Readings
Texts
- Harry Frankfurt, "The Reasons of Love" (from last time, but finish reading all three chapters)
Quiz Questions
- What is the difference between caring and wanting for Frankfurt?
- What does Frankfurt mean when he asserts that love "consists most basically in a disinterested concern for the well-being or flourishing of the person who is loved"?
- What examples can you give in support of Frankfurt's claim that love "is ineluctably personal"?
Synopsis
Our work today consisted of exploring the notion that love, for Frankfurt, is a kind of caring which is distinguished from caring in general by having four necessary conditions. Quoting from pages 79 and 80 of "The Reasons of Love",
First, it consists most basically in a disinterested concern for the well-being or flourishing of the person who is loved. It is not driven by any ulterior purpose but seeks the good of the beloved as something that is desired for its own sake. Second, love is unlike other modes of disinterested concern for people--such as charity--in that it is ineluctably personal. The lover cannot coherently consider some other individual to be an adequate substitution for his beloved, regardless of how similar that individual may be to the one he loves. The person who is loved is loved for himself or for herself as such, and not as an instance of a type. Third, the lover identifies with his beloved: that is, he takes the interests of his beloved as his own. Consequently, he benefits or suffers depending upon whether those interests are or are not adequately served. Finally, loving entails constraints upon the will. It is not simply up to us what we love and what we do not love. Love is not a matter of choice but is determined by conditions that are outside our immediate voluntary control.
We might summarize these four "conceptually necessary conditions" by saying (in the same order, and rather pithily) that
1. To love is to care.
2. None other can be the lover's love than the she he loves (or, to be fair, the he she loves, or the he he loves, or the she she loves.)
3. The beloved's interests are the lover's in the sense that what is good for the beloved is good for the lover, and what is bad for the beloved is likewise bad for the lover.
4. We do not will our loves, rather our wills are constrained by the loves we have, over which we have no direct control.
This last bears some explanation. Since love, as a kind of caring, is a second-order desire, our will--which is the totality of our first-order desires--is determined or directed by our loves. It is not the case, then, that we can will what we love. Rather, our loves determine the content of our wills.
In sum, to care is to have a second-order disinterested desire for the welfare of the subject of care. There is a lot of work being done in this statement, so perhaps it would help to unpack Frankfurt's conception of caring by explaining what caring is not on his view.
Suppose Ludwig loves Elise. Love, Frankfurt claims, is a kind of caring. Then under Frankfurt's conception of caring,
It is not the case that Ludwig loves Elise because doing so will get him a better job, sexual gratification, social status, or even the pleasures of emotional attachment.
Discussion: Ludwig seeks nothing nor hopes for, plans for, or in the slightest way anticipates any personal gain for himself in caring for Elise. Ludwig's desire for Elise's welfare is thus wholly disinterested. Put another way, caring is crucially selfless. To desire the welfare of another for selfish reasons is not to care for Frankfurt, since that is merely to manipulate or use the other person towards one own ends, even if the manipulation/using results in bettering the welfare of the person.
It is not the case that Ludwig, in loving Elise, wants her to always be happy, to always take the utmost pleasure in everything she herself does, and never to struggle, fail, or otherwise suffer hardships.
Discussion: Remember that under Frankfurt's conception of caring, the object of Ludwig's desire is not Elise, her happiness, or her pleasure. His desire is for her welfare. If we understand Elise's welfare in terms of what is best for her, or what is in her best interests, then it is clear that he wants for her to grow and develop for her own sake. In Aristotelian terms, he wants for her eudaimon, but not in the way eudaimon is usually translated--viz., as happiness. Rather, he wants for her eudaimon in the sense of her genuine human flourishing. Living a life of no hardship and only pleasure is not, clearly, to flourish as a human being.
It is not the case that Ludwig, in loving Elise, merely or simply wants to do what is best for her.
Discussion: Wanting to do what is best for Elise is a first-order desire, but caring for Frankfurt is a second-order desire, something he often calls a volition. To have a volition is very different than having a first-order desire. For example, Ludwig might want to do what is best for Elise, but might also not want to want to do what is best for Elise. Ludwig would in this case be like the Unwilling Addict. He has a first-order desire which is not a desire he wants to have. Given the chance, he would kick his Elise habit. Or suppose Ludwig has no volitions regarding Elise's welfare. He may want to do what is best for Elise, but it's only by accident. He's unconcerned about her welfare even as he tries to promote it, in the sense that he's uninvolved in, or unreflective about, his desire to do what is best for her. He could as well not want to do what is best for her even in the next minute, and not be in the least bit troubled by his change in desires. Caring, then, is volitional in the sense that it directs, orders, and unifies the desires Ludwig has to do what is best for Elise and to have what is best for Elise brought about by circumstance and others efforts. To care is to want to have the kinds of desires one must to have a genuine, selfless interest expressed for the welfare of another person.
A great deal follows from all this, including the notion that love is not immediately up to us. We cannot choose to love or not love, but we can influence ourselves and the loves we have by the environment we create for ourselves.
Today we had a splendid, altogether engaging discussion exploring each of the necessary conditions Frankfurt identifies by asking further questions such as,
What is human flourishing? What is success for a human being? How might the Ancient Greeks have answered these questions, in contrast to how we tend to answer them today?
Why is it your significant other cannot be replaced by their identical twin, should they happen to have one? Why is it rape to be unknowingly seduced by the twin instead of the significant other?
What makes it possible to extend our welfare in the way Nozick and Baier imagine? What constitutes a mother's love for her child?
If love is truly outside our immediate voluntary control, then by what measure and means do we exercise any indirect control over whom to love?
In what sense is self-love the default or most primitive kind of love, and in what way does this demonstrate the foundational nature of love in our scaffold of emotion?
Next time we take up the closely intertwined topic of lust insofar as it bears on erotic or romantic love. Note that it seems there is a lot of reading, but in fact the individual chapters are quite short and written in an admirably accessible style.