In a previous article about romantic love, we described some ways in which it has been defined so far by philosophers and psychologists. Through the lens of four philosophers, this article further expands into relationship dynamics, by looking at two aspects that influence the lovers’ view of both the self and the other. The questions are a bit philosophical and abstract, but just remember they don’t match exact answers, even less distinguish between right or wrong!

This article will focus on:

• The ‘We’ vs. I - am I a part of love, or is love a part of me?
• Appraisal vs. Bestowal - Do I love you because of your qualities, or do I like your qualities because I love you?

How do we see ourselves in relation to love? Are we a part of love, or is love part of us? 

Asking this question is very challenging, especially because love is often regarded as something larger than us, difficult to grasp and to make sense of. How we view love undoubtedly shapes our behavior towards it, what we seek from it and what we think it provides us with. Nozick’s idea of romantic love is embedded in the concept of we: lovers become part of a new entity, resulting from the fusion of certain aspects of the individual identities such as goals and desires [1]. For this reason, it is also known as joint identity, in which the lovers’ well-beings are tied up to each other,  affecting the individual identities. Nozick outlines two ways in which the individual self can be related to the joint identity (we):

1.     The we as part of the self - the joint identity is a very important aspect of our individual identity;

2.     The self as part of the we - our individual identity is contained within the joint identity. 

It is clear that these manifestations of the we are very personal. Indeed, Nozick believes that the heart of the relationship is deeply specific to the lovers, on how they view love from the inside and how they feel inside it. For romantic love to flourish, personal contributions to the joint identity should not excessively add to, nor take away from the relationship. Thus, as long as partners’ views of love are somewhat compatible to form stable dynamics of exchange, there is no right or wrong way to love.

Perhaps this figure can help :)

While Nozick is a union theorist, hence he believes that two people in love will become fused together in some way, Merino is skeptical about this conceptualization, and thus challenges some of its core points [2]. First, tying the self to a we and investing in it can create a risk for the individual identity: losing one’s autonomy and shifting towards a subservient agent in the relationship is unhealthy and unsafe. Many of us find ourselves in situations where we feel like we are doing everything for our loved one, and we lose focus on who we are or what we truly want. Merino thinks that being part of a relationship shouldn’t be confused with overshadowing oneself, but rather enlarging the existing individual identity through a shared emotional journey: love.

A second interesting perspective involves self-sacrifice. It argues that, if lovers function as a single entity that have the same ends and desires, there is no space allowing for self-sacrifice and prioritization of the other. This contradicts what seems to be the fundamental principle of Nozick’s theory, because rather than contributing to the we, our individual identities are annulling themselves for the we[2]. Hence, it seems impossible to see how a person would do something for another, and again this means that the individual identity is lost in the process. 

This does not mean that if you love the other completely and would do anything for them you are a subservient, passive person. Balancing between our individual needs and the relationship’s needs is a challenging skill that comes with time, patience and care. After all, Nozick’s and Merino’s views reflect their personal views of love, once again showing how deeply subjective this experience is. 

Do we love someone because of their qualities, or do we like their qualities because we love them?

We have often heard someone say “they were mean to you, they’re not worthy of your love”, but also “I know they hurt me, but I love them no matter what”, … The first statement refers to Foster’s Appraisal View of Love, which explains that certain appreciated qualities in a person make them worthy of love [3]. For example, we might start liking someone because they are kind and trustworthy, hence we love them because of their qualities. The second statement refers to Frankfurt’s Bestowal View of Love, which posits that a person is worthy of love no matter what, and that this love will rise sufficient reasons to continue loving [4]. Essentially, love is blind: we notice and like someone’s qualities because we love them. Then, what happens if a person changes over the course of the relationship, if they hurt us, or someone comes along with similar, perhaps better qualities? 

According to Frankfurt, “the captivity of love cannot be entered or escaped just by choosing to do so” [4]. You love someone because you cannot suppress the need to love them. Eventually, this need shifts to self-preservation. You begin to feel an internal dissonance (like a voice in your head saying “something is not right”) which leaves you with two choices: convince yourself you truly love them or leave them. Essentially, loving someone, or not, has nothing to do with the other’s qualities but with whether we think the other is worthy of being loved by us. 

For Foster, things are not so black and white. To him, bestowal alone is risky and is deeply centred solely on the individual who loves [3]. He criticises Frankfurt’s theory because there is no justification of why one would love a person and not another. In fact, he thinks appraisal and bestowal are intertwined. We love someone both because we see them as worthy of love, but also because their qualities bring reasons to why we should love them. If the beloved changes, or someone better comes along, we must figure out both whether their qualities are truly a better fit for us and if they are worthy of our love.

Overall, these theories don’t fully explain how love comes about or ends, but rather the ways people love once they are already in love, and how these might predict falling out of love. It might seem strange to have theories of love, given that we all perceive it differently and ultimately cannot quite make sense out of it. There are times when we feel part of love, or love feels part of us; times when we say we love someone unconditionally, or we realise we actually don’t. 

We hope this article can give you some food for your thoughts and reflections (definitely not clarity, probably even more confusion!).  

Here are some additional resources:

• Book: Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman - explains how, due to the increased individualisation and technological advances, western modern love has become much more liquid than it used to be and not so reliant on a stable conceptualization of we.
• Video: Three models of relationships and identities - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAC2wBfP6Eg
• TV Series: Normal People - interesting and realistic perspective on young and modern love.

References

1.     Nozick, R. (1990). Examined life: Philosophical meditations. New York: Simon and Schuster.

2.     Merino, N. (2004). The problem with “we”: Rethinking joint identity in romantic love. Journal of social philosophy, 35(1), 123-132. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.2004.00220.x

3.     Foster, G. (2009). Bestowal Without Appraisal: Problems in Frankfurt’s Characterization of Love and Personal Identity. Ethical theory and moral practice, 12(2), 153-168. doi:10.1007/s10677-008-9128-4

4.     Frankfurt, H. (1999). Autonomy, necessity, and love. Necessity, volition, and love, 129, 41.