Topics Love

Question Is friendship necessary for romantic love? Is sexual attraction necessary for romantic love?

Accepted:
August 15, 2006

Comments

No. No.

Why merely "no" and "no" without some reason for the answers? This web site is AskPhilosophersDotOrg, not GiveMeYourBriefOpinionDotCom. (My philosophy is that an answer proferred on this web site ought to be one that the panelist would recite in the classroom, and in that context mere "no's" are an embarassment to the discipline.) One of many appropriate ways to answer (1), "Is friendship necessary for romantic love?", is to provide plausible analyses (they need not strictly be of the necessary and sufficent condition sort, but that would be nice) of both "romantic love" and "friendship" and to argue that there is inadequate overlap between them. I think the "no" answer is right, but that is because I tend to think of friendship along the lines of perhaps Aristotle and C.S. Lewis, while my understanding of romantic love places more emphasis on the "romantic" than on the "love" (were that not the case, there might well be something pointed in the question after all). I might go farther and claim that friendship and romantic love are incompatible, or tend to diffuse or undermine each other. The question can, of course, be approached psychologically-empirically instead of philosophically, and maybe that is why the "no" answer was so quicky forthcoming. We look at friendships (operationally defined?) and romantic loves (ditto -- it's been done) and measure the extent of coincidence. Similar remarks can be made about (2), "Is sexual attraction necessary for romantic love?" But here I would dissent from the "no" -- because I emphasize the "romantic," not the "love," in "romantic love." Sexual attraction might be what W. Newton-Smith calls a "g-necessary" romantic love comprising element. If popular culture and ordinary language are to count for anything in answering question (2), surely the answer is "yes, or nearly so." In light of this, I think the burden of proof rests on the philosopher who wants to argue to the contrary. I do not assert that it cannot be done, and done well. But if it can be done, at least a sketch of what could be done should have followed the "no." I'd like to see it, and maybe the questioner, too.

Well, might as well go on to complicate things further. I agree with Alan Soble that an adequate answer to such questions must begin with clear understandings of the relevant terms, and I do not intend to supply anything that complete here. But I will say that I disagree with both of Louise Anthony's answers. I would answer "yes" and "yes" (and, as Soble rightly insists, I'll try to explain my answers at least as I might to a class).

First, although I think there are probably many different instantiations of what we might reasonably call "romantic love," I am also inclined to think that these--like instantiations of "human being" might be flawed in certain ways. A flawed human being (morally, physically, aesthetically, or medically) is still a human being. But if one asks, do human beings have two legs, I think the right answer is still "yes" even if not all actual human beings happen to have two legs. That is because when a human being does not have two legs, we do not think of their condition as the ideal--all other things equal, we would all prefer to have two legs, rather than none, one, or more than two. So I take your question not to be about whether there could be some romantic relationships in which those in the relationship were not friends, but rather whether a romantic relationship in which those in the relationship were friends would be part of our description of an ideal version of such a relationship. So...yes, certainly, I think that friendship is necessary for (an ideal of) romantic love, and I would regard an example of a "romantic love" in which this was lacking as a flawed example of such love.

Similar reason applies to the second question. Is sexual attraction necessary for (some kind of) romantic love? Maybe not, but it seems to me that if it is lacking, then you will not have an ideal version of romantic love. The lack would seem to me to be a flaw--maybe not a fatal flaw, but nonetheless a flaw. Ideally, romantic love will be the sort of connection between people in which all forms of attraction and desire are realized and enjoyed, including both friendship and sexual attraction (and shared interests, and great conversations, and aesthetic transcendence, and...and...and...).

I wonder if Nicholas is telling us more about The Perfect/Good Life/Relationship than about ideal romantic love per se. But maybe they overlap.

Question Is friendship necessary for romantic love? Is sexual attraction necessary for romantic love? Accepted:August 15, 2006

Question Is friendship necessary for romantic love? Is sexual attraction necessary for romantic love?

Accepted:
August 15, 2006