Nozick and Westlund Philosophy of Love and Sex

Nozick Love in general Romantic love Differences from other kinds of love Why bother?

Love in general Extension of well-being (eudaimonia, happiness, etc) What affects the beloved (good or bad) directly affects the lover Not merely through feelings

Romantic love Components: –Infatuation: overcoming the barriers –Transformation –Affirmation –Sexuality

Romantic love: Transformation into a “we” Negotiation, trepidation, commitment Extension of well-being Pooling of autonomy

Transformation into a “we”: Pooling of autonomy Decisions not made alone Desire for mutual possession –Keeping the other independent and not subservient due to care for other’s well-being –Want to possess the other as one possesses one’s own identity –Query: But don’t we have existential control over that? Couplehood, ideally with public recognition “having a new identity, an additional one”

Pooling of autonomy: What is an identity Alertness Loss of identity is like end of life Division of labor—not doing things so that other can Not seeking to trade-up Literally a new entity?

Effects of transformation: Should one trade up? Investments of time and energy Specialization –The feeling that there is only one other person for one becomes true –[This only makes sense with commitment—otherwise too risky. –ARP] To trade-up is to destroy an identity that is one’s own We would like our beloved to be better, but not to have a different, better beloved

Effects of transformation: Can one trade up? No, because that would destroy one’s identity (and then how would one be better off?) Objection: But people do sometimes, alas, destroy their identities No, because seeking to destroy the identity shows one doesn’t identify with it, and hence it’s already broken

Differences from other kinds of love Friendship has a common purpose but not a common identity Friendship involves sharing for the sake of sharing Cannot have more than one joint identity

Why bother? Not simply because of benefits to self. That’s not how lovers think. “There is a difference between wanting to hug someone and using them as an opportunity for yourself to become a hugger” (p. 80). Fun, excitement of new identity One does not judge a shift in identity by how it affects a pre-shift person [Leap of faith? – ARP]

Westlund Sharing of ends Dangers of fusing ends: –Appropriation of the other’s ends –The other is now accountable to us for the fulfillment of her goals, because her goals are ours –Servility Embarking on shared life, with an argumentative structure of gaining shared reasons, is constitutive of marriage Conversation requires distinct centers of responsibility [Deep assumption: We create reasons and goals for ourselves, and this is at the center of what is important for life. Is that so? – ARP]

Sex and reproduction Basically nothing about children in either story And very little about sex How do romantic relationships and marriage differ from spiritual brotherhood?