The claim(nowadays, at least) is mostly associated with feminist legal scholarCatharine MacKinnon---and it is restricted to heterosexual sex inparticular, not homosexual or lesbian sex. Before we proceed, note thatthere is a slight error in the question. The writer moves from "rape"in the first sentence to (in effect) "nonconsensual" sex in the secondsentence. However, it is still being debated whether a nonconsentdefintion of rape is as adequate as, or more adequate than, adefinition in terms of "force." (MacKinnon's writings are implicated inthis debate.) For an account of some of the philsophical arguments, seeJoan McGregor, Is It Rape? , Ashgate, 2005. Hereis one version of the claim in MacKinnon: "Few women are in a positionto refuse unwanted sexual initiatives" from men ("Feminism, Marxism,Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory," in Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology ,edited by Nannerl O. Keohane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Barbara C. Gelpi[Chicago, Ill.: University of...

The question begins: "Do you think it is ethical to have romantic desires for people with good looks?" The questioner then constructs a syllogism that concludes: "it is unethical to grant people ANY advantage based on their looks." Perhaps this particular conclusion is right, i.e., the syllogism is both valid and sound. However, that doesn't get us very far in answering the original question at the very top, for we would still have to add the premise/assumption: "my having romantic desires for a physically attractive person grants an advantage to that person." That is very doubtful! (Except for the megalomaniac.) By the way, I cover this territory in depth in my Sexual Investigations (Yale, 1996), chapter 5, "Beauty."

I think this is a plausible statement (and it is stated very well, obviously--are you a philosopher already?) of at least a necessary condition of love. But it is beset with troubles. One is that it putting it into practice may be paternalistic and in some ways will involve denying the autonomy of the beloved. (And to the extent that acting paternalistically toward the beloved and denying or overriding the beloved's autonomy is incompatible with love, we would have to reject it as an account of love.) For what if your best judgment of what is good for the beloved conflicts with what the beloved has decided (say, also a best judgment) is good for the beloved. Then since or if there is no "external" constraint on your behavior (unless you include your beloved's contrary decision, but that is not what you had in mind by "prevented"), you will have to do for your beloved something your beloved has rejected as not being for the beloved's good. That is paternalism (fine as an expression of love for kids, but...

Of course we can "make sense" of the claim that xLy yet -xRy. Iunderstand the claim or the sentence perfectly well. The moreinteresting way to phrase the question is the first: does xLypresuppose xRy, or is xRy a necessary condition of (necessary for) xLy,such that -xRy entails -xLy or that {xLy & -xRy} is acontradiction. Off the top of my head (a hunch), I would say that theanswers are: eros , NO; agape , NO; philia , YES. My reasons? Eros is, or can be, a sexual or desiring type of love, and I can imaginethat xDy [x sexually desires y, or x is erotically entranced by y, andso forth] yet -xRy. My guess is that many cases of xDy do involve xRy,but I do not think this must be true. Consider [from another post onlove] the view of W. Newton-Smith, who argues that love (in this sense;he doesn't mean agape or philia ) is composed of: 1. A knows B (or at least knows something of B) 2. A cares (is concerned) about B; A likes B 3. A respects B; A is attracted to B; A feels...

My guess, and only a guess: they say it because they are confused or unsure about "love." Many people (I include me) have had this experience: you are profoundly attracted to someone, but he or she is not as profoundly attracted to you, and maybe even doesn't like you very much. When he or she is nice to you, you feel love and desire for him or her; when he or she does something not nice, or does nothing at all for you, you feel hate and anger. You might go up and down and back and forth and be twisted all over the place from this. It is not pleasant. (It's not always your fault. Sometimes a person can meanly manipulate you, knowing how you feel.) But this is not a "thin line" between love and hate; it is the result of an ersatz or pseudo-love not yielding its desired fruits. Perhaps we could even say that a feeling toward another person that depended so exquisitely on reciprocity, such that it wavered to and from incessantly between "love" and hate, is not (conceptually) love to begin with. (But if it...

Here is one thing you can try. In what sense of "love" do you love your wife (assuming you do)? Then ask whether she loves you in that sense. If you can assert truthfully that you love her in that sense, and you can defend that assertion, then in principle you should be able to determine whether she loves you. By the way, Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, argued that we cannot know while we are alive whether we love someone else. I can know that I love you only after you are dead, since only then is it impossible for me to get anything from you. If my love for you continues in the absence of my expecting to get something from you, then I know it is genuine. I do not think Kierkegaard would be open to a counterfactual version of his thesis, viz., my love for you now is genuine if it were to continue after you die. We cannot know the truth value of such a counterfactual. We have to wait for the other's death. Woe is we. (Of course, as you see, Kierkegaard's claim must depend on a particular...

Most fans of the New Orleans Saints (football team) remained loyal to 'dem Saints even though the Saints were almost always a losing team. Loyalty in The Big Easy for the Saints was fierce. But now that Katrina has destroyed much of New Orleans, the team's owner, car franchise hot shot Benson has decided to move the team to San Antonio or California permanently -- at precsiely the time when New Orleans dramatically needs the team to stay, for both financial and spiritual reasons. For all the loyalty shown to the Saints by the N.O. community, Benson returns a kick in the testicles. Update February 14, 2006: Benson seems to have come around. But the Hornets -- who have been playing in Oklahoma City (Oklahoma????), except for 3 games in New Orleans this season -- are now the culprits. They plan to play all of six games in N.O. next season, and N.O. might get the NBA all-star game as compensation. Big deal.

Here are some standard replies (some worse than others): (1) to reduce your chances of contracting an STD. (2) because you barely have enough time and energy and money for one relationship, let alone two. (3) because God said so, and you shouldn't tamper with Him. (4) because your mama said so, and you shouldn't tamper with Her. (5) because your significant other (SO) said "no way, jose" to your group sex proposal. (6) because you promised to be monogamous and it is wrong to break promises, ceteris paribus . can you think of a situation that would permit the breaking? maybe: your SO already broke it. (7) because it is the best arrangement for the rearing of children. (8) because from 4 to 8 years of monogamy is built into us genetically and we shouldn't tamper with Nature. (9) because monogamy (even if not followed by 50-80% of those who claim to follow it) supports the economy better than does polygamy. (Part of my problem is that I'm not sure whether your "why" asks for causes or reasons.)

What a relief! Others have decided to add to this thread. The search for the fine gold thread of love -- the property "common to" and possessed by all types or forms of love -- has gone on for centuries. Another problem with Gert's succinct account is that it doesn't apply to our love for things, but only for persons (and perhaps animals: Equus ). Hence either he hasn't uncovered the fine gold thread of all loves, but only of a subset; or if he has uncovered the fine gold thread of all loves, our "loves" for things are, after all, not really loves. Robert Nozick has proposed, "What is common to all love is this: your own well-being is tied up with that of someone (or something) you love" ("Love's Bond"). Does Nozick's fine gold thread distinguish love from both lust and liking? Does it "account for all of the [other] characteristics of love," whatever they happen to be? (Wasn't that our question?) Regardless, note that Nozick thinks that the fine gold thread of love also applies to our love for...

I now realize that I have begun to write a book on love. This could go on forever. In installments 4 and 5 I reproduce part of what I wrote in other installments. Is the question-poser still with us? More to come.... Installment 4: It seems to be true that loving a person (or even an animal) and loving an object or thing (chocolate, or a feeling ) are different. If both these two phenomena are in fact types of love, what do they have in common in virtue of which they are love? A tough one. Alternatively, we could say that "love" for a thing is not love at all, but something else; it has some things but not much of anything else in common with love for a person. It was Aristotle who claimed that we could not love ( philia ) wine, or be its real friend, both because the wine cannot reciprocate and because we cannot wish the wine well for its own sake (but only for ours). Still again, we could resort to a "family resemblance" account of love, in which case there may not be any interesting common...

Installment 1: I beg your indulgence. Please be patient while I prepare a satisfactory answer to this tough question. In the meantime, read something I posted in reply to another question in this category: In Harry Frankfurt's account of love, there are four "conceptually necessary features" ( The Reasons of Love , pp. 79-80). First , love is "disinterested concern for the well-being or flourishing of the person who is loved." "Disinterested" means "unmotivated by any instrumental concern." Second , love is "ineluctably personal," that is, "[t]he person who is loved is loved for himself or for himself as such, and not as an instance of a type" ( Reasons , pp. 79-80; see p. 44). Third , the lover "identifies with his beloved." And fourth , love "is not a matter of choice but is determined by conditions that are outside our immediate voluntary control" ( Reasons , p. 80; see p. 44). Installment 2 (I'm going to add a little at a time, so stayed tuned, and come back):...

Installment 6: If you didn't like Frankfurt's list, try W. Newton-Smith's (from his essay in my collection Eros, Agape, and Philia ). I reproduce it (what follows are his Love Comprising Relations , LCRs): 1. A knows B (or at least knows something of B) 2. A cares (is concerned) about B A likes B 3. A respects B A is attracted to B A feels affection for B 4. A is committed to B A wishes to see B's welfare promoted. My comments: (i) note the absence of A sexually desires B; (ii) Newton-Smith says that the LCRs are not merely evidence for love but the components of love; (iii) he also says that not all are necessary, in the sense that some might be missing yet A still loves B -- love "involves the satisfaction of the LCRs to an . . . unspecified degree"; (iv) love, for WNS, includes beliefs, desires, and affects; (v) several items on his list seem to be redundant; (vi) he does not explain why he groups together various disparate items. I am...

Both Jyl and Alex have covered the territory, and I have little to add. It seems to be true that loving a person (or even an animal) and loving an object or thing (chocolate, or a feeling ) are different. In the philosophy of love the question arises: if both these two phenomena are in fact types of love, what do they have in common in virtue of which they are love? A tough one. Alternatively, we could say that "love" for a thing is not love at all, but something else; it has some things but not much of anything else in common with love for a person. Still again, we could resort to a "family resemblance" account of love, in which case there may not be any interesting common feature that links all loves together, and we can meaningfully speak both of loving a person and loving a thing or a feeling. We do so all the time in English, at least ("I just love your shoes!"), so Ordinary Language is on the side of both these phenomena being genuine cases of love. Or, because other languages are more...