From: daniel@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Daniel Kranowski)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: WHAT IS LOVE?
Date: 31 Aug 92 21:42:00 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech (VPI & SU)


--Love as more than a feeling?--

Ericsson writes:
        I've found much of interest in Stuart Hampshire's writings, esp.
        his thesis that some of our states of mind are constituted by
        our inability to describe them and by making certain choices.
        Consider, 'Am I in love with him, doctor?'  This question assumes
        that love is some kind of independently discriminable item in
        consciousness which I need only to look for to see if it's
        there.  But, acc. to Hampshire, whether I am in that state is
        primarily a question of whether I have made a decision to feel
        or value in a certain way, and whether I shall continue in it.
        It is like, 'Do I believe that p?' where one wants to know, not
        whether the evidence for p is sufficient to warrant belief, but
        whether one in fact does have this belief.

The situation described here -- where one is uncertain of what he
wants, but makes a choice -- is very common.  After all, how often is it
that we know exactly what we want?  I attribute this condition of
_confusion_ to the very natural presence of *conflicting desires*
in the motivations of humans.

Chris Burman writes, in response to Ericsson:
        Hampshire's point is, I take it (long time since I last read
        him too), to get rid of the idea that things like love, respect,
        hate, contempt, etc. are 'merely' feelings (some kind of inner
        sensations, or whatever), and that seems to me an important
        thing to do.

If it is wrong to say that emotions are feelings, then what does Stuart
Hampshire suggest instead?  (I haven't read his stuff, unfortunately.)
Does he say it is a conscious choice?


--Love as a policy--

Randall Holmes writes, in response to Chris Burman:
        Exactly!!!  I don't think that love is actually a feeling at all.
        It is a _policy_.  So is hate.
In his next post, Randall Holmes writes, responding to Leo Smith (quoted
later in this post):
        If your love is merely "feeling good" then those who depend on
        the fact of your love for them cannot rely on it.  Not even you
        yourself can make yourself "feel good" on demand.  Love is a
        matter of the will, although feelings certainly can help.
In the post after that, he writes, responding to Dan O'Connell:
        Love is the policy of regarding the good of another person as
        essential to your own.  A feeling may lead you to love someone,
        but it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for
        love.
And later he writes, responding again to Chris Burman:
        At the very least, to be love a policy must be _sincere_ (we
        may on a practical level regard tbut we do not love him, because 
	in a larger horizon we do not wish him well).

    To me, the definition of love as a sincere policy mistakes the
_expressions_ of love with the _feelings_ of love, which are different.
The way I express my love is based on my feelings of love (I must feel
the love before I wish to convey it) and also on other feelings that may
conflict (I may be too embarrassed to express the love).  I'd recast that
third quote to say that feeling love is not a sufficient condition to
ensure that one will express the feeling.  A maxim based on my experiences
and observations: You can control your actions, but not your reactions.


--Love as an uncontrollable reaction--

Randall Holmes also wrote in response to Chris Burman:
        I don't think one _can_ "decide to feel"; one might have more
        freedom to decide to value, but I'm also dubious about that.
        
This and his prior quoted statements imply that feelings, or reactions, are
beyond our control, which I agree with.  Thus you can't choose what you
believe.  Therefore you can't choose to be sincere, either; and thus a
"sincere policy" ("a sincere act of will") makes no sense unless you
_separate_ the action from the motivating feeling.  It makes sense to
say that I sincerely feel warmly towards a person, and I act in a way
to express that feeling.  The expression of love is a policy we choose
to adopt, and the feelings of love are an emotion we are not in control
of.  I will deal again with the separation of action and reaction below.


--The selfishness of individual feelings--

Leo Smith wrote:
        Love is what you think it is.  It is the maximization of your
        personal value judgement.  It's feeling good.  If you can't tell
        the difference between feeling good and bad then the question
        and answer are both unnecessary and meaningless for you.

I am in complete, utter, and totally 100% agreement with this!  It says
to me that feelings are individually determined, and that you've got to
understand yourself before you can love.  But now I change the subject
a little.

I wrote previously:
        I say that Love is determined individually, by what gives a
        person pleasure, because all human action is motivated by
        selfishness.  I do not believe in altruism; people act in ways
        that are called "altruistic," and hence the word has value for
        its descriptive power, but I believe "love" and "selflessness"
        are fundamentally motivated by the needs of the self.

To which Dan O'Connell responded:
        I don't see what the problem is.  One could say that a mother
        who sacrifices her life to save a child, or a firefighter who
        his/her life for another is acting out of self interests, but
        so what?

Exactly my point.  But I wasn't expecting concurrence on the issue; Dan 
surprised me.  I was expecting what William Tucker wrote:
        Have you ever been affected by someone else?  Have you ever paid
        attention to the way you feel and determined if all of your
        feelings and thoughts are in fact emanating from you?  Do you
        think it might be possible for someone to percieve another persons
        emotions directly and want to stop the distortion caused by the
        others pain, by easing that pain?  If those things were true or
        possible as I just stated them it would sort of blow your
        altruistic or selfish model out of the water.  Things get a little
        fuzzier then don't they.
        
Consider the words "you...affected" in the first sentence, which more or
less answers William Tucker's question.  If I perceive pain or distortion
in another person, if I *empathize* with that person, I feel pain because
of his anguish.  I want to stop his trauma fundamentally to erase my own
pain; if I hadn't felt my own empathic pain, I wouldn't have cared about
his.  Look up "empathy" in the dictionary, and it's defined along the lines
of "projecting one's mind into the mind of another."  I cannot feel your
pain simply because I am not you, but I can say, "I feel bad for you."
I can project my mind into yours, in which case it would make me feel
better to ease your pain.
    Or think about it this way: a friend of yours has a bad cold, and when
you see her, she's blowing her nose, speaking hoarsely, and has a headache.
"I feel miserable!" she explains, and while you're with her you empathize,
you feel bad for her misfortune.  She's a friend, and you don't like to
see her suffer.  Later she leaves and you go your own way for the rest
of your engagements, and soon you forget about it.  You've got your own
work to do, you've got to talk to other people about things, and they
occupy your mind.  Your pains are then your own.  The next day, you're
about to go see your friend again and you think, "I wonder if she still has
a cold."  That thought makes you feel bad again.  "I hope she's doing
better."  If her pain had entered your mind frequently the previous day,
one might say you love her.  But in the times when you weren't thinking
about her, she was still in pain, though you were not.

I don't want to quash feelings of empathy.  But I want to raise the awareness
of what love really is (according to me :).  Kenny Bell wrote:
        I think it is very dangerous to equate love with feelings, of
        however a a noble kind.  For feelings are evanescent, while love
        (I'm in one of those moods) is usually thought to be something
        stable and a stabilizing influence on mankind.

This is the attitude I think is misguided, that romanticizes love.
Although I'll admit there's nothing else we _can_ romanticize, I don't
think it is a good idea to indulge in such fantasy too long while
philosophizing.  (On a date it might be appropriate. :)  Love is fickle,
because love is selfish.  I quoted Randall Holmes above saying "If your
love is merely 'feeling good' then those who depend on the fact of your
love for them cannot rely on it."  He later writes:
        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 is why hearts are broken.  One person puts faith in another, who
does not meet the expectations of that faith.  Love does not always (or
necessarily often) stabilize us -- usually we are possessed of
conflicting emotions that make want to love and not want to love.  It
churns our insides because we want the pleasures and satisfactions love
brings, but we often are afraid of the rejections or loss of other
opportunities that could accompany it.  Or perhaps we love those whom
our parents and society make us feel we should not.

Eshin-Fun wrote, responding to William Tucker:
        But in closer inspection, we find that the gods of love, are
        blind, or blind folded.  For Love seems only to need to fulfill
        itself.  In some languages an expression of love is to posses.
        In Spanish for example, though the word "amar, or amo" to love,
        or I love" implies ownership.  Amo is I love as well as master.
        And in the general expression "Te quiero" it translates: I want
        you.  Again a form of poossesion.

This is definitely on the mark.  "I need you," a common expression of
lovers, plainly demonstrates the selfishness of love.  The needs of the
self explain why we say, "I'm falling in love"; you "fall" in love because
you lose control, the one you love has a hold on you and power over you.


--Pause...--

    I was planning to tie together the maxim about action and reaction
with the selfishness of feelings, but I'll do that tomorrow, because I've
rambled on long enough and I'm also out of time.  Meanwhile, feel free
to reply to this windbag. %>

Daniel Kranowski
email: daniel@vtserf.cc.vt.edu