Love and Wholeheartedness

In my previous posting I presented two arguments. Firstly I argued loving persons is not the same as loving inanimate things such as cities, music or philosophical musings. Secondly I argued the love of persons might be best defined by someone having a disposition to feel empathy. In this posting I want to consider how this definition of love concurs with some of Harry Frankfurt’s ideas on love. Frankfurt believes love is both involuntary and must be persistent. In my previous posting I argued the above definition of love is compatible with both of these ideas. I will not repeat those arguments here. Frankfurt also believes a lover must be wholehearted. In this posting the question I want to examine is this. If love is a disposition to feel empathy must the lover be wholehearted? I will argue she does not.

Before proceeding I must make clear what Frankfurt means by wholeheartedness. He believes wholeheartedness requires that a lover must be able to love some things more than she loves others. He also believes wholeheartedness means a lover must in some sense be satisfied with the things she loves. This satisfaction is not some smug satisfaction but is defined by Frankfurt as follows,
“What satisfaction does entail is an absence of restlessness or resistance. A satisfied person may be willing to accept a change in his condition, but he has no active interest in bringing about a change” (1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love, Cambridge University Press, page 103,).
A wholehearted person is contrasted to an ambivalent person. Such a person he believes is a wanton because she is torn in different directions and suffers from volitional division according to Frankfurt. Indeed it is argued by Cuypers that such a person is threatened by disintegration and personality disorder (2000, Autonomy, beyond voluntarism, In Defence of Hierarchy, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 30(2), page 236).

Frankfurt’s concept of satisfaction is central to his ideas concerning wholeheartedness and ambivalence. For this reason prior to my examination as to, whether regarding love as a disposition to feel empathy is compatible with wholeheartedness, I must first examine what is meant by satisfaction. Prior to doing this it must be clear that when I talk of love I am only talking about the love of persons. I believe love is not a simple unified concept as I argued in my previous posting. It follows when examining satisfaction in connection with wholeheartedness I am only talking about being satisfied with those we love rather than the things we love. Moreover by love I do not simply mean erotic love of one’s partner but include the love of children, friends, colleagues and even acquaintances. Love so defined seems to reflect real life in which we love different people to varying degrees. It seems clear someone may be completely satisfied with loving each of her beloveds but still be dissatisfied to some degree with the way she loves her beloveds. Wholeheartedness according to Frankfurt means a lover must be able to come to love some things more than she loves others. It follows satisfaction in regard to wholeheartedness means a lover is able to eliminate any conflict between loving her beloveds by ranking how much she loves each of them. Ranking of course does not mean the lover must be able attach weights to her various beloveds but only that she is satisfied she loves one more than another.

I am now in a position to address the question as to whether if love is a disposition to feel empathy a lover must be wholehearted. Clearly a lover can have a disposition to feel empathy for John and at the same time have a disposition to feel empathy for Jane. The question I am addressing is whether such a lover can have both these dispositions whilst being unable to say with certainty whether she loves John or Jane the most. If the lover’s life is highly compartmentalised and she actually feels empathy for John or Jane in different compartments of her life it seems possible that she can love both John and Jane without ever having to say with certainty which of the two she loves the most. However love is not easily compartmentalised and in most cases a lover may have to decide which of her beloveds she love the most. I have argued wholeheartedness requires that a lover in such situation must be able to make a decision she is satisfied with based on her ability to rank the things she loves. Let it be assumed a lover feels empathic concern for John and Jane at the same time. Let be further assumed she can only act on one these concerns and makes a decision she is not wholly satisfied with. I can see no reason why these two assumptions are incompatible in practice. It follows if love is simply a disposition to feel empathy a lover need not be wholehearted. Such a conclusion seems to concur with our intuitive ideas of love as is shown by considering the following example. Let it be assumed Samantha is married and has a child she loves called Jane in addition she loves John. Let it be further assumed Sam wishes to leave her husband to live with John but doing so will cause some damage to her beloved Jane. It is easy to imagine in this situation that regardless of whether Sam leaves her husband, because of her love of John, or remains in a loveless marriage, because of her love for Jane, she will have some regrets and be dissatisfied to some degree.

I will now briefly examine two of the implications of accepting my conclusion. Accepting the above means a lover may be satisfied with her beloved or beloveds but still not be be completely satisfied as a lover because she is unable to rank the things she loves. It is important to be clear what I mean by rank the things she loves. The ability to rank the things a lover loves does not mean she must be able reflect on or even make a conscious decision about this ranking. It only means a lover can choose between the various things she loves without any hint of dissatisfaction with her decision. If it is accepted that love is simply a disposition to feel empathy then a lover may well be dissatisfied with some of her decisions. It follows all the things a lover loves need not be united in any meaningful way and she is not wholehearted. Frankfurt believes if lover is not wholehearted she is ambivalent. Moreover ambivalence is a disease of the will. Both Cuypers and Frankfurt believe the ambivalent person cannot make meaningful decisions concerning love. Indeed Cuypers implies that an ambivalent lover is threatened by disintegration and personality disorder, see above. I see no reason to accept such an implication. In practice it seems there is no unity between all of a lover’s loves as we often consider a lover as torn between two loves. Further in practice it seems in most cases that even if a lover is ambivalent about some of her loves she is still able to choose between these loves. Moreover by doing so she is not usually threatened by either the disintegration of her character or personality disorder. In my example let it be assumed Sam arbitrarily decides to stay with her husband, because she loves Jane, and let it be further assumed that this choice does not work out as well as she envisioned. It is quite plausible to believe in this situation Sam will abide by her decision and not be threatened by personality disorder even if she has long lasting regrets.

Frankfurt links the ability to love, to care about, to autonomy. It seems to me Frankfurt holds a lover is necessarily an autonomous person. This follows because a lover must be wholehearted and be able to rank the things she loves and hence has the ability to make an un-ambivalent decision with which she is completely satisfied. Frankfurt contrasts an autonomous person, a lover who cares about something, with a wanton who has no means of making meaningful decisions (1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love, Cambridge University Press, page 106). I have argued a lover is simply someone with a disposition to feel empathy and that a lover need not be wholehearted. If my argument is accepted it implies a lover is not of necessity an autonomous person. Nonetheless I believe Frankfurt is right to associate love with autonomy because it seems obvious if someone doesn’t care about x she cannot make an autonomous decision concerning x. I also believe Frankfurt is correct in arguing that someone making an autonomous decision must be in some sense wholehearted. If love is simply a disposition to feel empathy it follows loving, caring about, x is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to make an autonomous decision concerning x. In the light of the above I want to revisit my example. Sam was torn between her love for John and Jane. Sam loved both John and Jane but her love was not wholehearted. In the light of the above Sam could not make an autonomous decision as to whether she should leave her husband for John. Nevertheless as I pointed out above I see no reason why we should regard Sam as non-autonomous or a wanton person. The above suggests that when we consider autonomy we should be concerned with autonomous decisions rather than autonomous persons. It further suggests that when we consider wholeheartedness we should only consider whether someone is wholehearted with respect to the things she loves or cares about which are relevant to the actual decision she is making. We should not be too concerned whether she is totally wholehearted where totally wholehearted means she must be wholehearted in relation to all the things she loves or cares about. Indeed in practice it would seem to be impossible ever to be sure someone was totally wholehearted.