From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: WHAT IS LOVE?
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 15:35:35 GMT

In article <1992Aug30.160043.10435@abo.fi> CBURMAN@finabo.abo.fi writes:
>In various articles CBURMAN and holmes:
>
>CB>Hampshire's point is, I take it (long time since I last read him too),
>CB>to get rid of the idea that things like love, respect, hate, contempt,
>CB>etc. are 'merely' feelings (some kind of inner sensations, or whatever),
>CB>and that seems to me an important thing to do. 
>
>holmes>Exactly!!!  I don't think that love is actually a feeling at all.  It
>holmes>is a _policy_.  So is hate.
>
>Something like it - I'm just not sure whether 'policy' is the word to use here.
>I would like to say that love goes deeper than policies. If you love someone,
>your love will play a part in the way in which you understand that other person
>(you see his/her actions in the light of your love, as it were). Now with policies
>it is (usually) the other way around: because you see things in a certain light 
>you decide upon a certain policy. (I think...)

I also find the word "policy" unsatisfactory in this context (even
though I chose it myself!)  At the very least, to be love a policy
must be _sincere_ (we may on a practical level regard the welfare of
someone who is blackmailing us as essential to our own -- within a
very limited horizon -- but we do not love him, because in a larger
horizon we do not wish him well).

>
>CB>(But this is not to say
>CB>that there isn't room for all kinds of sensations too. The point is that
>CB>love doesn't consist in having certain feelings.) I'm uneasy about
>CB>talking of 'a decision to feel or value',
>
>holmes>I don't think one _can_ "decide to feel"; one might have more freedom
>holmes>to decide to value, but I'm also dubious about that.
>
>"Decide to feel" does sound fishy. "He decided to feel guilty." - hard to imagine a
>natural context for it. (Interestingly enough a sentence like "He decided that he was 
>indeed feeling guilty" sounds much more natural.)
>
>"Decide to value" sounds just as queer as "Decide to feel".
>
>CB> but if I understand this
>CB>correctly, Hampshire wants to point to the aspect of an undertaking
>CB>inherent in love.(O.K. Bouwsma thinks of (religious) faith in a similar
>CB>way. Maybe Kierkegaard too. I always felt that this is why faith and
>CB>love seem so closely connected.)
>
>holmes>Faith is also a _policy_ (often but not always a stupid one), not a
>holmes>feeling.
>
>I do think you'll have to tell us more about what you mean by 'policy' here,
>and how a man's faith could be a stupid policy.  (I'm not disagreeing with you,
>mind. Just a bit lost.)

The sense in which faith can be a stupid policy is very simple; one
can have faith in persons or institutions which cannot be relied upon
or propositions which are false.  This goes on a lot of the time!
This applies to religious faith as well; I am not a relativist --
one's religious beliefs are _true_ or _false_ (item by item), and
logic dictates that most of the religious beliefs of most people are
false (since they are arrayed in systems logically incompatible with
one another).  Faith is a policy rather than a feeling because it is
in some sense an act of will; one decides to stop testing some
proposition and act as if it is true, or stop testing some person and
act as if he is to be trusted (and one often has to _work_ at it!).
Faith (in "small" things or familiar people) is actually essential to
getting through the day!

>
>holmes>The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
>holmes>above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
>holmes>opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
>holmes>or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
>
>
>
>Chris Burman, cburman@abo.fi



-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta