Love Revisited

Love or ‘caring about’ is a constant theme of this blog. In previous postings I have discussed love in relation to keeping dogs, dissident IRA republican killers and arranged marriages. In this posting I want to examine the nature of love rather than any of its affects. It was suggested to me by Ian Law of Birmingham University in discussion that love is simply an emotion. In this examination I want firstly to discuss whether Ian was correct and secondly what this discussion tells us about emotions.

Before discussing the nature of love it must be clear what is meant by love. I consider love to be ‘caring about something’ as defined by Frankfurt.
“A person who cares about something is, as it were invested in it. He identifies himself with what he cares about in the sense that he makes himself vulnerable to losses and susceptible to benefits depending upon whether what he cares about is diminished or enhanced” (1988, The Importance of What We Care About, Cambridge University Press, page 84).
The question I now wish to address is whether equating love with such ‘caring about’ is compatible with love being regarded as an emotion? Frankfurt would argue it is not,
“That a person cares about something or that he loves something has less to do with how things make him feel, or his opinions about them, than the more or less stable motivational structures that shape his preferences and guide his conduct” (1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press, page 129).
Why does Frankfurt believe love is not an emotion? Because he believes love must have some persistence and he also believes emotions do not have persistence. It seems clear that love cannot be turned off and on like a tap. It is also clear that emotions unlike love can quickly change. For this reason I accept love cannot be simply regarded as an emotion. Accepting the above of course does not mean love is unconnected to the emotions. Indeed I will now argue love must of necessity be connected to the emotions. I will argue love might be seen as a persistent emotion, a disposition to have an emotion or a sentiment.

If a lover identifies himself with what he cares about and makes himself vulnerable to the losses and susceptible to the benefits of love then love can be a motivation to act. Indeed if a lover can act to protect or benefit his beloved and fails to do so for no good reason it might be questioned whether he is a genuine lover. Love appears to be a matter of the will. Hume famously argued reason is the slave of the passions, the emotions in current parlance, and that reason alone gives us no motivation to act. It would appear to follow if we accept that reason alone gives us no reason to act and that love is a motivation for action then love must be an emotion. However I have accepted above that because love requires persistence and emotions are not necessarily persistent love is not simply an emotion. There are two ways this impasse might be avoided. Firstly it might be argued that love is connected to someone’s will. It might then be further argued that someone’s will is simply a stable motivational structure independent of both reason and emotion. This I believe would be Frankfurt’s position. Adopting such a position seems to me to be unnecessary and makes the will an unexplainable entity. For this reason I believe the second way of avoiding this impasse is preferable, this way assumes love is not simply an emotion but that it is connected to the emotions in some way.

How can love be connected to the emotions? I have suggested that love might be seen as a persistent emotion, a disposition to have some emotion or a sentiment. In what follows I will consider having a sentiment as being the same as having a disposition to feel some emotion. Accepting the above raises two questions. Firstly what exactly is an emotion; are emotions purely physical sensations or are emotions in some way intentional? Secondly if love is a persistent emotion or a disposition to have an emotion what is the actual emotion involved? There is a continuing philosophical debate as to whether emotions contain a cognitive element or are purely physiological states. Philosophers such as Nussbaum and Solomon would argue emotions are intentional and as a result must have a cognitive element. Others such as Prinz, would argue emotions are simply physiological states (2007, The Emotional Construction of Morals, Oxford). People don’t just love randomly. It appears to follow love is intentional in some way. Prima facie it might then be suggested that any emotion underlying love must also be intentional. I believe this suggestion is doubtful. Clearly some emotions such as disgust are non intentional and are simply physiological states. It might then be pointed out not all emotions are the same and that some emotions may be intentional and include a cognitive element. However when assigning a cognitive element to an emotion we must be sure we should assign this element to the actual emotion rather than to the cause of the emotion. If for instance I eat too many strawberries this might cause me to have a stomach ache, a purely physiological state. Similarly if I am fearful, because I perceive a tiger approaching me, my perception is the cause of my fear. Moreover I see no reason why my fear must include the concept that tigers are dangerous. In light of the above I will assume there is no reason why all emotions, including persistent ones, should not be regarded as purely physiological states. It follows if love is intentional, as I believe it is, then I was wrong to argue with Law that love might be regarded as a persistent emotion. I now believe love might be better regarded as a disposition to feel some particular emotion. A disposition to feel a particular emotion partially causes this emotion. Further a disposition to feel an emotion may be based on certain beliefs and as a result this disposition might well contain a cognitive element even if the actual emotion does not.

If love is not an emotion, persistent or otherwise, but rather a disposition to feel a particular emotion then the question as to which of the emotions is involved must be addressed. I suggested above if a lover can act to protect or benefit his beloved and he fails to do so it might be questioned whether he is a genuine lover. Accepting the above means neither lust nor sympathy can be the emotion underlying love. The lustful feel no need to benefit the objects of their lust. Sympathy involves understanding the suffering of others. However it is possible to act sympathetically without addressing the desires of others, see Nichols. (2004, Sentimental Rules, Oxford, pages 38, 39). Hence a sympathetic person may be unable to truly benefit the object of his sympathy. An empathic person both understands and feels the desires of the object of his empathy. It follows an empathic person will act to protect or benefit the object of his empathy. For this reason I suggest love would be best defined as a disposition to feel empathy.

I now wish to address three problems associated with adopting this definition of love. Firstly it might be argued that by defining love as a disposition to feel empathy we fail to accommodate one of our intuitive ideas of personal love. Love it might be argued is often limited, personal and private whilst empathy appears to have a much larger writ. Empathy does however have the property that it diminishes with distance. This distance might involve physical distance, time or just degree of acquaintance. For instance I may feel some empathy for protestors being crushed in Iran but I felt far greater empathy for my wife when she was admitted to hospital. This property of distance seems to allow us to account for the intuitive idea of love as personal whilst at the same time accepting the definition of love as a disposition to feel empathy. For instance it makes sense to say we can love the residents of our home town in an impersonal way whilst at the same time loving our children in a personal way to a far greater degree.

Secondly it might be argued accepting the above definition means we cannot learn to love. Some recent research suggests that mirror neurones play a central part in our ability to feel empathy. If this is so then it might be argued the ability to feel empathy, to love, depends on the physical structure of our brains rather than our brain states. It seems likely we can alter our brain states by learning. However it seems unlikely we can alter the physical structure of our brains to any great degree by learning. I have used the word unlikely above because we can alter to some degree the physical structure of our body by exercise and training. Accepting the above means it is unlikely we can learn to love. Autism might be advanced as an additional reason why if the definition of love, as a disposition to feel empathy, is accepted we cannot learn to love. In using the example of autism I am not necessarily connecting autism to mirror neurones or arguing autistic children cannot feel some form of sympathy. I am however arguing those suffering from autism cannot feel true empathy for others. Some parents of autistic children might argue their children can feel love and as a result would reject this definition of love. I would merely note it is possible that these parents’ empathy for their children may project non-existent love onto them. It might be argued good parents want their children to learn to love but if this definition is accepted learning to love is impossible for the two reasons outlined above. My starting point in this posting was Frankfurt’s definition of love. Frankfurt himself argues love is not a matter of choice and this seems to support the above argument, see (1999, Necessity, Volition, and Love, page 135). However if the above definition of love is accepted does it really matter if we cannot learn to love? I would argue it does not. I would argue that under normal circumstances our natural capacity to love develops. I would further argue that in practice parents do not teach their children to love but rather that most parents create the circumstances in which their children’s natural capacity for love develops. I would further suggest that those parents who do not or are unable to create these circumstances should be helped to do so, see my posting of 30/03/09 concerning dissident IRA killers.

The third problem with defining love as a disposition to feel empathy is that the definition seems to be an inadequate definition. People don’t just love people. We can love cities, pieces of music and nature for instance. We are however unable to feel empathy for cities, pieces of music or nature. There seem to be two strategies for dealing with the inadequacy of this definition. Firstly it might be denied that we actually love these inanimate things. For instance can we actually love a city which has lost all its inhabitants forever? Perhaps when we love a city we do feel empathy but this is not empathy for a city devoid of its inhabitants but rather for these inhabitants. I find such a strategy unconvincing because it would be hard to apply to nature. Perhaps it might be better argued we feel empathy for life in general. However I still find this amended strategy unconvincing. Secondly it might be argued defining love as a disposition to feel empathy is an incomplete definition; the reason being that the concept of love is not a simple concept but rather a hybrid concept. The love of animate and inanimate objects is not the same. If this is accepted then defining love as a disposition to feel empathy is a definition limited to the love of animate objects.