Topics Ethics

Question Say I'm in a romantic relationship and I'm trying to decide whether I'd be happier remaining in it, or leaving it to philander. Of course, experimenting with both options isn't an option, since I would lose the initial romantic relationship for good. Also, suppose I really love the person I'm with, and they really love me. Do we have an obligation to each other to stay together, since one person choosing to leave would cause extreme emotional pain to the other? I'm not referring to an ethical obligation since I'm aware that there are different moral theories, but an obligation derived purely from the fact that I love someone. Finally, do I violate either an ethical or other obligation if I cheat on my romantic partner in order to get a comparison?

Accepted:
October 14, 2005

Comments

Your intelligent questions are disturbing and difficult ones, both theoretically and practically. I'd like to proceed by dividing your message into pieces.

(I) "Say I'm in a romantic relationship and I'm trying to decide whether I'd be happier remaining in it, or leaving it [period]." Many people ask themselves whether the relationship they are in makes them as happy (or content, or satisfied) as they could be. The question often arises because the person we are with is human, has failings, does annoying things--is not perfect (naturally), at least from our perspective. Relationships come with tensions, and baggage, and problems, and we wonder whether the bad side and parts are offset by the good side and parts. (Despite the powerfully romantic vision of much music [Whitney Houston's song, for one], there are very few perfectly matched couples. And, as Iris Murdoch once wrote [The Black Prince], even the outwardly-appearing best of marriages has its secrets. "Marriage is a very private place.") How much can we take before thinking seriously of divorce? Or can the relationship be saved by deliberate cooperation and understanding? (There are extreme cases: the abused wife who thinks she's better off remaining where she is. ) These situations make for tough decisions. How do we know if we are happy? How do we know if we are happy enough? How do we know if we have the amount of happiness we are entitled to? Some people end the relationship, only to find that that was the "wrong" decision; perhaps--only perhaps--they can manage to resume it. (That's a weakness of experimenting, as you have discerned.) Or they keep going, and going, and going, like the energized rabbit, not realizing (or only dimly realizing, or maybe not caring) that they are in some ways wasting their lives together. But not everyone will be happy; no God promised anyone a rose garden. I am reminded here of a Woody Allen joke. Woman to man in a movie theatre: "If we are in love, why are we so unhappy?" Man (Allen): "Wait. I have a better idea. Maybe we're not unhappy." Or perhaps (as Freud would say), they have actually achieved, not descended to, the normal (low, but real) amount of unhappiness that is the fate of the human creature to endure.

(II) " ... whether I'd be happier remaining in it, or leaving it to philander." That's not the only other option. There are least (1) being alone, seeing if you can be as happy without him/her as with him/her, or anyone; and (2) hooking up with another unattached person and seeing if you are happy with a different person of a different character. What makes you think you'd enjoy philandering? I take that to mean playing the field, fishing in many ponds, going out with many people (not all at once), having sexual experiences with them (maybe all at once). Is this more a quest to find out what circumstances make you the happiest, or a quest to find out who you are? I hate falling into psychobabble. Maybe these options are indistinguishable.

(III) Then you drag "love" into it. Oy veh. So, X and Y love each other; X wonders whether X may leave Y, despite their mutual love, when doing so will cause Y (and presumably X, too?) anguish. Or is there an obligation to remain together? What is interesting about the question is that you want to know whether an obligation flows from the love itself and not from general moral principles. Philosophers have debated the relationship betweeen love and morality. One case goes like this: I love my wife. She is drowning. But in a different direction ten people are drowning. I can save my wife or the ten, but not both. What should I do? Consequentialist ethics might say: save the ten, jettison your wife, because 10 is greater than one, and your preference for your wife, and hers for you, don't count enough. Or a different consequentialist (a rule-consequentialist) might say: save your wife; things go much better overall if we save those with whom we are that close, and they can count on our doing so. A deontologist might say: ethics itself obligates you to save your beloved wife, even if the number of persons lost in the other direction were 1000 and not merely 10. Some philosophers think that this dispute is irrelevant, for love by itself, independently of ethics, creates obligations. So there can be obligations generated by moral concerns, and obligations generated by love concerns. Then in the drowning case, the question is not, what does ethics tells us about whom to save, but rather: which is more important, the ethical obligation or the love obligation? Or are they incommensurable, and we cannot ask which is more important? Finally, some philosphers would say that if we stop for even one nanosecond, and ask either (1) what does ethics tell us about whom to save or (2) which type of obligation--ethics or love--trumps the other, we have missed the Whole Point. For if X really does love Y, X will, without delay and any deliberation, jump into the water and head toward Y, his beloved wife. Not doing so is neither morally a failure toward the wife nor morally proper toward the ten saved; and not doing so does not violate the obligations of love. Instead, not doing so negates the claim that X loves Y in the first place.

Now, what does this have to do with your particular situation? I am attracted to the third view, although I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure I could justfy it. I would say: if you really do love the other person, then you would not consider, even for a second, bringing about the anguish that would come with your leaving--unless there were an ethical obligation or a love obligation, very strong ones, that must prevail. Can you think of any? (The end of Casablanca?)

(IV) Your last question doesn't fit very well with what went before it. Because now it sounds like the issue that is really troubling you is whether sex with your current lover is better or worse than sex with some other person. That is, could you be sexually happier with someone else? And now it makes sense to me that the only option that you mentioned early in your question was "to philander." If that is all you want to know, ultimately--whether sex with some yet unknown Z will be better than sex with the Y you now know, I can tell you, and you will no longer be plagued by the moral (or nonmoral) question of "cheating" to find out. The answer is simple. Yes. Such a person exists. Whether it is worth your time and energy and money and the anguish involved to find out where that person is, in Baltimore or Budapest, is a different question. Why do I say "yes"? It is because I have been convinced by James Thurber and E. B.White--see Is Sex Necessary?--and by Soren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling):

Again and again we hear this story in poetry: A man is bound to one girl whom he once loved or perhaps never loved properly, for he has seen another girl who is the ideal. A man makes a mistake in life; it was the right street but the wrong house, for directly across the street on the second floor lives the ideal--this is supposed to be a subject for poetry. A lover has made a mistake, he has seen the beloved by artificial light and thought she had dark hair, but look, on close scrutiny she is a blonde--but her sister is the ideal. This is supposed to be a subject for poetry. In my opinion, any man like that is an impudent young pup who can be unbearable enough in life but ought to be hissed off stage.