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Chapter 36 Learning Objectives
Upon reading this chapter, the student should be able to:
- Recognize the problems with typical kinds of explanations about love which are generally less analytic, less logical, and/or less evidence-based.
Watch this video or scan the QR code to learn more about the philosophy of Aristotle.
I want to point out what I believe are some flaws in some particular points about love by other authors and also to point out what I think is an erroneous style of analysis of love. I believe some of these points and this style have been unduly influential. Others demonstrate how some views about love and about relationships can sound quite plausible at initial reading and yet still be seen to be erroneous under more reasonable scrutiny. I believe the proper approach to the subject is the analytic kind I have taken in this book, trying to put into a sensible and reasonable general perspective the kinds of feelings and experiences that are open to most people, and that happen to many; but a perspective that at the same time tries to reasonably take into account the realistic differences there are among people.
In their book Mirages of Marriage (W.W. Norton & Co., 1968), which is marvelous for its clear, concrete language and ideas, and for its many practical insights, W.J. Lederer and Don D. Jackson work with Harry Stack Sullivan’s definition of love (p. 42): “When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as is one’s own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists.” (From Harry Stack Sullivan’s Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry (W.W. Norton & Co., 1953, pp. 42-43.)
Though on the whole I believe this is an excellent practical book with a number of theoretical insights that are worth considering, there are a few things I disagree with in it. One is this theoretical definition of love. I disagree for the following reasons:
(1) One might feel another’s happiness or satisfaction and security are extremely important — a counselor, teacher, doctor, or anyone might expend a great deal of time and energy and worry concerning a patient, student, or friend because he cares about other people. Indeed, one might hope all of us would care about each others’, or many others’, happiness very much. This state might be considered love, or loving, in a very general “Christian” or humanitarian sense, but it is not the kind of love in the general sort of romantic sense involving relationships that we are concerned with here. It has nothing to do with specific kinds of feelings of attraction people might have for each other, and it also fails, I think,
(2) in that it focuses only on the concern people have for a loved one’s well-being and not on how successfully or unsuccessfully one might actually be in bringing that well-being about. If you care about another’s well-being but are unable to provide any for them, then, as I have argued extensively, though they can be attracted to you and though they