark traits, such as narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism, endorse more of a ludus or pragma love style.

Read more: There are six styles of love. Which one best describes you?

People who have an insecure attachment style , involving a high need for validation and preoccupation with relationship partners, endorse more mania love, while those who are uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness do not endorse eros love.

No matter the differences in the way love is experienced, one thing remains common for all: we as humans are social animals who have a deep fascination for it.

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Three Powerful Lessons About Love

It’s been 20 years since daniel jones started modern love as a weekly column in the new york times. today, he shares what the job has taught him about love..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

Love now and always.

Did you fall in love?

Just tell her I love her.

Love is stronger than anything you can feel.

For the love.

And I love you more than anything.

(SINGING) What is love?

Here’s to love.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Anna Martin. This is “Modern Love.” This year marks the 20th anniversary of the “Modern Love” column. 20 years — can you believe that? Two decades of essays that have made us laugh, made us gasp, broken our hearts, reminded us of the fundamental goodness of people. And let’s be honest — a lot of these essays should come with tissues. It’s kind of our thing here, making you cry.

To mark this big anniversary, we’ve got a conversation with “Modern Love” founder Daniel Jones. Dan has edited around 1,000 essays since the first one ran back in 2004. And when you spend all your professional time contemplating human connection, that work doesn’t stay at the office. It impacts you in profound ways. So, today, Dan shares the three essays that have changed the way he approaches love and relationships in his own life. And at the end of the show, stay tuned for a very exciting announcement about the rest of our season.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So, it feels strange to say what I say to guests on the show, which is welcome, because, really, you welcomed me into this universe. So instead of saying welcome, I’m going to say, Dan Jones, hello, and thank you so much.

It is great to be back here.

The “Modern Love” column has been around for almost 20 years, which is a long time. And I do not say this in a rude way, but that also means that you are 20 years older than you were when you started it. Is there anything that’s happened in your life over those two decades that has changed your approach to the work or reframed it in some way?

I’ve gone from being young to less young over that time.

Delicately put.

I started the column with children who are now very much adults and have gone through their own breakups and traumas and all of that and got out into the world and gotten jobs. My marriage of 29 years came to an amicable end. My father died two months ago, and there’s been a lot of tough family time since then. But I feel like my life was pretty stable during the family child rearing years. And then, oddly timed to the pandemic, I have to say — [LAUGHS]

As happened to many, yeah.

It just like opened up, and it was like the column was saying to me, OK, you’re going to experience the whole range of what you’ve been putting out there. And interestingly enough, I feel like working on the column for all these years has given me sort of touchstones and tools — and not just for me, for other people, too — to be able to navigate difficult times in life. It feels like this churning reservoir of human experience that sort of feeds into your veins if you are open to it.

I love what you said that you gave so much to the column. And now you’re in this place in your career and your life where it’s giving back to you. I mean, what a —

It’s like an annuity program.

It’s like — yeah, it’s like a 401(k). [LAUGHS]

Right, right. Exactly.

It’s like a Roth IRA.

It’s the “Modern Love” 401(k).

That’s a sexy way to say it, right?

You know? I’m withdrawing. I’m getting close to the age where I’m going to be forced to withdraw. So, it’s a good thing.

People are loving this metaphor. OK, so that’s where you are now, but when you were starting the column, did you see yourself as an expert in relationships or in romance?

I wasn’t great at romantic relationships. I was like, how does this work? How does this work? I was really terrible at it in high school. I was really terrible at it in college. I still found it really hard. My first girlfriend in grad school.

Took you a while.

But very slow learning, very shy. But I think just the weightiness of romantic relationships is a scary thing.

And I wasn’t paralyzed with fear or anything. Like, I just — I assumed I’d get married and have a family. Like all those things were just assumptions and didn’t seem all that hard to make happen, in a way. But the complications of relationships and loss and just all those big things, I felt like those were things that happened to somebody else. Those were out there and were these deep, dark wells that I hadn’t really experienced and didn’t have a sense of how to navigate.

Hmm. How did the people in your life react when you told them like, hey, I got a new gig. I will be covering love and relationships at “The New York Times.” How did people react?

Some people were just — they were surprised that that would be my subject and that would be my beat, in a way. To me, I don’t think of love and relationships as being a beat. I think of it as being like the center of all life. It’s like, it’s not off to the side.

Say that, mm-hmm.

It’s the center of things. Honestly, I don’t like the word “romance.” It just feels like shallow and —

— schlocky and whatever. But the word “love” has it all. It’s like that’s the core of human existence, it seems to me. It’s the stuff of life and loss and death and yearning and dreaming and all of that stuff.

Mm. Have you come to that understanding of these stories about love are really stories about life? Did you enter into the column, the early days of this column, with that understanding, or has that been worked out over 20 years of editing these pieces?

We started that way a little intentionally. We made it clear that the stories were not just about romantic relationships. It was family relationships and friendships and parenthood and the whole sort of gamut of human love and bonds. And in coming up with a title, “Modern Love,” we wanted an umbrella that was sort of wide enough to encompass love.

And the “modern” part of it could mean a lot of things. To me, it meant something that was contemporary, like a way we connect that we didn’t use to, the way we use technology, the way we have children that we didn’t use to, all of those ways that are now. And we just thought “modern” would cover that piece of it.

OK, so, another big part of the column is that it’s totally based on reader submissions, meaning anyone can send in their idea for a story, and you select the ones you want to edit and then publish. Why did you go with that submission model, as opposed to commissioning stories from famous writers or other well-known people?

I just thought, let’s just open the floodgates and see what comes in. I didn’t realize at the time what a great idea that was because —

[LAUGHS]: I realized later, I’m a genius.

I’m a frickin’ genius for coming up with that, but not like it’s any kind of new idea. But for this kind of a forum, it was essential. And as an example, just a few weeks ago, we published a story by a Bangladeshi immigrant who’d been a taxi driver in New York, in an arranged marriage from Bangladesh. Had won the visa lottery and moved here, and they settled in Queens. They had a daughter. She became a doctor.

And I asked him, what made you write this story, your love story from 30 years ago and bringing it up to now? What made you submit it? And he said, oh, I’ve been reading “Modern Love” for 20 years.

You know? I’m reading it every week. And he wasn’t a writer. He’d just been reading the column and thought —

— I have a story. All these people who have stories, they read stories, they think, what about my story? And that’s something I was late in realizing, that it was just — it had drawn stories out of people who otherwise would not have told them. It felt a safe space for them. They thought, well, other people have done it.

So I could do it, too.

When we come back, Dan chooses the three essays that taught him the most about love, with a little help from Jake Gyllenhaal and Connie Britton. Stay with us.

All right, so, Dan, can you please kick us off with the first essay you want to talk about?

Yeah, so this is an essay. It’s called “One Bouquet of Fleeting Beauty, Please.” And the writer is named Alisha Gorder. And this is a story that begins with a young woman working in a flower shop describing the kinds of customers who come in, the kinds of flower bouquets that they’d buy and for what reason. And you think you’re in this light, airy story about a flower shop.

And then about halfway through, it takes a plunge into this really troubling backstory where her high school boyfriend had died by suicide at age 18, and it throws what she’s talking about and the flower shop into a whole new context. And in the end, it turns into a meditation of why flowers, why are these the things that people rely on for these important transitions and moments in life, and comes to a wisdom at the end that has just stayed with me ever since.

And longtime listeners will remember that this essay was featured on the podcast years ago, back when we had celebrities and voice actors read the essays. Let’s hear a part of this one performed, I think, really tenderly by the actor, Kerry Bishé.

There’s a picture I took of him just days before I left for college, two months before he died. It was the summer of chips and guacamole dinners we shared, sitting on the living room floor. He’s standing in the kitchen wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, one perfect half of an avocado cradled in his hand. His face is turned away, hidden from the camera, but I like to think he’s smiling.

I remember the song we were listening to, the chatter of frogs through the screen door, my bare feet on wood. Precious moments made all the more precious by the fact that they have already come and gone.

Now I measure months by what’s in season — sunflowers in July, dahlias in August, rose hips and maple in October, pine in December, hyacinth in March, crowdpleasing peonies in May.

A favorite of mine is tulip magnolia, the way the buds erupt into blooms and the blooms into a litter of color on lawns, all in a matter of weeks while it’s snowing cherry blossoms. How startlingly beautiful impermanence can be.

You said that it’s that ending and, in fact, it’s that final line that really speaks to you. Can you tell me what you learn or take away from that line?

It’s sort of grown on me how startlingly beautiful impermanence can be. It’s not that love or connection is beautiful and impermanent. It’s beautiful because it’s impermanent.

And the fleeting nature of any connection is what makes it precious and what makes it beautiful. And the way that she saw this in petals on the ground that are soon to dry up and go away, but the beauty is in that it won’t last.

I mean, there’s this section, I think, a little bit earlier than that when she even poses the question quite directly, like, why flowers? Why do we give these things that are going to shrivel and die?

Just to throw away, yeah.

And I love what you’re saying. It’s not despite the impermanence. It’s really loving because of it, because our time is —

Mm-hmm. That is the arc of life. It’s shortened with flower blossoms, but that is it. It sometimes lasts a long time, sometimes a short time. But it will always feel fleeting in a way, that level of beauty.

What does this essay make you think about in terms of your own life or your own relationships?

To me, it’s about — I mean, it’s a buzzword we always hear about, but here, it really comes home to roost, is presence, is being present. And it’s always the hardest thing, for me, for a lot of people, appreciating what you have now, and not thinking about what you’re building toward and what you’re accumulating wealth for and what’s to come, but the connections you have now that are beautiful in the moment, and not fearing that you’re going to lose them — because you are. That’s a certainty.

But just being able to be present and appreciate them and the fact that it’s this young woman who was able to artfully, in the midst of grief, compose such a beautiful piece that teaches that is just miraculous to me.

I mean, you mentioned earlier that your dad recently passed. Did you return to this essay then? Was it in the back of your mind as you were processing all that?

It must have been because I was scrolling through the archive and saw that illustration and clicked on it. And I did see it in a new way. I remembered how much I appreciated it at the time, but I was able to hold it together here. But when I read it aloud to a friend who obviously was sitting there when I was rereading it, I couldn’t get through the final lines. I was really broken up by it.

It sounds like this piece resonated with you and spoke to you in a different way years later, which is really powerful. Do you want to talk about the next essay?

Yeah, so this one is called “Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting.” It’s written by Thomas Hooven, who is a doctor. He’s not a writer. But you would never know that —

No, you would not.

— from reading this incredible essay. And I think about this essay all the time. This was published in 2013. He describes his relationship with his longtime girlfriend before he goes to medical school. They knew each other for 12 years. They were both the children of divorce and of unstable households that were scary. And they gave each other a sense of safety. He describes their relationship as being no fighting. Fighting was what their parents did.

Fighting would threaten their equilibrium, yeah.

Fighting would threaten their love. And so, it was a sort of a flat, safe relationship. They were together for 12 years. They got engaged. He was about to head off to medical school. And then, she abruptly broke up with him. I think there were only a few weeks from their marriage —

— from their wedding.

Three weeks.

Three weeks, OK.

And he was just — devastated doesn’t begin to describe it. And he goes off to medical school or his residency, and it’s sort of his boot camp in feelings and complications and devastation and real life, like real life. And then after this sort of time in the wilderness in his residency and going through all this, he learns what real love is.

Yeah, I mean, his idea of what real love is at the end of the essay is so powerful. This essay was also featured on an early season of the podcast. So here’s Jake Gyllenhaal reading Thomas Hooven’s essay, “Nursing a Wound in an Appropriate Setting.”

Yeah, this one is so great.

My ex and I are not in touch. Our relationship, so long in the making and so quick to end, was like an ornamental piece of crystal. Aesthetically pleasing but lacking resilience and, once shattered, irrecoverable.

Looking back at the various romantic and not so romantic dating experiences I had afterwards, it’s hard to separate my growth as an emotionally conversant partner from my development as a capable physician. Both happened simultaneously and gradually through stretches of triumph and sorrow. There were no Eureka moments, and neither ever really ended.

The turmoil I experienced as an intern left me with a deeper understanding of how pain works, how it feels, how it ebbs, and how it leaves you less naive. I also learned to open up to important facets of life that my previous relationship had locked out — unhappiness, uncertainty, and regret. Comfort around feelings like these is crucial in both medicine and intimate relationships. It’s the basis of empathy.

I didn’t understand that before my ex left me, and I learned it the hard way.

By the time I met my wife, I was a changed man and a real doctor. And our love developed differently from any I had ever experienced before. Less like a crystal vase, more like a basketball, our relationship is made for bouncing, for good and sometimes rough play that modern professional lives generate. We do have fights — oh, yes, we do. But they do not threaten our foundation — they deepen it.

Tell me what you take away about Thomas’s articulation of what real love is. What is he saying?

Well, this is one of these essays that I feel like mirrored my experience in a way. Like, I didn’t come from a family of turmoil. But I’m afraid of conflict, total fear of conflict. Don’t like to fight, don’t like to argue. My idea of a successful, romantic, loving relationship was being in a harmonious space all the time — or not all the time. Sometimes you’d be bored, but you wouldn’t be fighting.

And so, this idea that fighting can bring you closer is revolutionary to me. It still is revolutionary to me. And not only that it can bring you closer, but it’s the only thing to bring you closer and the only thing to deepen your relationship.

Fighting can lead to end a relationship definitely, but the only way forward and the only way deeper is through conflict and resolving conflicts to a new understanding of the relationship and who you’re with and the person you’re with and getting to know them better and all of that. And I don’t know what business he has writing this well about —

You’re like, listen —

It’s not fair to be like a doctor —

— you’re already a doctor.

— and — I know, and also to be able to write this well about and understand love this well and loss and conflict and depth. It’s remarkable.

Mm. So are you like fighting all the time now?

I still need to learn how to fight better.

Let’s talk about the final essay. This is an essay by Elizabeth Fitzsimmons. It’s called “My First Lesson in Motherhood.” Can you tell me what that essay’s about?

Yeah, so this is a piece that ran on Mother’s Day way back in 2007. And it’s yet another one that takes a really dramatic turn — several dramatic turns. And it’s an essay about bravery when you didn’t think you had the capacity for it. It’s a couple who are having trouble getting pregnant and decide to adopt a baby girl in China. And they specifically fill out forms saying, we’re new parents. We don’t want any disabilities. We can’t deal with anything, basically, except for just a perfect, little, healthy baby.

And they get a baby who’s chosen for them. By the time they get there and meet with the baby and are alone with her for the first time, they discover alarming physical problems, a really bad rash and a scar at the base of her spine and hear a horrifying diagnosis that the child will be paralyzed from the waist down, will be incontinent, will have serious, serious problems. And unbelievably, they talk to the agents from the adoption agency, and they say, oh, well, we’re sorry about this, and essentially offer a swap for a different baby.

Yeah, that’s a moment that is kind of unbelievable in this piece.

The view of human life in that circumstance.

So this essay was read by the actress Connie Britton in 2016. And you can just hear the emotional stakes of this story in her performance. Let’s listen to it.

Yeah, she’s really perfect for this one.

I pictured myself boarding the plane with some faceless replacement child and then explaining to friends and family that she wasn’t Natalie, that we had left Natalie in China because she was too damaged, that the deal had been a healthy baby, and she wasn’t. How could I face myself? How could I ever forget? I would always wonder what happened to Natalie.

I knew this was my test, my life’s worth distilled into a moment. I was shaking my head no before they finished explaining. We didn’t want another baby, I told them. We wanted our baby, the one sleeping right over there. She’s our daughter, I said. We love her. Yet we had a long, fraught night ahead, wondering how we would possibly cope. I called my mother in tears and told her the news.

There was a long pause.

Oh, honey. I sobbed. She waited until I caught my breath. It would be OK if you came home without her. Why are you saying that? I just want to absolve you. What do you want to do? I want to take my baby and get out of here, I said. Good, my mother said. Then that’s what you should do.

I mean, I’m tearing up.

Me, too. So, the lesson in this piece to me is sort of about a test. It’s really a test. It’s like, what are you capable of? What kind of devotion, what kind of sense of responsibility, what are you going to take on? And they have to decide in the moment, are they going to stick with this child with this horrifying set of health complications that could control their lives forever? Are they going to push that baby aside and accept a healthier baby? And then, how do they live with themselves if they do that? Neither choice is an appealing choice.

No. This essay — I mean, all of these essays bowled me over, and this one just made me — I mean, I quite literally called my mom after this. It is such a moving testament to just the completely inexplicable, immediate bond between parent and child. Yeah, I’m still kind of crying. I mean, it’s just — it’s remarkable. Tell me what you’re taking. I mean, you are a parent. Like, tell me what you’re thinking about when you read this essay.

Well, first of all, I’m thinking — I think anyone reading this thinks, what choice would I have made?

And you would like to think that you would make the choice of keeping the child. But honestly, one of the most moving things and tragic things that happened in the wake of publishing this essay is, we got emails from people who’d faced this choice and —

— made the opposite choice and either left with a healthy baby and struggled, and struggled, and struggled with having done that. More common was giving up on adoption entirely and just walking away, and walking away from that child or any child. But she’s just like, I’m going to walk into this. Like, I’m going to just walk forward into this, and it’s going to be what it’s going to be. And miracle of miracles — like, within a year or so, all that stuff has gone away. They see a specialist —

I know. The kid is fine. I’m going to cry again. It’s like, after making this decision, they go home, and she heals. Oh!

Yeah, and she recoiled at thinking that was a reward for making the right choice. Like, she said, it’s not about that. It’s not about we were generous or we were good, and therefore, our child turned out fine. It’s not that at all. It just happened that way. But it’s yet another lesson in you can’t predict a smooth path. You just have to walk forward and be brave.

I often say with “Modern Love” stories that are really about choices and hard choices and how it’s sort of ordinary people being incredibly brave, I mean, I often wonder, what creates the person who can make the brave choice versus the person who shrinks from it. Like, what is that magic sauce? Or what is that childhood experience or what is the parenting that they have?

Because there is a divide. Like, there is a divide often in those circumstances that we saw in the outpouring after the essay.

We see instances of bravery in all three of the essays that you’ve shared today — bravery to embrace the brevity of love, bravery to engage in fighting in a relationship, bravery to make a choice. Would you define bravery as like a core act of love?

Yeah, a core act of love and a core act of life. People’s bravery has been my biggest takeaway over 20 years of doing this work. It’s never a person who says, I am brave. It’s almost the opposite. It’s people who say, I’m not brave. I’m a coward. And yet —

And the lesson, just sort of the lesson of that, life, it’s going to be a mess one way or the other. You just sort choose your mess. But that is what it is. That is life. You’re not going to avoid it. There’s such a school of life that is about trying to make your life as clean and tidy as possible. And it’s really a struggle to do that. And I’m not sure it’s well-directed energy.

What do you think we should direct our energy to? And now this is just truly me asking you because I want you to give me life advice. If not to cleaning up our life —

I’m not an advice giver, Anna.

I know, but just please —

You know that.

— put on the hat for one second. Like, if not to direct our energy towards cleaning up our life in your 20 years of doing this work, like, what is the more worthwhile thing to direct energy towards?

This is not exactly new advice, but it’s really the wisdom from Alisha Gorder’s essay, which is be in the moment. Value the people you’re with now. Don’t think I’m planning for 10 years from now. Get your 401(k) out of your mind. Contribute to it, but put it out of your mind. It’s the now. It’s the now that is the work.

Dan, I love that. It’s the now. I feel like so many listeners right now are clinging to every word you’ve said, trying to figure out what you’re looking for in a “Modern Love” essay pitch. And by the way, you can send those submissions to [email protected]. Dan, can you give us a few quick tips on what makes a story stand out in your inbox?

Well, a bad subject line is “Modern Love submission.”

You’re like 80 percent of people who submit. And a good subject line would include an attempt at a title, which would be like, “Please, Lord, let him be 27.”

Please Lord.

I read that — yeah, I read that subject line. It was funny. It was smart. It was vulnerable. I just prayed the essay would deliver on that promise.

And it did deliver. We actually featured it on the podcast a few seasons ago. So, a good subject line is very practical advice, but what about the essence of a story? Like, what are you looking for there?

A harder to define quality is a sense of humility. Like, there’s a sense that you’re not the smartest person in the world, but you do have something to offer. And in the world of pitching and of trying to get published, there’s an overriding sense that you have to act confident. You have to sell your product. You have to say, this essay is going to be perfect for you.

And that’s just the wrong approach. That kind of confidence is not what a hard experience leaves you with. It can leave you shaken. It can leave you wise. But it doesn’t leave you cocky. And I think it’s important that the stories aren’t really about answers. They’re about a search for answers. And they don’t need to come to a conclusion. But they need to present a problem in an interesting way that makes you think about it.

Well, now you’re going to get even more submissions that can fuel the next 20 years of “Modern Love.” Dan, thank you so much for the conversation today.

Thanks, Anna. It was a lot of fun.

So, listeners, at the beginning of this episode, I told you we have an announcement about the rest of our season. In honor of 20 years of “Modern Love,” we’re launching a special series that’s really an ode to the early years of the podcast that so many of you love so much.

Starting next week, our favorite actors, musicians, writers, and artists will read hand-picked essays from the “Modern Love” archive, and we’ll talk with them about how those essays relate to their life and their work. We’ve got a truly incredible lineup that we can’t wait to share with you. So, happy anniversary, “Modern Love” listeners. We are so excited for this season-long celebration. See you next week.

“Modern Love” is produced by Julia Botero, Christina Djossa, Reva Goldberg, and Emily Lang. It’s edited by Jen Poyant and Paula Szuchman. Our executive producer is Jen Poyant. This episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Our show was recorded by Maddy Masiello.

The “Modern Love” theme music is by Dan Powell. Digital production by Mahima Chablani and Nell Gallogly. Special thanks to Larissa Anderson, Kate LoPresti, Davis Land, and Lisa Tobin. The “Modern Love” column is edited by Daniel Jones. Miya Lee is the editor of “Modern Love” projects. I’m Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.

• May 8, 2024   •   27:22 ¡Hola Papi!, Does My Grandmother Need to Know I’m Gay?
• May 1, 2024   •   31:54 Emily Ratajkowski Can Take Care of Herself, but a Little Help Would Be Nice
• April 24, 2024   •   28:31 Laufey, Gen Z’s Pop Jazz Icon, Sings for the Anxious Generation
• April 17, 2024   •   35:54 Why John Magaro of ‘Past Lives’ Could Never Love a Picky Eater
• April 10, 2024   •   29:18 Esther Perel on What the Other Woman Knows
• April 3, 2024   •   27:31 The Second Best Way to Get Divorced, According to Maya Hawke
• March 27, 2024   •   32:38 How to Be Real With Your Kids
• March 20, 2024   •   32:14 Why Samin Nosrat Is Now ‘Fully YOLO’
• March 13, 2024   •   32:32 Brittany Howard Sings Through the Pangs of New Love
• March 6, 2024   •   33:21 Novelist Celeste Ng on the Big Power of Little Things
• February 28, 2024   •   37:46 Three Powerful Lessons About Love
• February 23, 2024   •   33:45 Modern Love at the Movies: Our Favorite Oscar-Worthy Love Stories

Hosted by Anna Martin

Produced by Julia Botero ,  Christina Djossa ,  Reva Goldberg and Emily Lang

Engineered by Daniel Ramirez

Original music by Dan Powell

Featuring Daniel Jones

Edited by Paula Szuchman and Jen Poyant

Listen and follow Modern Love Apple Podcasts | Spotify

‘working on the column for all these years has given me touchstones and tools to be able to navigate difficult times in life. it feels like a churning reservoir of human experience that feeds into your veins if you are open to it.’.

When Daniel Jones started the Modern Love column in 2004, he opened the call for submissions and hoped the idea would catch on. Twenty years later, over a thousand Modern Love essays have been published in The New York Times, and the column is a trove of real-life love stories.

Dan has put so much of himself into editing the column over the years, but as he tells our host, Anna Martin, the column has influenced him, too. Today, Dan shares three Modern Love essays that have changed the way he thinks about love and relationships in his own life.

Also, Anna announces the beginning of a special series of episodes celebrating Modern Love’s 20th anniversary.

Links to transcripts of episodes generally appear on these pages within a week.

Modern Love is hosted by Anna Martin and produced by Julia Botero, Christina Djossa, Reva Goldberg and Emily Lang. The show is edited by Paula Szuchman and Jen Poyant, our executive producer. The show is mixed by Daniel Ramirez and recorded by Maddy Masiello. It features original music by Dan Powell. Our theme music is by Dan Powell.

Special thanks to Larissa Anderson, Kate LoPresti, Davis Land, Lisa Tobin, Daniel Jones, Miya Lee, Mahima Chablani, Nell Gallogly, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Nina Lassam and Julia Simon.

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected] . Want more from Modern Love ? Read past stories . Watch the TV series and sign up for the newsletter . We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “ Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption ” and “ Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less .”

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What Is Love? A Philosophy of Life

Natural Philosopher, Alchemist, Visual Artist

Don't let the word love define your LOVE

Love is the most powerful emotion a human being can experience. The strange think is, that almost nobody knows what love is. Why is it so difficult to find love? That is easy to understand, if you know that the word "love" is not the same as one's feeling of love.

The word "love" is used and abused for the expression of different sets of feelings.

The word love is used as an expression of affection towards someone else (I love you) but it also expresses pleasure (I love chocolate). To make it a little more complicated, the word "love" also expresses a human virtue that is based on compassion, affection and kindness. This is a state of being, that has nothing to do, with something or someone outside yourself. This is the purest form of Love.

The ancient Greek used 7 words to define the different states of love:

Storge: natural affection, the love you share with your family.

Philia: the love that you have for friends.

Eros: sexual and erotic desire kind of love (positive or negative)

Agape: this is the unconditional love, or divine love

Ludus: this is playful love, like childish love or flirting.

Pragma: long standing love. The love in a married couple.

Philautia: the love of the self (negative or positive)

These are 7 different kind of feelings. The love you feel for your partner is not the same as the love you feel for your mother. Even the love for your partner changes in time. You feel different emotions for different situations and people.

But still, we use the same word. It is easy to understand that a confusion is easy made while communicating. I can say "I love you" to two different people (and mean it), but I am actually feeling in a different way.

This confusion is not only the case while 2 people are talking, your own brain does not get it.

What you feel is controlled by the right side of your brain and language is controlled by your left side. If you use the word "love" 10 times a day with different situations, it losses power. Your left part or your brain does not get fully activated when you really mean "I love you" and want to get exited about it. 50% of your brain is a lot.

The first thing that you need to do is learn the differences of the (7?) states of love. Not the words, but how they feel. It is easy if you recognize the words. It is basic training. Awareness, that is the secret to love.

Love is a practice, it is not something you find or don't find. You can practice love for the rest of your life.

Don't abuse the word love. Use other words where you are not addressing emotion towards other people.

Example: I love chocolate, becomes: I enjoy chocolate. I love my job, becomes: I have passion for what I do.

Enjoying, loving and passion are 3 different emotions. It is essential to learn (again) the true meaning of words, not merely to communicate with someone else, but also so learn to experience them. Words are very powerful instruments. Not only to communicate with others, but also with your self. The words you use, creates awareness and eventually your reality.

If you use words wisely, you can learn to recognize what kind of love you are feeling, and enjoy the different kinds of love. With one person of different ones.

If you don't know how to find love with in you, you will never find it outside you.

Words are agreements to express ideas or feelings. The meaning of words is not absolute, it is always a personal interpretation. The group of feelings associated with the word "love" is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to express to other person. Let put is this way: it is impossible with only one word.

With the creation of a word, you can give it a special meaning. Some lovers create words to express what they feel to each other. A word creates and agreement or memories. This moments can be repeated when you use that word or when you think about it.

In other languages exist words, related to love, that expresses different situations that don't have a translation to English. When you know this words, you recognize this feelings. You get more grip in what you are experiencing.

Beautiful words in other languages:

Yuanfen (Chinese): A love relationship that has been established by lot, based on principles of Chinese culture.

Mamihlapinatapei (Yaghan): A look that without words is shared by two people who want to initiate something, but neither start.

Cafuné (Brazilian Portugees): Slowly stroking your fingers through someone else's hair.

Retrouvailles (France): The happiness of seeing someone again after a long time.

La Douleur Exquise (France): The enormous pain in your heart when you desire someone you cannot have.

Ya'aburnee (Arabic): The hope that you will die earlier than the other, so you don't need to live without the other.

Forelsket (Nordic): The euphoria you feel when you fall in love for the first time.

Saudade (Portugees): The feeling of longing for someone you love, but is far away.

This "moments" are so important in other cultures that they have words to express them. My point is, don't use just one word to define your love. Learn this "words" and recognize them when you are living them.

With love, you get what you put in

Love is an emotion in action. You can learn how to feel and cultivate your love... First learn and know the different situations of love. Learn how to recognize them when you are feeling them. Then you go and share your love with others.

Love between 2 people can only begin if the interaction is based on truth, trust and respect. That is something you start giving. This is essential to grown mutual love between 2 individuals. If the other person gives you wat you give, then you start feeling love for each other and it can grow...

It is not difficult to understand love, once you know how love works.

It is very easy to fall in love with someone. The difficulty is to stay in love. But if it is difficult to stay in love, that means, that it is not the love of your life. It is a love experience. Love is always beautiful, if it is not beautiful, it is not love. Time to move on. Sometimes, love just fades away. It is better to move on when you don't feel anything, then when you feel the opposite of love.

Finding your loved one or a relationship...

If you want to find the love of your life, start being aware of your use of the word love. Saying and thinking I want to find the love of my life and not I want a relationship is fundamental. You find what you are looking for.

"Being in a relationship" is a marketing term invented in magazines. Everyone that is not single is in a relationship. To address a large group of people it is perfect, but it is to vague to define your personal situation.

The only important question for you should be: "Am I experiencing love or not?"

This is the first philosophy essay forming a series under the name: "Natural Philosophy" about the most important matters of life, trying to define a "Theory of everything". Continue reading here .

Support the crowd source campaign to publish a ebook, and distribute it for free. (Link in my profile) or download the first ebook in the Natural Philosophy series here

From Our Partner

Huffpost shopping’s best finds, more in life.

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The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love

Christopher Grau is Associate Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Clemson University. He specializes in ethics, topics in metaphysics, and philosophical work on film. He has published articles in a variety of journals including the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , the Journal of Moral Philosophy , Midwest Studies in Philosophy , Philosophical Topics , The Review of Philosophy and Psychology , and The Southern Journal of Philosophy . He is also the editor of three books. The most recent, Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, and Fiction , is co-edited with Susan Wolf and published by Oxford University Press.

Aaron Smuts was an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rhode Island College. His interests ranged across a wide variety of topics in theoretical ethics. Aaron published over three dozen articles in a variety of books and academic journals, including: American Philosophical Quarterly , the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Pacific Philosophic Quarterly, Philosophical Studies , and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . His book Welfare, Meaning, and Worth (Routledge) was published in 2020.

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The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love offers a wide array of original essays on the nature and value of love. The editors, Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts, have assembled an esteemed group of thinkers, including both established scholars and younger voices. The volume contains thirty-three essays addressing both issues about love as well as key philosophers who have contributed to the philosophy of love, such as Plato, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Murdoch. The topics range from central issues about the nature and variety of love, the possibility of its rational justification, and whether it is an emotion, to the significance of love for law, economics, morality, and free will. The volume also contains an introduction to the subject as well as essays on love's relation to jealousy, religion, knowledge, biotechnology, and several other topics. This wide-ranging handbook will be a key resource for specialists working on the philosophy of love, and a helpful guide for those looking to learn more about the area.

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• Published: 07 January 2009

Being Human

Love: Neuroscience reveals all

• Larry J Young 1  

Nature volume  457 ,  page 148 ( 2009 ) Cite this article

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Poetry it is not. Nor is it particularly romantic. But reducing love to its component parts helps us to understand human sexuality, and may lead to drugs that enhance or diminish our love for another, says Larry J. Young.

In his Love's Trinity , the Victorian poet laureate Alfred Austin sums up the holistic view of love that has long held sway:

Soul, heart, and body, we thus singly name,

Are not in love divisible and distinct,

But each with each inseparably link'd.

Now researchers are attempting to isolate and identify the neural and genetic components underlying this seemingly uniquely human emotion. Indeed, biologists may soon be able to reduce certain mental states associated with love to a biochemical chain of events. This has implications for the evolution of human sexuality, and raises important societal issues given our increasing use of genetic tests to screen for certain behaviours, and of drugs to modulate mental processes.

Animal models have greatly aided our understanding of the mechanisms that regulate emotions — particularly for evolutionarily conserved states such as fear and anxiety. These advances have led to pharmaceutical therapies for anxiety, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorders. Such models are also beginning to shed light on love.

We are not alone in being able to form intense and enduring social ties. Take the mother–infant bond. Whether or not the emotional connection between a ewe and her lamb, or a female macaque and her offspring, is qualitatively similar to human motherly love, it is highly likely that these relationships share evolutionarily conserved brain mechanisms. In humans, rats and sheep, the hormone oxytocin is released during labour, delivery and nursing. In ewes, an infusion of oxytocin into the brain results in rapid bonding with a foreign lamb.

Long-term bonding between mates is rare in mammals. It may be regulated by the same brain mechanisms as those involved in maternal bonding. For instance, pair bonding in the female monogamous prairie vole is stimulated by oxytocin released in the brain during mating. A female prairie vole rapidly becomes attached to the nearest male if her brain is infused with oxytocin. The hormone interacts with the reward and reinforcement system driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine — the same circuitry that drugs such as nicotine, cocaine and heroine act on in humans to produce euphoria and addiction.

There is intriguing overlap between the brain areas involved in vole pair bonding and those associated with human love. Dopamine-related reward regions of the human brain are active in mothers viewing images of their child. Similar activation patterns are seen in people looking at photographs of their lovers.

The notion that pair bonding in humans may have evolved through a tweaking of the brain mechanisms underlying maternal bonding could explain certain unique characteristics of human sexuality. For example, female sexual desire may have become decoupled from fertility, and the female breast may have become an erotic stimulus for males, to activate ancient maternal-bonding systems. The stimulation of the cervix and nipples during sexual intimacy are potent releasers of brain oxytocin, and may function to strengthen the emotional tie between partners.

Pair bonding in males involves similar brain circuitry to that in females, but different neurochemical pathways. In male prairie voles, for example, vasopressin — a hormone related to oxytocin — stimulates pair bonding, aggression towards potential rivals, and paternal instincts, such as grooming offspring in the nest. Variation in a regulatory region of the vasopressin receptor gene, avpr1a , predicts the likelihood that a male vole will bond with a female.

Similarly, in humans, different forms of the AVPR1A gene are associated with variation in pair bonding and relationship quality. A recent study shows that men with a particular AVPR1A variant are twice as likely as men without it to remain unmarried, or when married, twice as likely to report a recent crisis in their marriage. Spouses of men with the variant also express more dissatisfaction in their relationships than do those of men lacking it. For both voles and humans, AVPR1A genetic polymorphisms predict how much vasopressin receptor is expressed in the brain.

The view of love as an emergent property of a cocktail of ancient neuropeptides and neurotransmitters raises important issues for society. For one thing, drugs that manipulate brain systems at whim to enhance or diminish our love for another may not be far away. Experiments have shown that a nasal squirt of oxytocin enhances trust and tunes people into others' emotions. Internet entrepreneurs are already marketing products such as Enhanced Liquid Trust, a cologne-like mixture of oxytocin and pheromones “designed to boost the dating and relationship area of your life”. Although such products are unlikely to do anything other than boost users' confidence, studies are under way in Australia to determine whether an oxytocin spray might aid traditional marital therapy.

We don't yet know whether the drugs commonly used to treat disorders from depression to sexual dysfunction affect people's relationships by altering neurochemistry. But both Prozac and Viagra influence the oxytocin system. The quality of patients' relationships should be included in the list of variables assessed in controlled psychiatric drug studies.

The possibility that genetic variation may influence the quality of our romantic relationships also has intriguing implications. Perhaps genetic tests for the suitability of potential partners will one day become available, the results of which could accompany, and even override, our gut instincts in selecting the perfect partner. Either way, recent advances in the biology of pair bonding mean it won't be long before an unscrupulous suitor could slip a pharmaceutical 'love potion' in our drink. And if they did, would we care? After all, love is insanity.

Further Reading

Walum, H. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 105 , 14153–14156 (2008).

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Young, L. J. & Wang, Z. Nature Neurosci. 7 , 1048–1054 (2004).

Zeki, S. FEBS Lett. 581 , 2575–2579 (2007).

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Authors and affiliations.

Larry Young is at 954 Gatewood Road, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. [email protected] ,

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Young, L. Love: Neuroscience reveals all. Nature 457 , 148 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/457148a

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Before You Write a Love Essay, Read This to Get Examples

The day will come when you can’t escape the fate of all students: You will have to write a what is love essay.

No worries:

Here you’ll find tons of love essay topics and examples. No time to read everything? Scroll down to get a free PDF with original samples.

Definition: Essay on Love

First, let’s define what is love essay?

The most common topics are:

• Definition of love
• What is love?
• Meaning of love

Why limit yourself to these hackneyed, general themes? Below, I’ll show how to make your paper on love original yet relevant to the prompt you get from teachers.

Love Essay Topics: 20 Ideas to Choose for Your Paper

Your essay on love and relationship doesn’t have to be super official and unemotional. It’s ok to share reflections and personal opinions when writing about romance.

Often, students get a general task to write an essay on love. It means they can choose a theme and a title for their paper. If that’s your case,  feel free to try any of these love essay topics:

• Exploring the impact of love on individuals and relationships.
• Love in the digital age: Navigating romance in a tech world.
• Is there any essence and significance in unconditional love?
• Love as a universal language: Connecting hearts across cultures.
• Biochemistry of love: Exploring the process.
• Love vs. passion vs. obsession.
• How love helps cope with heartbreak and grief.
• The art of loving. How we breed intimacy and trust.
• The science behind attraction and attachment.
• How love and relationships shape our identity and help with self-discovery.
• Love and vulnerability: How to embrace emotional openness.
• Romance is more complex than most think: Passion, intimacy, and commitment explained.
• Love as empathy: Building sympathetic connections in a cruel world.
• Evolution of love. How people described it throughout history.
• The role of love in mental and emotional well-being.
• Love as a tool to look and find purpose in life.
• Welcoming diversity in relations through love and acceptance.
• Love vs. friendship: The intersection of platonic and romantic bonds.
• The choices we make and challenges we overcome for those we love.
• Love and forgiveness: How its power heals wounds and strengthens bonds.

Love Essay Examples: Choose Your Sample for Inspiration

Essays about love are usually standard, 5-paragraph papers students write in college:

• One paragraph is for an introduction, with a hook and a thesis statement
• Three are for a body, with arguments or descriptions
• One last passage is for a conclusion, with a thesis restatement and final thoughts

Below are the ready-made samples to consider. They’ll help you see what an essay about love with an introduction, body, and conclusion looks like.

What is love essay: 250 words

Lao Tzu once said, “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Indeed, love can transform individuals, relationships, and our world.

A word of immense depth and countless interpretations, love has always fascinated philosophers, poets, and ordinary individuals. This  emotion breaks boundaries and has a super power to change lives. But what is love, actually?

It’s a force we feel in countless ways. It is the warm embrace of a parent, filled with care and unwavering support. It is the gentle touch of a lover, sparking a flame that ignites passion and desire. Love is the kind words of a friend, offering solace and understanding in times of need. It is the selfless acts of compassion and empathy that bind humanity together.

Love is not confined to romantic relationships alone. It is found in the family bonds, the connections we forge with friends, and even the compassion we extend to strangers. Love is a thread that weaves through the fabric of our lives, enriching and nourishing our souls.

However, love is not without its complexities. It can be both euphoric and agonizing, uplifting and devastating. Love requires vulnerability, trust, and the willingness to embrace joy and pain. It is a delicate balance between passion and compassion, independence and interdependence.

Finally, the essence of love may be elusive to define with mere words. It is an experience that surpasses language and logic, encompassing a spectrum of emotions and actions. Love is a profound connection that unites us all, reminding us of our shared humanity and the capacity for boundless compassion.

What is love essay: 500 words

A 500-word essay on why I love you

Trying to encapsulate why I love you in a mere 500 words is impossible. My love for you goes beyond the confines of language, transcending words and dwelling in the realm of emotions, connections, and shared experiences. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to express the depth and breadth of my affection for you.

First and foremost, I love you for who you are. You possess a unique blend of qualities and characteristics that captivate my heart and mind. Your kindness and compassion touch the lives of those around you, and I am grateful to be the recipient of your unwavering care and understanding. Your intelligence and wit constantly challenge me to grow and learn, stimulating my mind and enriching our conversations. You have a beautiful spirit that radiates warmth and joy, and I am drawn to your vibrant energy.

I love the way you make me feel. When I am with you, I feel a sense of comfort and security that allows me to be my true self. Your presence envelops me in a cocoon of love and acceptance, where I can express my thoughts, fears, and dreams without fear of judgment. Your support and encouragement inspire me to pursue my passions and overcome obstacles. With you by my side, I feel empowered to face the world, knowing I have a partner who believes in me.

I love the memories we have created together. From the laughter-filled moments of shared adventures to the quiet and intimate conversations, every memory is etched in my heart. Whether exploring new places, indulging in our favorite activities, or simply enjoying each other’s company in comfortable silence, each experience reinforces our bond. Our shared memories serve as a foundation for our relationship, a testament to the depth of our connection and the love that binds us.

I love your quirks and imperfections. Your true essence shines through these unique aspects! Your little traits make me smile and remind me of the beautiful individual you are. I love how you wrinkle your nose when you laugh, become lost in thought when reading a book, and even sing off-key in the shower. These imperfections make you human, relatable, and utterly lovable.

I love the future we envision together. We support each other’s goals, cheering one another on as we navigate the path toward our dreams. The thought of building a life together, creating a home filled with love and shared experiences, fills my heart with anticipation and excitement. The future we imagine is one that I am eager to explore with you by my side.

In conclusion, the reasons why I love you are as vast and varied as the universe itself. It is a love that defies logic and surpasses the limitations of language. From the depths of my being, I love you for the person you are, the way you make me feel, the memories we cherish, your quirks and imperfections, and the future we envision together. My love for you is boundless, unconditional, and everlasting.

A 5-paragraph essay about love

I’ve gathered all the samples (and a few bonus ones) in one PDF. It’s free to download. So, you can keep it at hand when the time comes to write a love essay.

Ready to Write Your Essay About Love?

Now that you know the definition of a love essay and have many topic ideas, it’s time to write your A-worthy paper! Here go the steps:

• Check all the examples of what is love essay from this post.
• Choose the topic and angle that fits your prompt best.
• Write your original and inspiring story.

Any questions left? Our writers are all ears. Please don’t hesitate to ask!

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Home — Essay Samples — History — Holocaust — Exploring the Essence of Love: What Is Love

Exploring The Essence of Love: What is Love

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The nature of love, the forms of love, the power of love, challenges and complexity.

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Related Essays on Holocaust

Milkweed and the Jackboot is a historical novel by Jerry Spinelli, set during the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland. The novel explores the themes of survival, resilience, and the human spirit in the face of unimaginable [...]

Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is a powerful and harrowing account of the inhumanity experienced by the author and other prisoners during the Holocaust. In this essay, we will explore some of the examples of inhumanity depicted [...]

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• School Education /

Essay on Love:- Sample Essays for Students in 100, 200 and 300 words

• Updated on  
• Feb 2, 2024

Can a person live without love? Is it the essence of survival? Why do we fall for someone? What is the meaning of love?  Love is one of the most important feelings in human life. Humans are social animals and we have lived for centuries with this way of life where we take confidence in asking another person how our clothes fit us, or how we look. Those who love us, give us the most honest opinions and make our happiness paramount which means love is found in joy, fulfilment and a sense of purpose.

Also Read: 99+ Psychology Facts About Human Behaviour You Would Find Interesting

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Love in 100 words
• 2 Essay on Love in 200 words
• 3 Essay on Love in 300 words

Essay on Love in 100 words

Love is the very essence of the human life. Without love, the world would become cold and bleak. God has gifted us different kinds of emotions and love is one the most beautiful of them all. It is an emotion that each of us has experienced at some point in our lives. When someone shows us their love, it makes us feel complete and special. It is like a divine energy that nourishes us throughout our lives. Love has a lot of positive aspects. It provides a foundation on which an individual builds, relishes, and nurtures. Furthermore, this intense feeling shows us how to deepen our emotions. We can say that giving love is a way of worshipping God.

Also Read:- Heart-Touching Mother’s Day 2023 Quotes

Essay on Love in 200 words

Love is a feeling of strong affection and bonding towards an individual. The very concept of love might become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way. 

Love comprises feelings, attitudes, and emotions. The feeling is more than just a physical attraction, emotional connection, and a soulful bond. The very basic meaning of love is to feel more than just liking someone. Expressing the same is a wonderful experience. Love is one of the most basic human needs. Everyone wants to feel loved. It is something that completes an individual and brings peace to them.

Love is important for the mind as well as for the body. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be especially emotionally. It is true that love even eradicates depression. It is that much powerful. It is one of the best antidepressants. Life without love would be unimaginable.

Love is something that ends conflicts, brings light into one’s life, gives hope, and makes life worth living. It brings warmth that is needed to nurture life and an individual too. Without love, the world would become a cold and bleak place for everyone. Love builds and heals.

Also Read:-   Speech on Love is More Powerful Than Hate

Essay on Love in 300 words

Love consists of a set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs with strong feelings of affection. A person might say that they love their dog. The very concept of love is different for each individual as it may happen to each person in a particular way. We can say that it is more than just liking someone, it is an emotional attachment. 

Though love is important in every way still, let us have a look how this intense feeling relates to our bodies as well as to our relations:

1. Hormone of Love

Love helps our body to produce oxytocin, the feel-good hormone and is probably one of the best antidepressants. It makes any individual healthier especially emotionally.

2. Basic Necessity

Love is one of the most basic human needs. Expressing it to others benefits both, the person who delivers it as well as the recipient. One of the ways it can be shown to close ones is as contact comfort. Several experiments show that the babies who were not given contact comfort, especially during the first six months, grow up to be psychologically damaged. 

3. Makes Relations Healthy

In a relationship, Love is the binding element that keeps it strong and makes it grow. The individuals in love, are much more emotionally connected making them connected on a soulful level. The comfort in that is unparalleled. 

Love is the very essence of existence. Life without love is not worthy of being lived. Before we are even aware, love is showered on us each day by our mothers, fathers, siblings, etc. It is a unique gift that helps us shape our lives. Without it, the society would perish. Love motivates us in the darkest times, helps us to overcome negativity and gives us purpose in our lives with new perspectives. It is greater than anything else in life.

Also Read: Speech on Mother Daughter Relationship for School Students

Love is the very essence of the human life. Without love, the world would become cold and bleak. God has gifted us several different kinds of emotions and love is one the most beautiful of them all. It is one such emotion that each of us has experienced at some point in our lives. When someone shows us their love, it makes us feel complete, it makes us feel special. Like a divine energy, love nourishes us throughout our lives. It has a lot of positive aspects such as it provides a foundation on which an individual builds, relishes, nurtures, and heals, it shows us how to deepen our emotions. We can say that giving love is a way of worshipping god.

Love is a feeling of strong affection and bonding towards an individual. The very concept of love might become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way.

Love is the very essence of existence. Life without love is not worthy to be lived. Before we are even aware, love is showered on us each day by our mothers, fathers, siblings, etc. It is a unique gift that helps us shape our lives. Without it, the society would perish. Love gives us the motivation we need even in the darkest of times, it helps us overcome negativity and gives us purpose in our life and new perspectives. It is greater than anything else in life.

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Deepansh Gautam

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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Love as Human Freedom

Paul A. Kottman, Love as Human Freedom , Stanford University Press, 2017, 214 pp., $24.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781503602274.

Reviewed by Catherine Wilson, University of York/The Graduate Center CUNY

"Sooner or later," the hero of Robert Musil's The Man without Qualities muses to his sister Agathe, "there will be an era of simple unassuming sexual comradeship, when boy and girl will stand, reconciled and uncomprehending, gazing at an ancient heap of broken clockwork springs that was once what made Man and Woman tick" [1]

This book argues that we are getting there, or at least that many of the preconditions of getting there have been satisfied. "I will offer," Kottman states in the Prologue, "an account of lovemaking as a distinct world-historical achievement, one that can help us to explain enormous socio-historical shifts, from the increasing social authority of love-based commitments to the erosion of a gender-based division of labor" (9). His argument is roundabout, insofar as much of the book is taken up with the analysis of romantic tragedies ending in the deaths of one or both of the protagonists, and insofar as it is the socio-economic shifts that seem to do the explaining rather than vice-versa. The book is divided into two main sections (Parts II and III). The first discusses love and loss, especially loss of a love to death, in literary texts, including the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe and the drama of Romeo and Juliet. Later the cases of Othello, Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina are explored. Part III presents the thesis that in Western culture from Plato to the present sexual activity has undergone a process of detachment, from reproductive intentions and the domination of women by men, and a corresponding process of attachment, to what the author calls "lovemaking." By this, Kottman means sex reflecting reciprocal passionate engagement with another person and love-based commitments: social institutions and laws that assume marriage and the formation of families based on erotic love. The two sections are essentially independent, except that both make use of literary texts.

Physiological phenomena such as menstruation, miscarriage and multiple births, Kottman alleges, did not make sense to early humans, who had to discover the concept of the fertile female with her special powers and vulnerabilities, and to learn the particular activities that could and could not induce pregnancy, with such knowledge leading to the exercise of power and domination by males. Citing the Platonic corpus, he argues that sexual relations with women in ancient Greece were seen as necessary but vulgar and awarded neither philosophical nor emotionally significant status, unlike the allegedly more noble and compelling relations between boys and men. As I understand the argument, population control implied the domination of women as breeders. The state needed citizens, soldiers, and workers, and aristocratic men needed heirs -- but not too many. This utilitarian image was incompatible with that of genuine reciprocity, self-revelation, and intimacy in marital and extramarital relationships. The misogyny of most philosophical texts (not to mention religious texts) swamped competing ideation, and inevitably limited and distorted love, especially love within the context of marriage.

The past 2500 years, Kottman maintains, have detached heterosexual activity from its tight connection to reproduction, enabling it to become a highly valuable and valued form of expression of freedom and individuality. This change was announced, as has been argued many times before, by the appearance (in Western culture, the transmission from pre-Islamic Arab sources) of new models, and by the Reformation's rejection of the cult of priestly celibacy and antifeminism. The courtly love movement in the medieval period upset the conceptual assignment of freedom to men in general and the denial of choice to women in general. The male lover sang and wrote of himself as the servant of the beloved, who exceeded him in status and power and lamented her inaccessibility and indifference. Reproductive intentions were not part of the story.

Kottman goes on to argue that the detachment of sex from reproduction has accelerated in the last hundred years with the availability of contraception and abortion, the celebration of homosexual love and marriage, and with the release of women from confinement in the household as homemakers and childrearers. He denies that humans have finally worked out the moral facts about how men and women may or ought to relate to one another; rather, in his view, there is a documentable movement towards a form of liberation that is not narrowly sexual, but reinforcing of emotional and social autonomy.

Although Kottman regards love as freedom as a human potential rather than a pure invention, readers will recognise echoes of Denis de Rougement's views about the courtly tradition, Michel Foucault's view that women only became truly interesting as erotic subjects in the 18 th century, and Hegel's view that Spirit unfolds, reveals, and discovers itself in historical time. The ideal Kottman suggests we have arrived at resembles Anthony Giddens's definition of the "pure" relationship as one in which "a social relation is entered into for its own sake, for what can be derived by each person from a sustained association with another; and which is continued only insofar as it is thought by both parties to deliver enough satisfactions for each individual to stay within it." [2]

The exploration of these two themes, the loss of love in literary texts and the historical progress of relations between men and women, is welcome. In his attention to the ancients, Kottman is on firm ground insofar as legal historians and historians of culture have detailed the regulations and practices, from infanticide, sexual use of slaves, and forced sodomy, to the claustration of women, aimed at providing the right number and kind of persons in the ancient city state. The methodology of the book raises, however, many questions, as do its conclusions.

First, in Part II and elsewhere, readers will find the interpretations of literary works to be so original that they are hard to understand, let alone to accept. For example, the author argues that Othello is frenzied not by Desdemona's presumed betrayal but by her passivity and inability to reciprocate his agential passion (137), and that the sword between Tristan and Iseult was employed as a contraceptive device at "certain times of the month" (123). In other cases, the reader may be held up by language as well as thought, as when, in criticizing de Rougemont's thesis that love and adultery, or love and other transgressive conditions, are deeply linked, Kottman says that the troubadour tradition emerged when "sexual practices had finally been cultivated, over time, to the point where sexual activity itself had become clamorously unintelligible as either the manifestation of base appetite or as institutional domination (as in traditional marriage)" (126).

But unintelligible to whom? And why should we believe that love and sexual activity indifferent to the reproductive and economic functions of women in one's society emerged in life, as well as in literature, only in the medieval period? Despite the ubiquity of arranged marriage as an old and widespread practice, romantic love between equals or between unequal individuals who become equals is a human universal with evolutionary significance. [3] It appears in most hunter-gatherer cultures and in archaic oral traditions of song and story. It can be seen in Old Testament and Greek accounts of being suddenly smitten by beauty and in accounts of devotional and possessive behavior: Boaz and Ruth, Jacob and Rachel, Dido and Aeneas, Achilles and Briseis; in Homer, Catullus, Sappho, Lucretius, and, despite his cynical stance, in Ovid. Clearly, ancient men did develop fascinations, obsessions, and passions for particular women, and vice-versa, that were either courtly or reciprocal, though usually realised in a premarital or nonmarital context. Despite proclamations and regulations, there were intervals of deregulation and acceptance of marriage in the Catholic clergy. Priests throughout history have had domestic partners whom they loved.

One might argue in Kottman's favor that these sources do not, for the most part, enlighten us on the theme of love as freedom. When given voice, they usually concern the "bonds of love," as experienced in unrequited or conflict-generating love. Martin Luther's overt doting behaviour and his much-cited arguments for clerical marriage were more significant and influential than priestly customs because they constituted public, multiply reproduced philosophical statements explaining and asserting the value of the pure relationship.

A theme of Kottman's which this reviewer was led to wonder about is "making sense." He says that:

Certain social domains -- like gender -- are inextricably linked, not just to power structures, or 'disciplining regimes,' but to fundamental ways in which we have tried to make our lives intelligible . . . I am proposing that we see love as just such a fundamental sense-making practice. (15)

If the erotic confusion of budding relationships is succeeded by requited love, this can bring a sense of order and everything falling at last into place. As John Lennon sings, "For the first time in my life . . . Everything is clear in my mind." But surely this is a feeling of things making sense to the individual, not a collective epistemological achievement. Collectively, the social and technological innovations of modernity seem to have issued in far more confusion and distress in our society over feelings and practices than existed in earlier times.

The analytical portions of this volume would accordingly benefit from a sharper distinction between literary history and actual social history as it can be obtained from archives (diaries, court and municipal records), with some justification offered for concentrating on the former alone. It also would benefit from more explicit attention to the co-existence of anti-love moral philosophy mandating rational control and cost-benefit calculation with myth, poetry, and the novel.

Moral philosophy from Plato to Kant raised warning flags against women, inserted their allure into a general theory of the passions, and recommended the prevention of love, since there is no cure. Literature has always compensated for this one-sidedness. It correctly identifies requited love as the greatest single source of human happiness and celebrates the loss of control and heedlessness, whilst admitting their consequences in social punishment and personal anguish.

All of the stories discussed by Kottman end badly for the lovers. In literature, death (in plot terms always caused by some kind of silly mix-up) occurs necessarily because there is no way forward for these people, given who they are and the society they live in, and Kottman points out that the question "Was it worth it?" is always asked or implicitly asked of any love affair, actual or fictional, that comes to an end. The novel of adultery and the novel of renunciation of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries concede that what philosophy says about consequences is correct. Nevertheless, they lodge a protest against social punishment and the existence of conventional barriers that keep people apart. Freud's claim that such stories permit vicarious gratification, while enclosing it for safety in a pro-society message with death or lifelong haunting the punishment delivered, needs addressing in this connection.

Turning from literature to the real world, it is important to note against an exaggerated, though still relevant, historicism that there are some questionable assumptions in the notion of an evolution in human mentality accompanying changes in institutional frameworks. Is love freedom in the contemporary world? Surprisingly, Kottman does not address Giddens's claim that contemporary "pure love," existing outside the rigid frameworks prescribing the involvement of kin in partner choice, obligatory marriage, clear expectation of parenthood, difficulty of divorce, and sexual division of labour, has provided psychic benefits in the form of enhanced relationship satisfaction, whilst imposing the heavy costs of "ontological anxiety" in the form of constant self-scrutiny, exhausting monitoring of the relationship for possible cracks and flaws, and addiction to drugs and alcohol. [4] Love as freedom may impose its own forms of bondage.

An article by Gross and Simmons [5] proposed to test these hypotheses, concluding that the dire effects of pure love predicted by Giddens failed to occur, while the beneficial effects were realised. People in these relationships were indeed very happy, and the data would seem to strengthen Kottman's case. However, an interesting feature of this study was the very small number in the random sample of adult heterosexual relationships that qualified as pure love and that scored highly on measures of the sharing of household tasks: only 3.3 % in a sample size of about 2000. Apparently, such pure love relationships are rare, leading to the supposition that the stresses of ontological anxiety and perhaps addictions fostered by failed attempts to form pure love relationships had eliminated many potential pairs before they could be addressed in a survey. It just isn't, for the most part, happening.

So, if love as freedom is an ideal, and if it works well when it works, how can more people get there? In a follow-on analysis to Giddens's account of cultural change, the sociologist Eva Illouz [6] has argued that the separation of sex from the founding of a family and the opening up of marriage markets to individual choice have in fact enhanced male dominance to the profound detriment of modern women's moral confidence and self-respect. In previous centuries, she argues, men wanted and needed wives as much or more than women needed and wanted husbands. In middle- and upper-class circles, potential partners on both sides were filtered through exclusion criteria of class, income, and deportment. Such filters applied, women's and men's choices were governed by intuitive attraction to a certain body and moral character-testing involving close observation by wary kith and kin. Despite the rigidity of the system of lifelong monogamous expectations, partner choices were made without extensive first-hand knowledge of the other person. And women did not admit to an attraction until a definite proposal had been offered by a man.

Today, it is women who court, and men who are coy. Instead of taking up quills and lutes and offering potions, women adorn themselves and seek and purchase strategic advice of doubtful value for securing "commitment." Freedom, as Giddens observed, is freedom to just check out, with or without an explanation, and this, and the threat of it, remains an overwhelmingly male prerogative and a brand new source of domination. In the unattached population, men receive validation of their worth through work, the esteem of other men, and through sexual conquest. Women by and large do not. What Illouz calls the "ecology" (roughly the demographics -- a longer active interval for men in the field of sexual competition) and the "architecture of choice" (in the internet age largely based on "sexiness" estimated from arrays of thumbnail photos and confirmed by follow up behavior) have left women in a demeaning position. Illouz makes a plea for renewed attention to sexual ethics, arguing that the current resources of feminism, focussed on a rejection of heteronormativity and the intensive regulation of the workplace, fail to address the problems of male advantage in satisfying desires and female suffering in our liberated times. She implies that this pattern can be interrupted only if women can achieve sufficient financial resources to be able to have children when they want to, and only if they can obtain social status and regard from sources other than an intimate partner.

If Illouz is correct, reproduction, economics, and old-fashioned character expectations have to come back into the picture if men and women are to achieve greater equality and satisfaction in their intimate relationships. Further, as the flood of recent revelations regarding workplace abuse and exploitation indicates, we need a new understanding of how men and women can work together in non-intimate relationships, and how they can share the co-operative surplus in such a way as to limit male domination in the search for intimate companionship.

I am glad to have read this book even without having understood every word of it or agreed with all of it. It will, as publishers like to say, "stimulate controversy." We can be grateful to Paul Kottman for investigating this territory as a philosopher with an extensive knowledge of literary texts, for stating his optimism, and for signposting many interesting avenues for further exploration. The endnotes add considerably to the text; they are clear and pertinent and display a formidable acquaintance with a range of literary and philosophical sources. The index, by contrast, appears to have been prepared by a robot and lacks human insight into what a human being would actually want to look up.

[1] Robert Musil, The Man without Qualities , 3 vols., tr. Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser, Secker and Warburg, 1960, III: 28; 328.

[2] Anthony Giddens , The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies , Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1992, p. 58.

[3] Garth J. O. Fletcher, Jeffry A. Simpson, Lorne Campbell, and Nickola C. Overall, 'Pair Bonding, Romantic Love, and Evolution: The Curious Case of Homo sapiens,' Perspectives on Psychological Science , 2015, Vol. 10(1): 20-36.

[4] Giddens, Transformation , pp. 74-6.

[5] Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, 'Intimacy as a Double-Edged Phenomenon? An Empirical Test of Giddens' Social Forces , December 2002, 81(2):531-555

[6] Eva Illouz, Why Love Hurts: A Sociologcal Explanation , Polity, 2013.

Exploring the Universality of Human Values: Truth, Love, Peace, Responsibility, and Justice

Table of Contents

Human Values

(relevant for ethics, integrity and aptitude).

Values are an inevitable and crucial component in making significant decisions within the realm of human affairs. They serve as the bridge that connects personal perceptions, judgments, motives, and actions. This principle also holds true when it comes to comprehending social and political aspects of life. It is imperative to recognize that values, perceptions, and their practical implications play an equally fundamental role in understanding both individuals and societies, comparable to the often emphasized physical necessities. Furthermore, these values are indispensable for the betterment of individuals and societies.

Although the prevalence of violence, war, hatred, and crime in many societies throughout history might seem to challenge the universality of human values, it is noteworthy that values have their origins in the earliest documented human societies and religions, persisting across eras and cultures. In this sense, they possess a universal quality. Additionally, the nature of human beings and civilization is characterized by evolution, which leads to a gradual establishment and reinforcement of these values. Today, this process has reached an interactive global level through international laws and practices.

What do Human Values consist of ?

Human values can take diverse forms, ranging from concrete illustrations to overarching moral principles. Nonetheless, authentic human values are not theoretical concepts crafted by scholars or religious leaders. Instead, they are intertwined with life itself, comprising ideas and perceptions that are grounded in the realities of existence, along with their respective justifications. Being inherently human, values are not rigid rules of conduct imposed by a divine authority; they are not commandments etched in unyielding stone. Rather, they are intertwined with distinct cultures, individuals, and circumstances. These values emerge, evolve, and find expression in human terms, reflecting the collective aspirations and objectives of humanity.

Some of the human values that possess a broad and perhaps even universal significance include:

• Love and Caring

Responsibility

The validity of truth in any situation is not influenced by an individual’s will or desires, but remains unaffected by personal interests and opinions. The existence of truth as an intrinsic value in human nature is evident from the fact that no one appreciates being labeled as a liar, even those who engage in falsehood. Moreover, maintaining a lie requires much more effort than upholding the truth, as lying often leads to a web of deceit that becomes increasingly difficult to manage.

Love-Caring

The term ‘love’ should be understood in a broad context, encompassing the notions of ‘care’ and ‘concern for’. It can be regarded as a fundamental category or universal human value that revolves around showing consideration and reverence towards others and the environment.

In this context, the term ‘love’ is used in a broader sense than its conventional interpretation, which often associates it with personal or romantic love. Its essence can be described as “selfless care and concern for the well-being of others and the world as a whole. The more selflessness it embodies, the more it enriches life.” Love, in this universal sense, is not a mere sensation, emotion, or abstract concept, but rather something that can only be identified at the very core of human consciousness. It represents the defining characteristic of the human soul or psyche. Additionally, the broader term ‘love’ often encompasses altruism, understanding, and forgiveness, although it may lack precision and clarity in its usage.

Being universally acknowledged as a positive value, peace signifies the state of harmony—a balanced yet ever-evolving mental condition. The presence of peace in an individual’s life, within society, and on a global scale is contingent upon the collective functioning of all positive values. Truth, caring concern (referred to as ‘love’) , and justice are essential components that, when adequately integrated, prevent conflicts and safeguard the existence of peace. While peace manifests as the absence of disturbance, violence, war, and wrongdoing, it becomes tangibly present when experienced at an individual level as peace of mind, along with the mutual respect and enjoyment derived from friendliness and tolerance.

Peace of mind is an individual experience, whereas peace in society is a result of positive actions that prioritize tolerance and constructive approaches, avoiding violence and destruction.

The human value of fulfilling one’s duty is closely intertwined with non-violence, which entails a rational inclination to avoid causing harm to living beings and their environment whenever possible. By acknowledging the intrinsic interconnectedness of ecosystems and the social-natural environment, and by actively countering the detrimental effects of pollution, misuse, and excessive exploitation, we embody the essence of non-violence . This aligns with the concept of ‘Ahimsa’ in Hindu philosophy, as extensively expounded by Gandhi. Non-violence is an inherent value that urges us to refrain from unethical interference in the processes of life.

Duty, also understood as ‘acting rightly,’ is founded upon the combination of true knowledge and discernment of what is morally good. Beneath every conscious action lies a thought. If that thought is nourished by a genuine aspiration towards truth and goodness, rather than solely self-centered motives, the resulting action is deemed ‘right.’ This principle is also reflected in the Eastern notion of ‘dharma,’ which encompasses acting in accordance with the universal laws governing both the physical and human realms of existence.

The European tradition has long upheld justice as one of the highest human values, with figures like Socrates and Plato regarding it as the pinnacle. However, providing a satisfactory definition of justice proves challenging. At its core, justice is rooted in fairness, emphasizing the fundamental equality of every individual under the law. As a social value, it seeks to address and minimize conflicts, guided by principles of care and non-violence , where the use of force is kept to a necessary minimum. The pursuit of social justice for the greater common good has a longstanding history as a central concept in human societies. The Classical Greek notion of justice eventually gave rise to the concept of ‘human rights,’ formally enshrined in the 1948 Geneva Convention. Since then, it has undergone continuous development and expansion.

The value of justice also holds significant political relevance, particularly in the pursuit of egalitarianism within political democracies and other governing systems. As such, justice encompasses a wide range of aspects in social life. Its understanding aligns with the profound Vedic concept of ‘Ahimsa,’ signifying universal respect for all living beings.

To master these intricacies and fare well in the Sociology Optional Syllabus , aspiring sociologists might benefit from guidance by the Best Sociology Optional Teacher and participation in the Best Sociology Optional Coaching . These avenues provide comprehensive assistance, ensuring a solid understanding of sociology’s diverse methodologies and techniques.

Best Sociology Optional Teacher, Best Sociology Optional Coaching, Sociology Optional Syllabus, Human Values, Universality of Values, Truth, Love, Peace, Responsibility, Justice, Social Value, Personal Value, Moral Principles, Non-violence, Ahimsa, Dharma, Human Rights.

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Essay on Humanity

500 words essay on humanity.

When we say humanity, we can look at it from a lot of different perspectives. One of the most common ways of understanding is that it is a value of kindness and compassion towards other beings. If you look back at history, you will find many acts of cruelty by humans but at the same time, there are also numerous acts of humanity. An essay on humanity will take us through its meaning and importance.

Importance of Humanity

As humans are progressing as a human race into the future, the true essence of humanity is being corrupted slowly. It is essential to remember that the acts of humanity must not have any kind of personal gain behind them like fame, money or power.

The world we live in today is divided by borders but the reach we can have is limitless. We are lucky enough to have the freedom to travel anywhere and experience anything we wish for. A lot of nations fight constantly to acquire land which results in the loss of many innocent lives.

Similarly, other humanitarian crisis like the ones in Yemen, Syria, Myanmar and more costs the lives of more than millions of people. The situation is not resolving anytime soon, thus we need humanity for this.

Most importantly, humanity does not just limit to humans but also caring for the environment and every living being. We must all come together to show true humanity and help out other humans, animals and our environment to heal and prosper.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

The Great Humanitarians

There are many great humanitarians who live among us and also in history. To name a few, we had Mother Teresa , Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana and more. These are just a few of the names which almost everyone knows.

Mother Teresa was a woman who devoted her entire life to serving the poor and needy from a nation. Rabindranath Tagore was an Indian poet who truly believed in humanity and considered it his true religion.

Similarly, Nelson Mandela was a great humanitarian who worked all his life for those in needs. He never discriminated against any person on the basis of colour, sex, creed or anything.

Further, Mahatma Gandhi serves as a great example of devoting his life to free his country and serve his fellow countrymen. He died serving the country and working for the betterment of his nation. Thus, we must all take inspiration from such great people.

The acts and ways of these great humanitarians serve as a great example for us now to do better in our life. We must all indulge in acts of giving back and coming to help those in need. All in all, humanity arises from selfless acts of compassion.

Conclusion of the Essay on Humanity

As technology and capitalism are evolving at a faster rate in this era, we must all spread humanity wherever possible. When we start practising humanity, we can tackle many big problems like global warming, pollution , extinction of animals and more.

FAQ of Essay on Humanity

Question 1: What is the importance of humanity?

Answer 1: Humanity refers to caring for and helping others whenever and wherever possible. It means helping others at times when they need that help the most. It is important as it helps us forget our selfish interests at times when others need our help.

Question 2: How do we show humanity?

Answer 2: All of us are capable of showing humanity. It can be through acknowledging that human beings are equal, regardless of gender, sex, skin colour or anything. We must all model genuine empathy and show gratitude to each other and express respect and humility.

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