Can autistic people epistemically love or know of love? Let's say we are to accept this portion of SEP: To distinguish loving from liking via the intuition that the “depth” of love is to be explained in terms of a notion of identification: to love someone is somehow to identify yourself with him, whereas no such notion of identification is involved in liking. As Nussbaum puts it, “The choice between one potential love and another can feel, and be, like a choice of a way of life, a decision to dedicate oneself to these values rather than these” (1990, p. 328); liking clearly does not have this sort of “depth.” But empathy is hard for an autist. It is difficult for them to put themselves in someone’s shoes and imagining their experience(s). Autists cannot feel the perspective of hurt or sad when someone else is in pain. So, how can they love if they can’t identify?

I have never had a successful romantic love experience. If I love someone, how am I supposed to know that I do?

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...

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...

Any reason someone could give for why they love me renders me replaceable. For instance, if they love me for my appearance, intelligence, kindness, well, there's always someone more attractive, smarter, kinder. So, all things being equal, they ought to trade up to a better model if presented with the choice; or if God is the most perfect example of all desirable traits, then they ought to love God and no one else. I'd like to ask the panel: in contrast to loving someone because of some quality that they might or might not be the best exemplar of, does it at all make sense to love someone in their particularity, ie simply because they occupy a certain position in the time-space continuum? Or does that make a nonsense of the concept of love? Or is it silly, in the first place, to look for reasons for love?

What is the difference between marital relationship and a committed relationship in all aspects, except the legal bond?..is there really a difference?

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.

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?

Objectively, is a single person more free than one in a romantic relationship?

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?