Topics Love

Question Can it still be called love if one loves someone but that person does not love one back? Or does love need the equal affection of two people in order to be considered genuine and whole?

Accepted:
January 19, 2006

Comments

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 necessary condition of y's loving x is that x loves y.) Consider what that thesis commits you to. (By the way, the thesis is asserted by the late John Paul II in his treatise Love and Responsibility, written well before he became a pope; he fails to notice these implications.) The thesis implies that there could never be a time, not even a nanosecond, at or during which xLy but it is not the case that yLx. So, at the beginning of their relationship, either neither person loves the other at all, or both persons love each other, or both persons fall in love with each other, at the same time. This does not entail the necessity of mutual love at mutual first sight; but it does entail that x's love for y and y's love for x are born, created, come into existence, at the same time. Now, this might be a psychological truth. I doubt it; but that it is psychologically or empirically false is beside the point. The point is that I doubt that any philosophical argument could ever be forthcoming that successfully defends the extremely odd claim that every x and every y who genuinely love each other must begin to love each other at the same time. Further, if "xLy iff yLx" is true, then x cannot stop loving y unless y also stops loving x (another oddity). More: if y does continue to love x, x is compelled (by the logic of love) to continue to love y. There can be no time at which xLy but it is not the case that yLx; hence at the end of their relationship, if it is to end, they must stop loving each other at the same time. There cannot be, for logical reasons, any unilateral withdrawal of love. Another: if it ever does happen that x stops loving y but y does not stop loving x, then their "loves"—both y's continuing love for x and the love that x is now withdrawing—cannot be called "love" at all. I suppose one could bite the bullet and embrace all these odd implications of the reciprocity thesis. But embracing them and being able to supply good philosophical reasons for embracing them are quite different. Alternatively, to defend the reciprocity view one might challenge the validity of the reductio arguments. I'd like to see that.

Question Can it still be called love if one loves someone but that person does not love one back? Or does love need the equal affection of two people in order to be considered genuine and whole? Accepted:January 19, 2006

Question Can it still be called love if one loves someone but that person does not love one back? Or does love need the equal affection of two people in order to be considered genuine and whole?

Accepted:
January 19, 2006