Love's Ethics Love as a Legitimate Moral Relation between Persons
Date of Award
2007
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Langston, Douglas
Keywords
Love, Ethics, Morality, Emotion, God, Favoritism, Kant, Immanuel, Sartre, Jean-Paul, Frankfurt, Harry G., Buber, Martin, Solomon, Robert C.
Area of Concentration
Philosophy
Abstract
This thesis is about love. In the first chapter I attempt to determine what love is and what it is not. In the course of this investigation I address other seminal issues in the philosophy of love, such as the question of whether love involves free choice. I conclude that love--in the complete sense--is a reciprocal relation, springing from a choice, embedded in an attitude, and evidenced by characteristic emotions; importantly, it has as its source a deep and intimate form of knowledge. In the second chapter I bring this definition to bear on several varieties of love, with the hope that some insight will be attained as to which of the phenomena we typically refer to as "love" can be properly so called. The conclusion I draw is that only love between human persons ought to be called "complete." In the third chapter I develop a view of ethics that can accommodate this notion of love between persons. I argue that, contrary to the opinions of many moral philosophers, love's moral import is considerable. Accordingly, I construct a set of hypothetical imperatives on the basis of the special set of moral rights and obligations generated by the love relation, and I argue that such imperatives have direct access to ultimate justification. On account of the relative rarity of plausible ultimate justification, I suggest that morality more broadly would benefit from modeling its principles and metaphysical postulates on those contained in this thesis; that is, love should be the foundation for ethics.
Recommended Citation
Schuler, Matthew M., "Love's Ethics Love as a Legitimate Moral Relation between Persons" (2007). Theses & ETDs. 3853.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/3853
Rights
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