Topics Love

Question If someone leaves you, can they still love you; and if not, can you stop loving someone or would that mean you never loved them at all? Tyler

Accepted:
March 16, 2006

Comments

I think this is possible, particularly if one or both people have done something to seriously damage the relationship, or if one person is simply impossible to live with. It might be better for all concerned for a relationship to end even if the one who ends it is still in love.

I suspect, however, that your question concerns cases in which no particular wrong has been done, and the relationship is perfectly workable. Can someone remain in love and still end a relationship simply in order to pursue other opportunities (romantic, professional or otherwise)? This might seem impossible if you have a conception of love as completely unconditional and exclusive. (If you also regard love as eternal and unchanging then it's difficult to see how, as you ask, one can genuinely love at one time and not at another.) But I don't see why a state that doesn't fully satisfy these conditions shouldn't count as love. We certainly talk of people falling in and out of love, of being in love with more than one person, and of breaking (in non-extenuating circumstances) with someone they still love. Perhaps some people really do fall into a form of love that is exclusive, eternal and completely unconditional. And at times love can certainly seem to have these properties, especially when one is feverishly smitten. But I doubt that many perfectly fulfilling and deep instances of romantic love actually achieve these ideals, or even that they should. It's nice to think that my wife loves me exclusively, eternally and unconditionally, but I don't know if that's what I really want for her, or for us.

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. Suppose I believe that P at time t1 and later, at t2, having gathered more evidence, no longer believe that P -- does that mean that I had never really believed P? No. Suppose I have an itchy patch of skin at t1 but no longer feel an urge to scratch the skin at t2 -- I never really had an itch? No. Suppose I am happy at t1 and am unhappy at t2. Does that mean that I had never been happy? No. Suppose that a lot of different things exist or occur (or "exist"/"occur") at t1 and imagine that they are gone (or "gone") at t2 -- does that mean they had never existed or occurred at t1? No, no, no, no, and no. It is quite odd that anyone would ever suggest that love -- all by itself? a sui generis? -- was different.

However, we should take seriously the different thesis that it is not love's ending per se that brings into question its having been genuine, but rather the reason for, or the cause of, its ending, makes a difference to our assessment of its bona fides. That is, if love ends for one sort of reason (or sorts of reasons), it had still been love, but if it ends for some other sorts of reasons, it likely had never been the real thing. So the interesting question is: what are the reasons of the first kind, and what are the reasons of the second kind. Maybe, though, there are no reasons of the first kind, but only reasons of the second kind? Or no reasons of the second kind but only of the first? Those claims would have to be argued, or demonstrated, not merely asserted rhetorically. (For a discussion of this issue and more about the constancy of love, see chapter 10 of my The Structure of Love, Yale U.P., 1990.)

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 earlier had for Y had been genuine, even though it has come to an end. (One cannot have genuine philia for the bad or evil.)

Two comments. (1) Here we see a way in which Aristotle's philia differs from Christian agape. Aristotle allows that when Y has been drawn into evil, X may properly jettison Y as a friend or beloved. But Pope John Paul II (among other Christians) would say: that your friend has fallen into disastrous evil is even more reason to continue to love the friend. Aristotle allows that X may withdraw care and concern for Y, if Y has become irrevocably wicked. John Paul II denies that anyone is or becomes irrevocably wicked, and hence the friend should never be abandoned as an object of care and concern.

(2) There is a way to interpret Aristotle so that we do not have to conclude that philia is consistent with X's once loving Y at t1 but not loving Y at the later t2, because Y has changed so dramatically from virtuous to evil. That is, we can interpret the case, in which Y changes from virtuous to evil, in such a way that philia does remain perfectly constant even with the change in Y, i.e., in such a way as to preserve the Aristotelian thesis that philia is constant without any exceptions. To do this, we need to suppose that Y has undergone such radical moral-psychological changes (becoming evil after having had been good counts as that kind of change), that Y in some real sense no longer exists after the change, that maybe the body that had been Y's remains, but a new person, Y2, has appeared on the scene. (We will need a theory of personal identity to prop up this interpretation.) If so, then this case should be described in the following way: it is not X's philia or love for Y that has ended or disappeared; instead, it is Y himself or herself, the object of that love, that has disappeared. The theory of the constancy of love that is being expressed here claims that love is indeed constant, but that its being constant requires only that the object of the love continues to exists. The failure of the object of love to exist any longer is no strike against the genuineness of the earlier love nor against its constancy. (Again, see my The Structure of Love.)

Indebted to T.H. Irwin (Aristotle's First Principles), I would put Aristotle’s point about friendship slightly differently —not that genuine friendship involves constancy, but that the best sort offriendship involves constancy. On Aristotle's view, friendship has atleast two features that lead to this result. Friends care about eachother for their own sake (1155b31-2, 1166a3-7), and friends wish tolive together (1157b19-24, 1166a7-9). I can’t care about another personfor her own sake if she has no stable character to be concerned with.And if her character is constantly changing, then we can make norational plans together about how we should live our lives togethersince I can’t share my life with another person if her ends aredifferent from my own or if we take pleasure and pain in differentthings (1157b22-4; 1165b23-7). But if I can’t make rational plans withmy friend, then my friendship will have limited value for me in my ownproject of self-actualization (1168a4-28). It is largely for thisreason that Aristotle believes that the best sort of friendship isbetween virtuous people: virtue is enduring (1105a33; 1156b12); vice isunstable.

Question If someone leaves you, can they still love you; and if not, can you stop loving someone or would that mean you never loved them at all? Tyler Accepted:March 16, 2006

Question If someone leaves you, can they still love you; and if not, can you stop loving someone or would that mean you never loved them at all? Tyler

Accepted:
March 16, 2006