In my salad days, I would have replied: keep an accurate, comprehensive diary; take a lot of photographs; and hang on to all your receipts. Now I know better. None of this solves the logical problem. For example, when you are writing down your thoughts or acts in your diary, are you remembering correctly and hence describing correctly what you thought or what happened? When you later look at the photographs you took during your trip to Mali, how can you be sure [memory?] that these were the images you took there? There is nothing in the image itself that reliably testifies to its own veracity. [No memory-image verifies itself.] The label on your jeans says "Levi" [i.e., not a fake made in Bogalusa], but is there a label attached to the label that says "That other label is genuine, and tells the truth"? Even if there were such a label.... [No label verifies itself.] When God says to you, "I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD," go ahead, be brave, and reply, "Oh yeah? Sez who?" "ASK MY WIFE, YOU DIMWIT." (Jean-Paul...

One more thought, by way of elaborating, with an example, the last thought in my previous message. In the Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle, it is well known, argued that genuine philia (love, friendship) is constant . (This is supposed to be one of the slight ways in which Aristotle's philia is more like Christian agape than Platonic eros . See Gregory Vlastos, Platonic Studies .) However, Aristotle allowed that there could be exceptions. Although the passages of NE , a couple of paragraphs, in which he makes this concession are a little confused, his point seems to be this: that if X no longer has philia toward Y because ( = the reason why the philia ends) Y has radically changed -- in particular, Y has (as odd as it sounds, because virtue for Aristotle is supposed to be itself constant) become bad, evil, and not merely bad or evil but cannot be brought back to virtue despite all that X has done to try to save Y -- then, Aristotle implies, the philia that X...

The question seems to suggest the following thesis (or to inquire about it): if a person X has an attitude or emotion at some time "t1" toward or about another person Y, and if that attitude or emotion ever ends, or comes to an end, at a later time "t2," then that attitude or emotion could not have been, in particular, love. Or if X claims to love Y at t1 yet does not love Y at t2, then X's earlier claim to love Y had to be false (even if X believed it to be true). I see no reason to take this thesis seriously. Here's why: Suppose I hate Bill (or believe I hate him) at t1, yet I am able to put things aside and at t2 no longer hate him. Does this mean that my earlier attitude or emotion had not really been hate? No. Suppose I am afraid of snakes at t1, but with the support of my shrink I am able to pick up and caress snakes calmly at t2. I never feared snakes? No. Suppose I sexually desire you at t1 and at t2 feel nothing for you. (One of life's tragedies?) Does that mean I had never desired you? No...

The part of the question that I find interesting is the claim that "there is no real consent between an animal and a human because the two are essentially contemplating a different act" (italics added). The question assumes that animals can contemplate. We grant that, for the sake of discussion. Animals contemplate sex biologically, while humans contemplate sex emotionally, according to the question. Suppose two people, X and Y, meet in a bar or club, and drink wine, talk, and dance together intimately. After an hour or so, X says to Y: "shall we go to my place"? Y says "sure," and off they go. As soon as they get inside X's flat [crib, pad], they eagerly embrace, kiss, undress each other, and eventually end up entwined [perhaps coitally] on the sofa, floor, or bed. The consent of X and Y to this sexual act is implicit, not explicit, but that's not the issue here. The claim I quoted assumes that all is well with implicit consent. I will assume that, too, for the sake of discussion. The...

In my reply to Tom's reply, I asked for argument, reasons, what philosophers are supposed to do as philosophers, if not duty-bound to do. And, finally, he did it. Thank you, Tom. Maybe I am thick and hence couldn't read the argument(s) that really did exist between or amongst those three short sentences of the original reply. But if I couldn't see it, did SteveB?

The claim, that "Chances are you are both happier together as things are now," seems to me to be an empirical issue, not a philosophical one. Further, I can imagine many scenarios in which it is false. Much depends on what is meant by "happier." But whether "happier" means "the relationship as whole will be better/happier" or, instead, "your sexual experiences together will be better/happier," it would seem not to be a question that philosophical expertise could answer. I hope that our answers to sex questions do not come to mimic the pop psychology and psychobabble we hear sufficiently on the Jerry Springer and similar shows. Finally, the heart and soul of philosophy is argument, providing reasons for claims, including claims about morality and duties. In the answer to the question above, I cannot find a shred of argument. We should also avoid, that is, pastoral or friendly counseling. Without rigor, philosophy is nothing.

The question is whether love must be reciprocal (reciprocated; mutual; bidirectional) to be love. The obvious answer is "no": I can love my child without my love being returned with equal affection or at all. Indeed, that seems to be a (good) parent's fate. But perhaps what you are talking about is a romantic or personal love between two adults (e.g., in a marriage—but not necessarily). So I will restrict myself to that context. Further, I will assume that the question is about the logic or concept of love and not merely about its psychology. Nevertheless, the answer is still "no." (A psychological answer would be: let's take an empirical look and see how often, if at all, or for how long, x can love y without y's returning love.) The argument that the conceptual answer is "no" is a reductio . Suppose xLy if and only if yLx. (I take that to be the thesis that love must be reciprocal to be love; "xLy iff yLx" says that a necessary condition of x's loving y is that y loves x, and that a...

The idea -- "I would hazard a guess that most such relationships pair much older men with much younger women--while again acknowledging that there are exceptions to this generality. Given the prevalence of sexism, such relationships seem to raise reasonable suspicions that they are embodiments of widespread sexist attitudes towards women, who suffer disproportionately from discrimination as they age, and for whom standards of attractiveness (including youthful appearance) are especially oppressive" -- ignores the mountain of evolutionary biological, sociobiological, and evolutionary psychological work done in this area that suggests that the pattern older man-younger woman is to be expected. This work might very well be false or full of oversimplifications, of course, in which case the charges of "oppression" and "sexism" in the pattern might be rightfully made. But the idea quoted too cavalierly writes off the evolutionary/biological underpinnings of such a pattern.

Would you prefer to be the one who is good but everything thinks is bad, or the one who is bad but everyone thinks is good? Would you prefer to be the one who loves (but is not loved in return as much or at all), or the one who is loved (but does not return the love as much or at all)? Both questions are hard to answer--which is to say that it is not obvious that it is preferable to be the one who is loved but does not love in return.

(1) Are the psycho-sexual aspects of ourselves fixated from a relatively early age, so that "turn ons" [what we find sexually arousing] are conditioned if not unalterably then in some way that fixes in ourselves certain ideas about what it is for something to be sexual [to be sexual or to be sexually arousing?] in nature? ---Some philosophers argue about this. See Ed Stein's edited book, Forms of Desire , on the "essentialism" vs. "social constuctionism" debate. The question appears to be one for psycholgical theory (see Freud, e.g.). Perhaps what philosophers have been doing is to reflect metapsychologically on the issue. Some experimental research has been done on to what extent and how certain sexual desires can be modified (e.g., in the case of pedophilia and rape). See also Sylvere Lotringer, Overexposed : a study in behavioral modification through overstimulation and habituation. (The idea being, if one gets too much of a stimulus, one gets bored of it. Married...

Nicholas is right that there are good reasons to think that rape should not be defined as "unwanted" sex. Although Stephen Schulhofer titled his book on rape Unwanted Sex , he makes it clear that rape, on his view, is to be understood as sex that is not consensual. There has been, of course, debate among rape theorists over the "right" definition of "rape." The law has long employed a "use of force" definition of rape. Recently, the law (in various US jurisdictions) has been moving toward a disjunctive definition of rape: sexual activity either with the use of force or in the absence of consent. (Some jurisidictions make the latter a less serious crime.) It is not difficult to use the philosophical method of counterexamples to argue (more or less convincingly, depending on one's political leanings) that "unwanted," "forced," and "nonconsensual" sex are not identical. Eric Reitan has written a provocative essay in which he argues that rape is an "essentially contested concept" (in the sense of Gallie);...

Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics argued that philia (a type of friendship-love) is essential to the good life. But Aristotle was a pinhead. For another take from a contemporary philosopher, who rejects the claim that love is essential to the good life, see Raja Halwani, Virtuous Liaisons: Care, Love, Sex, and Virtue Ethics . Chicago, Ill.: Open Court, 2003. And which rock group (J. Geils Band?) more radically impressed upon us that "Love Stinks"? To counter, I suppose, the inanity of the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" (la la la la la....). The way the Rolling Stones torpedoed the Beatles' "Let It Be" with their own "Let It Bleed."