PHILSOC DISCUSSION

 

12/11/19

Love – who, what, where, and when?

Attendance: 24

Cake Jar Words: ‘Subjective’ – ‘Natural’ – ‘“You just know”’ – ‘Pervert’

Calls of Order: 1

1. What is love?
   1. Defining in terms of a desire to share your life – importance of finding safety – you must still put in effort to find love, however – yes and no; falling in love requires no effort but committing does not – therefore, love is a decision – in just the same way, we seem to love family as a choice but not for a partner – but not always, though?
   2. Concept is heavily romanticised
   3. Ancient Greek – eros, philia, agape, storge – are these related to French words?
   4. Being able to put up with the same thing over and over without getting bored, e.g. motherly love; having a certain symbiotic compatibility – can you be in love with someone without them loving you?
   5. Difference between loving someone and being in love – being in love is not necessarily reciprocated – so, there should be a certain duality or reflexivity to being in love
   6. A craving?
   7. Religious love – innate? – same sort of love as the one we desire when we want to be married, i.e. an escape from loneliness – could you love someone absent? (e. dead)
   8. What about falling out of love? – if you fall out, were you ever really in?
2. How significant is marriage for showing love?
   1. Marriage = lifelong commitment – is marriage a good thing for everybody? – being married forcing you to solve the problems in front of you for a fear of looking foolish for getting divorced – but rise in divorce figures suggest this actually isn’t the case – this divorce rate increase doesn’t necessarily devalue marriage
   2. Why should you want to stay married? – people change – importance of divorce for an increase in quality of life
   3. Love is a risk we take; it is a sign of a commitment to solve problems in the future of the relationship
3. How does the idealistic (abstract) view of love fit in with the material or biological conception of love?
   1. But are these really incompatible? – Surely if love is evolved then it is nonsensical for the progression of our genes? – but adaptations arise from more than just genetic demands? – is love then just a motivator? – but does it not have any sort of idealistic place?
   2. There’s a difference between selection of an individual, which could be biologically explained, and the choice to stay with somebody, which could be more logical – those that stay with one another for a prolonged period of time being dependent in stead of in love? – why can’t dependency be a part of love? – there might definitely be overlap between the two, but not total overlap – do parents and children have a parasitic relationship?
4. Are there distinct types of love?
   1. Can you ever truly know?
   2. Are there even types of love, as opposed to different ways we react to chemical reactions in the brain that seem to instantiate loving relationships? – what about the difference between a long-term commitment and a one-night stand? – beer goggles? – this is like infatuation, which can’t be love straight away – does this mean that to fall in love you need to go through some sort of challenges
   3. Levels of love, depending on dependence
5. Is there modern value in Western Christian traditional love? As opposed to polygamy or loving objects/animals?
   1. The value is not in the marriage, it is in the mutual care and flourishing and development of individuals; why the latter forms of love are less valuable
   2. Can you be in love with multiple people? – loving someone means loving their essence or sense, but this doesn’t seem to apply for multiple people – is the concern here one about time? Will you have time to truly fall in love with multiple people? – of course, you can love multiple members of your family, why is romantic love any different? – love for a partner is different though, it almost gives purpose or meaning – love for family as ‘genetic tolerance’
   3. Does loving objects (e.g. TLC content) have value? Isn’t this just virtual (imagined as real) – who gives you the right to say this isn’t real love? – societal conventions? – is loving an activity (e.g. football) not valid? – is this not just caring for, rather than loving? – is this not storge? Like religious devotion? – what about just being passion?
6. When do you know that you’re in love?
   1. When all the songs make sense – what, after all, are the poets for?
   2. One of the ways to know is when you’ve lost it; this gives you an objective viewpoint
   3. When you’re thinking about this person all the time
   4. Won’t we all just have different answers? – this is clearly quite an individual thing
   5. Biology can find some answers – having a significant other, with whom they said they were in love, alleviates stress under brain scans
   6. When you can just ‘be’ with someone, alone
7. How has love developed through history?
   1. Class affecting views on love? – but what about this idea of mutual flourishing, that doesn’t seem to be affected by class? – liquid love (inherent unendless desire for love)
   2. Broadening definitions of what counts as ‘love’, or what we societally accept as a ‘right version’ of love – this means that traditional conceptions of love have changed
   3. Homosexuality in ancient world as broader than middle ages – religious conservatism affecting this narrowing we can observe
8. How will the concept of love change in the future?
   1. Notion of responsibility being lost? Seen in rising divorce figures? – Metaphorical extension of environmental responsibility and ‘single-use’ objects bleeding into views on love and responsibility?
   2. The effect of the virtual, VR world on love and relationships
   3. Should any traditional values come back? – responsibility?