"The intention in love is to form a we and to identify with it as an extended self, to identify one's fortunes in large part with its fortunes. A willingness to trade up, to destroy the very we you largely identify with, would then be a willingness to destroy your self in the form of your own extended self." [Nozick,(1989)p. 78]
I was wondering what some of our resident romantics (yes Michael, I mean you!) make of this idea, and if people consider it at all accurate? Is Badhwar's criticism that this kind of relationship: “cannot be understood as love at all rather than addiction” [Badhwar (2003)p. 61] fair?
Both quotes lifted from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Thanks for the response. As I'm not overly familiar with this literature, it might take me a whle to get my head around it. for the moment. My concerns are kind of about identity, but also kind of not as I'm also thinking about autonomy as well. Now I know that autonomy may or may not relate to identity, but I find it hard to seperate thses thing in my mind sometimes.
My inlcusion of Badwhar's comment was due to these concerns. Love, of either kind, can be addiction, and as you pointed out, that does not make it not-love. The problem is that this addiction, which is still love, may not be very benificial, and even downright detrimental, to those partaking in it. I suspect that at a psychological level, the 'identifying' with that which is loved contributes to this.
On the other hand maybe the risk of this indentification/adiction is an essenial part of the whole phenomena of love, and to avoid this at all costs may lead to the avoidance of loving anyone or anything at all. I guess it is up to the individual to decide how they want to deal with this. As with so many things these days, we are adverse to accepting that some endevours are irreducably risky. I would be surprised if anyone could detail a kind of love that involves no risk to mental well-being, autonomy, or personal identity.
Since it seems that we have to accept these risks or reject Love altogether, we need a better way of weighing up these concerns. But since rationality is not always a good way to deal with love, I'm not sure how to do this....
Michael, this is an interesting discussion. But I would like to make a few comments regarding your first post.
You criticize (or separate yourself from) Nozick on the grounds that his is an erotic, or selfish love. I certainly agree that love proper is not (entirely) about what's in to for me, but must be involve genuine concern for my lover as such. (Though "disinterested" seems a very unfortunate label, echoing a kind of Christian agape). It does not seem right, however, to conflate "interested" love with erotic love, even though there is ample historical precedent.
I would have the opposite worry about Nozick's view (and, I think, with your view?). "Union" theories like Nozicks' (Solomon's, Fromm's, etc.) typically have failed to explain the crucial link to the erotic in romantic love. I certainly agree with those who say that to cleanse the erotic out of love is not to purify it, but to castrate it (Nietzsche, Joseph Campbell, Solomon, etc.). If I find a (young) couple who no longer have sex, then I am apt to judge (Christopher Reeves not withstanding) that they are most likely no longer "really" in love— even if their identities are entwined, and even if they have "disinterested" concern for each other. As a thought-experiment, consider when my lover loses interest in sex (with me). It is not just my sexual desires that get frustrated (since she may still perform a perfunctory act). More importantly, I feel less loved.
Now, on the Frankfurt model, if I understand it, I can care for sex become my lover cares for sex, and so I am attending to her needs as much —or more — than my own. This seems to be an important element in distinguishing romantic love from other primal erotic desires. But again, consider the case where my love loses interest. On Frankfurt's model, I should also lose interest (at least in the romantic sense), out of genuine concern for my lover's interests. But phenomenologically, this is absurd. Instead, I feel less loved. (And to repeat, I hardly feel that our love has become more pure).
Nozick and Frankfurt are not alone. I don't know of any (deep, noble) theory of love that really succeeds in capturing the significance of the erotic. So far, as far as I am aware, philosophy has yet to provide an adequate theory of love, for this reason.
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