Love me for a reason

Love is all around us, love matters to us and we value loving and being loved, but why love matters so much to us isn’t immediately clear. In this posting I want to offer a sketch of why love matters to us. Before proceeding I must consider three question. Love has many variations, we can have erotic love, parental love and affectionate love to name but a few. Are these completely different types of love or have these variations all evolved from a common basis or perhaps these apparently different types of love are in reality different ways of expressing a general idea of love in different domains?

According to Aristotle there are three types of love erotic, philia and agape. If we accept Aristotle’s position then on first appearance it would appear that there isn’t a single unified idea of love. According to Aristotle erotic love is a passionate desire for another, usually a sexual desire. Philia is more a fondness and appreciation of another and is important in friendship. Agape refers to the love of God for man or man for God. However it is still possible to argue that there is a unified concept of love. Firstly it might be suggested that these types of love are in reality identical and that the apparent differences in love might be due to the intensity of loving rather than differences in type. Secondly it might be suggested that apparent differences in love might be due to love being expressed differently in different domains. It seems possible that a more modern version of agape might be that of unconditional love of all. It follows that it is at least possible that there is an underlying unified concept of love.

I now want to argue that there is indeed a unified primitive concept of love. I will argue love isn’t just some concept that arose recently or is limited to human beings. Let us that assume “caring about” is a primitive form of loving. Animals can care about their offspring and if you accept group selection, as Darwin did, then animals which care about their offspring have an evolutionary advantage. It follows that a primitive type of love has a very long history. However even if a plover’s behaviour when it pretends to have a damaged wing in order to lure a predator away from its chicks is a primitive form of love it isn’t what we usually mean by love. Perhaps Aristotle was right after all and there are different types of love. I will now argue that love has evolved some sort of structure rather than being differentiated into different types. Let us accept us accept that many creatures including us possess a primitive kind of love, the ability to “care about”. This basic form of loving need have no affective or cognitive elements and might simply be based on some on ancient neurochemical systems that evolved to serve our ancestors' reproductive needs. It might be objected that such a basic system isn’t what we mean by love. Love as we know it can’t be defined in such a basic way. I accept my objectors point but my acceptance doesn’t mean we no longer retain this basic system. Nature is parsimonious and doesn’t usually replace ancient systems but adapts and modifies them to serve new purposes. It might then be suggested that what we mean by love is this ancient primitive system of “caring about” which has had its structure modified and built upon. It is hard to see how such a simple structure could be modified so let us assume it has been built upon. Firstly our primitive love has been expanded by our capacity to feel empathy. Let us be clear what we mean by empathy. I don’t mean empathic contagion such as that when one baby cries and another simply follows. I also don’t mean the ability just to understand how another feels which can be exploited by a sociopath. I mean having a disposition to feel as another feels. Secondly our primitive love has been expanded by our increasing cognitive abilities. A bird might only care for its chicks and perhaps its mate. Human beings increased cognitive abilities enable them to see others as much the same as themselves allowing them at the very least to question why they shouldn’t care about them hence increasing love’s domain. Lastly our primitive love has been expanded by the culture we live in. Let us accept that love can be regarded as an emotion. According to Lisa Feldman Barrett,

“An emotion is your brain’s creation of what your bodily sensations mean, in relation to what is going on around you in the world.” (1)

If we accept Feldman Barrett’s position then love depends on concepts and our concepts are partly constructed by the culture we live in. Her position can be supported by noticing that the dominant view of love in culture has changed over the last hundred and fifty years from romantic love to parental love. Let us accept that what we mean by love is our ancient capacity to “care about” which has been built on and had its domain extended by our capacity for empathy, our increased cognitive abilities and the culture we inhabit.

Let us now consider why we value love as outlined above. We can care about both loving and being loved. I now want to argue that loving is more important than being loved. The above seems counterintuitive. However we can imagine someone who isn’t loved but loves someone or something living a meaningful even if somewhat unhappy life. We can’t imagine someone living a meaningful life if she doesn’t care about anything at all. Let us assume that we must “care about” our ideals. According to Frankfurt having ideals, “caring about” or loving is essential to being a person.

“He can make whatever decision he likes and shape his will as he pleases. This does not mean that his will is free. It only means that his will is anarchic, moved by mere impulse and inclination. For a person without ideals, there are no volitional laws he has bound himself to respect and to which he unconditionally submits. He has no inviolable boundaries. Thus he is amorphous with no fixed shape or identity.” (2)

If we accept the above then we should value loving firstly because by loving we make ourselves into persons. Secondly what we love defines what sort of persons we are. On a somewhat speculative note it might be suggested children keep teddy for reasons of love. Teddy bears can’t love children so perhaps children keep bears because of their need to love. I have also suggested elsewhere that this need to love is one of the reasons some people keep pets, see the philosopher's dog .

I have argued that it is more important to love than be loved. Nonetheless to human beings and perhaps some other creatures such as dogs being loved is also of major importance. To be loved means that a lover must care about the interests of his loved one. Could someone be said to love another person if he remained completely indifferent to the interests of that person? It follows one reason we value being loved is because it advances our interests. However our interests can be advanced by others acting from duty and doing so needn’t involve love. Moreover even if most people want to be cared about they would nonetheless regard simply being cared for as an incomplete form of love. Husbands, wives, romantic partners, friends and children don’t want to be simply cared for in the way someone cares about a pet, they want to be cared about because of the particular people they are. It would appear that people want to be loved for a reason and they want that reason to be based on the sort person they are, their characteristics. Sven Nyholm expresses this want,

“Love is, in this way, a sort of confirmation that we are, as we might put it, ‘lovable’ in the sense of being able to inspire or call forth such dispositions in another (namely the lover).” (3)

A lover doesn’t love everyone but specific persons. What sort of specific qualities does a loved one need in order to create a disposition in his lover to love her? Prima Facie it might seem what creates such a disposition is the attributes the loved one possesses, for example someone might be loved because of her humour, tenacity and straight talking. 

Unfortunately accepting the above raises three problems. First someone’s loved one might be fungible. They can easily be replaced by someone else who has the same attributes but to a greater degree or someone who has some additional attributes. Using the above example above the loved one might be replaced by someone who is funnier, has greater tenacity and whose conversation is even more to the point. Or alternatively by someone who is just as funny, tenacious and to the point but additionally is courageous. Nyholm seems to be suggesting that someone want to be loveable because of certain attributes she possesses but do we really love her or her attributes? If we love the attributes do we really love the person at all? This echoes Platonic love with all its problems.  Of course it might be suggested that we can’t separate a person from her attributes. A second problem arises if we love someone for her attributes then we should also equally love someone else who possesses identical attributes. Theoretically we could love a very large number of people who possess these attributes. It might be argued that in practice we don’t have the cognitive abilities to assess the attributes of a very large number of people meaning that in practice we are only likely to love a subset of the people who possess the same attributes. The number of people we can love might also be limited by the Dunbar number. Nonetheless in practice we could end up loving several people because they possess identical attributes. Of course such a situation might be perfectly acceptable for the friends we go to watch football with but does the same apply to romantic partners? Lastly do we love our children because of their good qualities or simply because they are our children? If we choose the first option then our love is conditional and I would suggest that this would cause problems with childrearing.

Nonetheless in spite of the above it is natural to see our children as possessing lovable qualities. However more generally do we see these qualities as lovable prior to loving our loved ones? If we don’t then perhaps we are labelling these qualities as lovable partly in order to explain to ourselves why we love our loved ones. Our loved ones don’t naturally possess lovable qualities we create them.

In the light of the above problems it might be suggested either that the account of love I have outlined love above is an inadequate one and that it should be replaced by a more adequate one or that there are different accounts of love in different domains as proposed by Aristotle. I am reluctant to accept either of these suggestions and will now give reasons for my reluctance. According to Simon May love is an ancient emotion but that over the last hundred and fifty years the dominant view of love has changed. Romantic love has been replaced by love of our children, parental love (4). I have suggested above that far from being a modern interpretation of what we mean by love that parental love forms the basis of all other forms of love. Let us accept that parents caring about their young offspring is a basic form of love. It is important to note caring about isn’t equivalent to caring for, someone may care for another without caring about him. Caring about means being vulnerable to the fate of the loved one caring for doesn’t. I will now argue that this primitive form of love when its domain is extended can account for our desire to be loved because of the specific persons we are.

What are the reasons someone has for loving us? It might be suggested that this question splits into two further questions. First, what sort of reasons might someone have for coming to love her loved one? Secondly what sort of reasons might have to continue loving her loved one? It might be objected that the reasons are identical in both situations. Accepting this objection means either that our original question doesn’t really split into two as I have suggested or if it does the same reasons satisfy both questions. Let us accept that the original question might split into two. Someone might come to love her loved one because of his beauty and years later continue loving him for another reason once this has faded. I now want to argue that we need reasons to come to love someone but that once we have done so we just continue loving her. We must have reason to come to love, to bestow love, but that we don’t need reasons to continue loving. Once we come to love someone we are simply satisfied with our love and we would need reasons to come to stopping loving someone, becoming dissatisfied with our love. If we accept the above then it is possible to explain why some people find it hard to stop loving. For instance the mother of a paedophile might continue to love her child in spite of the crimes he has committed. She came to love him because he was her child and once her love was established she became satisfied with her love.

What reasons do we have to come to love someone? I would suggest one sort of reason is the relationship between the lover and the loved one. A parent comes to love her child because he is her child, a friend loves her friend because he is her friend and romantic partners love each other because they are romantic partners. The fact that parents love their own children rather than other children who are just as cute, intelligent and charming seems to support the above. This suggestion is based on Niko Kolodmy’s idea of love as a valuing relationship (5). These reasons define the domain of love rather than love itself. It might be objected that some prior relationship isn’t a necessary condition for coming to love a loved one, one simply does it. Accepting the above raises the possibility of love at first sight. It might be argued that the type of love I have outlined above is unable to explain love at first sight. In response to this objection it might be argued that love at first sight is illusory. However even if we accept that love at first sight exists it can be explained by the type of love outlined above. I have argued above that we have a need both to be loved and to love. I argued above that we have a greater need to love than be loved. It follows that the reason for love at first sight can be satisfied by our need to love.

I have suggested that love was originally a simple emotion which has changed as we have evolved. It has been changed by our empathy, increased cognitive powers and we fact we live in a particular culture. I would now suggest that these changes have altered what we love, expanded the domain of our love, but haven’t changed how we love. I have also suggested that whilst we have reasons why we come to love someone we don’t have any reason to continue loving. Relationships give us reason to love someone but our love simply persists because we are satisfied with our love. If we accept the above what does this mean for Nyholm’s contention that we have a desire to be lovable. It certainly means we can’t be considered lovable because of some of the attributes we possess. But do we really want to be loved for our attributes? If we are wise and loved for our wisdom we would still want to be loved if we lost our wisdom. If we are loved for our caring we would still want to be loved when we become old have to be cared for rather than care for others. Perhaps we simply want to be loved rather than loved for some of our attributes. We simply want to be loved rather than loved for a reason. Accepting the above means there are reasons why we come to be loved but no reasons our continuing to be loved. We come to be loved because of we are the children of someone, the parent of a child or simply a friend. Accepting the above also helps explain why the parents of severely handicapped child love and regard him as irreplaceable even if he possesses few lovable properties. Perhaps we should be grateful for being loved and the benefits it brings.

1. Barrett, Lisa Feldman, 2017, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Pan Macmillan, page 30
2. Harry Frankfurt, 1999 Necessity, Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press. Page 114
3. Sven Nyholm,‘Love troubles: Human attachment and biomedical enhancements’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 32, 2 (2015): 190–2
4. Simon May,2019, Love, a New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion, Oxford University Press, page 21[js1] 
5. Niko Kolodny, 2003, Love as Valuing a Relationship, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 112(2).
   

Afterthoughts

the need to love and be loved are both important and are intertwined but perhaps the need to love is the more important. Perhaps loving someone creates a desire for mutual love, a desire to be loved. Does it natter to us if we aren't loved by someone we don't love? Narcissists excepted. Does the need to love explain the difference between a nihilist and a terrorist? Nihilists have lost their need to love and be loved whilst terrorists have retained theirs even if this is misplaced.

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