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Love

Hi! I have two questions that are related. So, instead of making two different entries, i will try to sum up everything now. My first question is regarding love: Can someone love something/someone that is perfect? If so, Is it meaningful? When i ask myself this i think in love as a desition, as a judgment, as a promise. Something that "requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.” (Fromm, 1957). With this in mind, i see perfection as something imposible to love because it is easy to accept it. If love is practice, then you cant love anything and anyone that doesnt require patience and discipline. I think in the start of a relationship, when everything is perfect and the world is in colour pink, that feeling wouldnt be called love. But at the same time, i find myself thinking in people that care about others, people that listen and are willing to help. Selfless people. Do they love? So, besides the question of loving someone...

Great questions. An initial observation: Fromm's view of love seems compelling, though I am uneasy about his claim that love is not a feeling. It seems that one might have discipline, patience, faith... and care for another person, but without FEELINGS (the emotions) of delight in the one you love and sorrowing when the beloved is injured, I am not sure you would have a case of love. So I think Fromm's claim that love is not a feeling, but a practice, is open to challenge. Maybe he might have made the point that love is not MERELY a feeling. Over to your first question: Because there seem to be very few evident perfect persons (even Gandhi had his faults), I think your (excellent) question would probably best be posed in the philosophy of religion. Classical Judaism, Christianity, Islam and theistic Hinduism believe in the divine (God, Allah, Brahman) as a perfect, maximally excellent reality. I suggest love of the divine in such practices would include the cultivation of awe (or praise or worship or...
Ethics
Religion
Love

I am seeing a married man that had already started his divorce proceedings before we had our affair. His wife is a friend of mine and approves of our relationship because she still wants her husband around for advice and help but she is seeing other men and in fact has a stable relationship with one. I care for this man deeply and he has said he "loves me". From the beginning my guilt about being with a "married man" has haunted me from a religious point of view. I can't get around it. Now we are both in stressful situations where he is going to court (more than once because we are in Mexico and it takes a long time) and I am selling my house with a major issue with the closing. Since we have started to argue, I just want to break it up until his divorce goes through and my closing to get some breathing room. At this point, I don't even want to be with him. We were going to live together after I sold my house and feel this is a bad idea under the circumstances. In fact I feel my soul has been...

According to many (but perhaps not all) Christians and many secular philosophers (and persons of other faiths) marriage is fundamentally based on the vows that persons make to each other. So, for many Christians in the west, the church does not actually marry two persons; the church recognizes and proclaims (and blesses) the marriage. Insofar as "the married man" and his spouse have ended their vow (whether they think of this as breaking the vow or releasing each other from their vow), the marriage has ended, even if it is still a legal matter of divorce. One reason why the state has an interest in the legality of making and ending marriages is to protect persons from harm and insure fair benefits (e.g. see to it that there is proper child support and a fair distribution of property) that might not happen on a voluntary basis. Apart from such a legal matter, however, it sounds to me that the soul of his earlier marriage (so to speak) has been dissolved in virtue of the two of them releasing each other...
Love

Is it easier to love or be loved? I have tried to be loved by people, but I usually get pushed away. I guess I'll never be loved. All I can do is love and take care of other people.

When you write "I guess I'll never be loved," I think you might be able to change that right now. You can love yourself. You may already have proper self-love, but if not, self-love and acceptance can be an important means to finding love with others. I am pretty sure that if I lack self-love and instead hate myself, I am probably not in a good position of being in a loving relationship with another person: I might be baffled with thoughts like "why does she love me when I know that I am not worthy of attention, let alone love?" Philosophers have come up with various philosophies of love and this site would not be big enough to fill all these positions out. But I can record an answer to your first question by a famous philosopher, Kierkegaard. He thought it was easier to love than to be loved. To love, you do not have to depend on how your beloved responds. You can love him or her without requiring or expecting love in return. Of course that can also be a hard, non-compensatory love. It is,...
Ethics
Love

I'd like to ask about the morality of homewrecking: if two people, say B and J, are married, is there anything wrong with a third person, A, actively pursuing B? It seems to me that A could say: it takes two to tango; everyone has a right to maximise their happiness; one should respect B's autonomy; and I'm not responsible for the consequences of B's actions. J could reply: but you cause foreseeable suffering by your actions. To which A could respond: I think autonomy and the morality of what actions are permitted should trump the morality of thinking about consequences, but even when applying the morality of consequences: if B stays, then both he and I will be unhappy; if B goes, then it is only you who are unhappy. What do you think? Is homewrecking clearly morally wrong?

The way you set up the question is quite interesting. While you are right (as J points out), one reason to think that the "home wrecking" is wrong would be foreseeable suffering, but this would seem to be not the strongest reason because (as you point out) the "home wrecking" might actually produce a net gain in happiness even if J suffers quite a bit from the loss. I suggest that the stronger reason for A not to pursue the breakdown of the marriage is that marriage itself consists of mutual promises (vows) between two persons to be steadfast in their loyalty / faith to each other. In most cases, this is probably a vow for life-long fidelity in terms of sexuality -- but also in terms of the primacy of allegiance in a couple constituting a family, even if only two are the family with no children. Assuming that the marriage vow is for life-long fidelity, the third party "A" really is the outsider and is launching an external (intentional?) challenge (J would probably see it as an assault) on the vow...
Love
Religion

do you have to be religiously or spiritually suited to the person you love to gain their trust and respect? being an atheist, what are my moral obligations to this man who holds high regard to religion and spirituality?

Interesting. I suppose that if "spiritually" is understood very broadly to mean something like having reverence, care, respect, an appreciation for some things being sacred like promise-keeping, honesty or respecting the integrity of others, then perhaps spirituality of this general sort might be essential (by definition) for trusting and respectful relationships. On religion: some religious traditions (or traditions within the traditions, e.g. orthodox Judaism as opposed to liberal or reform Judaism) discourage practitioners / "believers" to marry outside "the faith" or the practice or the tradition, but "mixed marriages" (and thus relationships) seem more common. On atheism: "Atheism" may be variously defined; minimally it might mean either someone who makes the positive judgement that there is no God or someone who simply does not believe there is a God. The difference is subtle and may make no practical difference, but the former "atheist" goes on record (so to speak) in affirming there is no...
Love
Value

What's there to gain from romantic relationships, aside from sexual gratification? For it seems as though there is more pain and loss from attempting to find our ideal significant other, than there is actual gain from finding someone adequate enough to fulfill such an unobtainable goal. It seems more worthwhile to culminate our own happiness within ourselves, than to put our happiness at risk, especially given that females (and people in general) who are interested in philosophy seem to be on the decline; and interest in philosophy is a must for any viable partner!

Wonderful to learn that a viable partner for you would have to have an interest in philosophy. If you are super attractive (etc) you might give a lot of people an important motive to develop philosophical interests! Picking up on another point, though, I am not sure you are right about declining interests in philosophy among females or people in general. At least where I teach (St Olaf College in the USA) philosophical interests among young women and men (straight, gay, as well as among transgender folk) seems on the rise. But more to your point, I wonder if your worry about romantic relationships would work against any serious, non-romantic friendship. You write about having reservations about putting your happiness at risk, but that risk seems to arise in every case when you or I truly love another person with or without eros. I have great (Platonic) love for a couple of friends, Patrick and Jodi, and I realize there is no way for me to do so without risking my enduring great pain and...
Love

Does the idea of "conflict of interest" figure into any contemporary discussion of ethics in philosophy? For example, few would argue that a professor having a sexual relationship with a student in his class is immoral in itself, but why would that necessarily be a conflict of interest? Banning such relationships is what is immoral because it reduces people's humanity by presupposing that humans are totally unable to separate their private lives from their professional ones. Are we to ban family businesses too? Even if empirical studies DO show that a majority of these kinds of relationships result in preferential grading, universities can always discipline such professors--disciplining the student would certainly be excessive. Banning relationships are the worst kinds of bans as without relationships we are dehumanized; it seems to me that if a person personally wishes to jeopardize his career for the sake of a relationship, then we should acknowledge and accept that.

Philosophers have given significant attention to identifying conflicts of interest in the course of developing theories of justice, accounts of fairness, business ethics, philosophy of law, and even museum ethics. Your focus seems to be on sex and the academy, so I will go right to that topic: in most colleges and universities there is indeed a regulation against professors and students having sexual relations, but I believe this is not primarily a matter of what may called a conflict of interest. I suggest it is more of a matter of preventing exploitation as well as a matter of a common sense approach to professor-student relations. Even if it happens that the sexual relationship does not lead to preferential (or unfair) grading, it is occurring in a relationship in which both parties have responsibilities to each other that sexuality almost cannot help but compromise or overshadow. The primary role of the professor in teaching or practicing philosophy (or any subject) with students is one in which ...
Justice
Love

Should love between a man and woman be diminished in any way by differing political viewpoints? My boyfriend and I both think politics is a minor part of life that neither of us gets directly involved in but when we do speak about it he isn't afraid to philosophize about his radical political views. As it follows, he is opposed to marriage including straight marriage and especially gay marriage because he does not accept the legitimacy of any state or institution. I don't mind spending the rest of our lives together unmarried because this in no way negatively impacts my life even though my political views are rather different. I disagree with his stance on gay marriage because I have gay friends but this does not diminish my love since we are both straight, so do political views matter when it comes to love?

Very, very interesting. You are asking about something that is perhaps a matter that is more personal and intimate than political or a matter of public philosophy (or philosophy about public life), but I offer these thoughts with some hesitation about responding to what is probably quite personal. In the West, historically (from the Medieval period on) marriage has been principally been understood as that which is established (and constituted) by two persons So, while there has been a massive tradition of arranged marriages and marriage has often been understood in terms of the transfer of property over generations in the west, at the heart of the very idea of marriage is that it involves a commitment between a man and a woman (or, as we should say today, between two persons). The role of the church and state has (from an historical point of view) been conceived of as RECOGNIZING marriage --rather than establishing marriage or constituting it. So, while in Eastern Christianity, the church is...
Love

When it comes to relationships between opposite sexes, there is the 'platonic' relationship. Does this have anything to do with Plato? And secondly, after advancing further in life, I find myself more drawn towards this type of relationship. It seems to have more meaning and depth. It transcends beyond any physical desires. Is there any research you could lead me to that uncovers some truths about these types of relationships?

Great question. Today, I think most people do think of a Platonic relationship as an intimate friendship without sex. The first time such a notion was explicitly identified was in the Renaissance when the philosopher / translator of Plato, Marsilio Ficino coined the term. Marsilio first called it "Socratic love," but then changed the term to "Platonic love" and he mostly applied it to male friendship. Marsilio's shared Platonic love with Giovanni Cavalcanti, a young man famous for his beauty. He maintained that you can be in awe with the beauty of your Platonic friend, but you must not touch or smell him. You refer to a Platonic friendship with an opposite gender; while Marsilio did not address this, Plato himself had female students and, given his high view of women in the Republic (women could be rulers), there is no reason why what we call Platonic love needs to be same-gender. I would say one of the key elements in what is love in the Platonic tradition is that, whether or not sex is involved...
Love

Do prenuptial agreements imply a lack of trust, or even a lack of love?

Great question! Consider, with apologies for the homeliness of this analogy: Does fastening your seat belt in a car or on an airplane indicate a lack of trust in the vehicle(s) or a lack of love for the pilot or driver or other pilots and drivers? I suspect one might have lots of trust and love and yet be realistic that sometimes the very unlikely and (almost) impossible does occur. In a prenuptial agreement, both parties may be passionately committed to each other and yet, out of a "realistic" understanding of the rate of divorce, they want assurance that there is a fair outcome if (heaven forbid) the life-long vow of commitment is not bourn out), it seems practically wise to have a safety net.

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