Price - What is the Point of Love

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What is the point of love?Carolyn Price a

aThe Open University , United Kingdom

Published online: 18 Apr 2012.

To cite this article:Carolyn Price (2012) What is the point of love?, InternationalJournal of Philosophical Studies, 20:2, 217-237, DOI: 10.1080/09672559.2011.629367

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What is the point of love?

Carolyn PriceAbstract

Why should we love the people we do and why does love motivate usto act as it does? In this paper, I explore the idea that these questionscan be answered by appealing to the idea that love has to do with closepersonal relationships (the relationship claim). Niko Kolodny (2003) hasalready developed a relationship theory of love: according to Kolodny,love centres on the belief that the subject shares a valuable personalrelationship with the beloved. However, this account has some implausi-

ble consequences. I shall develop an alternative account, discarding theassumption that love centres on a belief, and beginning instead from aconception of love as an emotional attitude which, I suggest, involvesa form of evaluation that is not belief. As I explain, adopting this viewallows us to interpret the relationship claim, not as a claim about thesubjects beliefs, but as a claim about the function of love. This approachallows us to answer the questions above, while avoiding the difficultiesthat confront Kolodnys account. I end by exploring a case that might bethought to raise some difficulties for my account.

Keywords: love; emotion; motivation; belief; evaluation; justification

1. Introduction

Niko Kolodny (2003) has recently developed a relationship theory oflove. His account centres on the claim that love is sustained and justifiedby the personal relationship between the subject and the beloved. Ibelieve that Kolodny is right to emphasise the connection between loveand personal relationships.1 As I shall explain, however, Kolodnys rela-tionship theory has some implausible consequences. My aim in thispaper is to propose an alternative version of the relationship theory one that escapes these difficulties. Key to my account is the idea thatlove is best understood as (what I shall call) an emotional attitude: oncewe adopt this view, I shall argue, we can develop a more successful ver-sion of the relationship theory.

In what follows, I shall be concerned only with personal love: forexample, romantic or parental love. I shall focus on paradigm cases ofpersonal love: that is, cases in which one person loves another for anextended period of time.

International Journal of Philosophical StudiesVol. 20(2), 217237

International Journal of Philosophical StudiesISSN 09672559 print 14664542 online 2012 Taylor & Francis

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2. Three Assumptions

I shall begin by identifying three assumptions that I shall make in whatfollows. None of these assumptions are unusual: they are shared by Kol-odny and by many other theorists too. Nevertheless, they are all open toquestion, and I do not have space to defend them in detail here. Hence,my question might be rephrased as follows: given these three assump-tions, how might we best develop a relationship theory of love?

First, I shall assume that love characteristically implies certain kinds ofmotivation or concern.2 I shall assume that the lover characteristically:

(1) Harbours a concern for the welfare of the beloved;(2) Wants to spend time with their beloved, to share activities and

experiences, exchange affection, and so on;

(3) Wants their love to be reciprocated.3

Secondly, I shall assume that love is not just a set of concerns: it alsoinvolves an evaluation of the beloved or of ones relationship with them.As Kolodny (2003: p. 145) points out, we can imagine cases in whichthese two things come apart.4 Suppose, for example, that Harry harboursloving concerns for his neighbour Jan, but that he experiences these con-cerns as inexplicable urges or whims: he does not think of Jan as specialto him in any way. As well as being puzzling, this does not look like a

case of love. Love requires that Harry values Jan, that he regards her asprecious or important in some sense. As we shall see, however, there isroom for dispute about the nature of this evaluation.

My third assumption is that love answers to reasons or grounds. Thisis a particularly controversial claim, and some theorists have developedno reasons theories of love.5 However, the claim that love neveranswers to reasons is open to question. Certainly, there seem to be casesin which love is properly described as unjustified or groundless: forexample, cases in which someone loves a partner who is abusive or

charmless. Of course, this does not by itself establish that love alwaysrequires justification, as I shall assume here. However, I believe that myaccount provides some of the materials that might be needed to defendthis assumption. In particular, some possible counterexamples to thisclaim disappear once we recognise the diversity of considerations thatcan constitute grounds for love.

3. Some Questions about Love

Before considering how we might develop a relationship theory, I shallraise some questions about love. They are significant for two reasons.First, they are questions that a theory of love should be able to solve.

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Indeed, as we shall see, both Kolodnys account and mine provideanswers to these questions; and this, I take it, is a point in their favour.Secondly, as I shall explain, while both accounts answer these questions,they do so in different ways. Hence, focusing on these questions is a

helpful way of understanding the differences between the two accounts.(a) A question about lovability. Suppose that Addie is asked by a

friend what she loves about Joe and that, in response, she comes up withthe following list:

(a) His sense of humour(b) His kindness(c) His lop-sided grin(d) His panache on the tennis court

(e) His passion for Roman mosaics(f) His incurable untidiness

According to Addie, then, this is a list of Joes lovable qualities thequalities for which she loves Joe.

Perhaps the most striking feature of Addies list is its diversity: itconcerns Joes appearance, his character, skills, habits, and interests.Some of the items on the list are relatively predictable; others are highlyidiosyncratic. Indeed, looking at Addies list, we might be tempted toconclude that someone can be loved for just about anything. Neverthe-less, as Gabriele Taylor points out (1976: p. 154), there do seem to besome limitations on what we can love someone for: it is hard to makesense of the idea that Addie might love Joe for being deadly boring orunremittingly tiresome. This poses a puzzle: why are some qualities intel-ligibly lovable, but not others? What is it that links the apparently dispa-rate items on Addies list?

We might start with the thought that Joes lovable qualities are hispositivequalities. But this does not seem to be true of all the items on thelist: untidiness does not seem to be a positive quality. Conversely, Joe may

have positive qualities that do not belong on the list: perhaps Joes dedica-tion to his career is a positive, but not a lovable quality. The point can bebrought out more clearly if we contrast love with admiration: Addie mightadmire Joe for his dedication to his career without loving him for it; shemight love him for his untidiness without admiring him for it. What is thedifference, then, between an admirable quality and a lovable one?

(b) A question about justification. To answer this question about lov-ability, we need first to address a prior question: what does it mean to saythat Addie loves Joe forhis lovable qualities? The most straightforward

answer is that Joes lovable qualities constitute Addies reasonsor groundsfor loving him. But not all theorists take this view: as we shall see,Kolodny denies that love is ever justified by the personal qualities of the

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beloved. Before we can resolve the puzzle of lovability, then, we need tounderstand what kinds of consideration can constitute grounds for love.

As we have just seen, we might start by assuming that Addies lovefor Joe is justified by his lovable qualities. Indeed, it might be suggested

that this is true of all cases of love: love is always a response to the lov-able personal qualities of the beloved (Taylor, 1976; Lamb, 1996). How-ever, as Kolodny (2003: p. 139) points out, there is at least oneexception to this claim. Consider Joes love for his newborn daughter,Maia. Given Maias age, it is implausible that Joes love depends on herpersonal qualities: Joe loves Maia simply because she is his daughter.

It might be suggested that what this case shows is that we shouldabandon the assumption that love always answers to reasons or grounds:a fathers love for his newborn daughter requires no justification. But

this seems odd: it is not as if Joes love is just a matter of taste or per-sonal preference; on the contrary, his love for Maia seems wholly appro-priate and justified. Plausibly, it is justified by the fact that Maia is Joesdaughter. If this is right, the conclusion to draw is not that love does notalways require grounds, but that grounds for love are not confined to thepersonal qualities of the beloved: the existence of a familial relationshipbetween the subject and the beloved can constitute grounds for love.6

This raises some further questions, however. If a familial relationshipcan constitute grounds for love, might this be true of other kinds of rela-tionship too? If so, what kinds of relationship might justify love, andwhy? Should we assume that Joes love for Maia and Addies love forJoe are justified in different ways? Or is there just one kind of justifica-tion for love?7 If love can be justified in more than one way, might therebe yet other kinds of justification for love?

(c) A puzzle about loves concerns. It might be suggested that wecan answer these questions by considering the concerns that help to con-stitute love: grounds for love, perhaps, are grounds to harbour just theseconcerns (Taylor , 1976: p. 157). This looks like a promising strategy.However, the claim that love is partly constituted by these concerns pro-

duces a puzzle of its own. Why should love involve just these concerns?Why does love not motivate Addie to appreciate Joe from a distance, toimitate him, or simply to congratulate him? These are questions that atheory of love should be expected to answer.

4. Kolodnys Relationship Theory

The questions that I raised in the last section are all questions aboutwhy love takes the form that it does. To answer them, it seems, we need

to know more about what love is its nature or purpose. The relation-ship theory offers a way to fill this gap, because it begins from a claimabout the nature of love:


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R Love has to do with sustaining intense personal relationships.

A relationship theory, as I am using the term, is one that accords R (orsome version of R) a fundamental role in explaining why love takes the

form that it does. As it stands, of course, R is hopelessly vague: evenonce we have allowed for my three assumptions about love, there aremany ways in which R might be filled out, and many ways in which wemight appeal to it to answer the questions that I raised in the lastsection. My task in this section is to explain how Kolodny sets about thistask.

Kolodnys account centres on the claim that some kinds of personalrelationship constitute reasons for love (2003: pp. 14750). These are:

(1) Familial relationships: that is, biological or social relationships,independent of the feelings of the people involved. (I shall referto these as F-relationships.)

(2) Relationships that consist in a pattern of mutual appreciation andconcern. (I shall refer to these as C-relationships.)

In contrast, Kolodny (2003: pp. 1713) denies that a pattern offriendly or intimate interactions can justify love. Nevertheless, he doesallow that friendly interactions often play a causal role in initiating andsustaining love. As we shall see, this claim plays a significant role in his

account.According to Kolodny (2003: pp. 1501), to say that Addie loves Joe

implies the following:

K.1 Addie harbours a concern for Joes welfare and for the healthof the C-relationship that she shares with Joe.

K.2 Addie believes that these concerns, and the actions they pro-duce, are justified by the fact that she shares a valuable F orC-relationship with Joe.8

Kolodny, then, is committed to two versions of the relationship claim(2003: p. 154):

R1 Love has two foci: loves concerns are focused both on thebeloved and on the subjects C-relationship with the beloved.

R2 There is just one kind of justification for love: the existence ofa valuable F- or C-relationship between the subject and thebeloved.

How does this account resolve the puzzles that I set out in the lastsection?


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Consider, first, the puzzle of lovability. Earlier, I mentioned that Kol-odny denies that the personal qualities of the beloved constitute groundsfor love. We can now see why: for as R2 makes clear, Kolodny holdsthat love is justified only by the value of the relationship that the subject

shares with the beloved. How, then, should we understand the claim thatAddie loves Joe for his lovable personal qualities? Kolodny suggests(2003: pp. 155; 1712) that, in making this claim, we are describing thequalities that Addie appreciatesin Joe. These qualities, according to Kol-odny, are Joes attractive qualities the qualities that entice Addie tospend time with him. Because the time she spends with Joe helps to fos-ter their C-relationship, Addies love gives her a reason to value theseattractive qualities. But although these qualities help to explain Addiescontinuing love for Joe, they do not help to justify it.

Kolodnys account can easily accommodate the case of familial love.According to Kolodny, Joes love for his newborn daughter will be justi-fied, straightforwardly, by the valuable F-relationship that he shares withher. The existence of this F-relationship justifies Joes love, in that it jus-tifies his concerns both for Maia and for the C-relationship that they willgo on to develop.

The account also offers a solution to the puzzle of loves concerns.According to Kolodny, Addies loving concerns stem from the value sheputs on her C-relationship with Joe. The value of this relationshipexplains her concern for Joes welfare. But it also explains why shewants to spend time with Joe: spending time with Joe helps to sustaintheir C-relationship. Again, it explains why she wants him to reciprocateher feelings: their C-relationship is partly constituted by Joes lovingfeelings for her. She cares about these things, then, because she caresabout the health of their C-relationship.

Hence, Kolodnys account suggests solutions to all these puzzlesabout love. Nevertheless, there are several objections that can be raisedto his account. In the next section, I shall mention three.

5. Objections to Kolodnys Account

First, the account seems to over-intellectualise love. Kolodny takes loveto involve a set of beliefs of a quite sophisticated kind. Kolodny claimsthat love implies, not only the belief that one shares a valuable relation-ship with the beloved, but also the belief that this relationship provides anon-instrumental reason to care about and to act in the interests of onesbeloved and ones relationship with them (Kolodny, 2003: pp. 1501).9 Onhis account, then, love implies both self-awareness and a high degree of

conceptual sophistication. The account seems to put love beyond thereach of young children. Moreover, it is far from clear that love, evenamong adults, is as cognitively sophisticated as Kolodny implies.


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Secondly, it is not clear whether Kolodny has provided the rightaccount of what it is to act out of love. According to Kolodny, Addiecan be said to act out of love for Joe provided she meets the followingconditions: first, she is motivated to act by a concern either for Joe or

for her C-relationship with Joe; and secondly, she believes that her con-cern is justified by the value of C-relationship that they share. Thisaccount, I shall suggest, is too liberal: it includes some actions that arenot performed out of love.

Consider the following two scenarios:

(1) Addie and Joe have been going through a bad patch. Addie is dis-tressed at the thought of losing Joe and is desperate to win hisaffection back. In her distress, she buys a gift for him, as a peace

offering. Were she to reflect on her feelings, she would regard herdistress as appropriate, given the value of her C-relationship withJoe. On this occasion, though, she does not pause to reflect.

(2) Addie and Joe have been going through a bad patch. Addie is tooannoyed with him, or perhaps too exhausted by the situation, tofeel much distress at the thought of losing him.10 Talking tofriends, however, she is reminded of the important role their C-relationship plays in both their lives. After some reflection on this,she buys him a gift as a peace-offering. She does so with theconscious goal of putting their C-relationship on a better footing.

On Kolodnys account, then, both actions can be said to be done outof love. Indeed, on the first scenario, it does seem natural to say thatAddie acted out of love. Her urgent desire to keep Joe close and herdistress at the thought of losing him are part and parcel of her love forhim. On the second scenario, however, this does not seem to be the case:it seems more natural to say that she buys the gift, not out of love, butrather because she values her relationship with Joe.11

Now, I am not denying that loving actions can be thoughtful and

reflective, or that, in acting lovingly, Addie might be acting with a pro-found appreciation of all that she shares with Joe. Indeed, Addies lovefor Joe may itself lead her to reflect on the importance of their relation-ship. On this occasion, however, Addies reflection is not triggered bylove, but by the urging of her friends; its effect is not to spark her feel-ings for Joe, but to elicit a wholly intellectual recognition of the value oftheir relationship. Intuitively, her action is too considered, too dispas-sionate, to be explained by saying that she acted out of love. This secondobjection, then, is closely related to the first: just as Kolodnys account

over-intellectualises the evaluation that sustains love, it fails to make asufficiently clear distinction between acting out of love and acting from awholly intellectual appreciation of the value of ones relationship.


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My third objection concerns the content of the belief that Kolodnytakes to be required for love. According to Kolodny, as we have seen,the subject must believe that he or she shares a valuable relationshipwith the beloved. This might prompt us to ask whether Kolodnys

account leaves sufficient scope for unrequited love. Suppose, for exam-ple, that Edith nurses feelings for her neighbour Laurie. She thinks thathe is wonderful, has a profound concern for his welfare, and longs for arelationship with him. Sadly for Edith, her feelings are not reciprocated.On the face of it, this looks like a paradigm example of unrequited love.But on Kolodnys account, this is not a case of love at all: for Edith doesnot believe that she shares an F- or a C-relationship with Laurie. Themost we can say is that Edith harbours loving concerns for him.12 OnKolodnys account, unrequited love can occur in only a few cases: where

there is an F-relationship; or where the lover falsely believes that anF- or C-relationship exists. This seems to be an implausible consequenceof the account.

Still, even if Kolodny is wrong about what is required for love, hemight still be right about what constitutes grounds for love: perhaps weshould say that Edith loves Laurie, but that her love is groundless. Buteven this seems problematic. Admittedly, the fact that Laurie does notreturn her feelings might be a reason for Edith to try to cure herself oflove. Nevertheless, if Laurie is kindly and charming, we might think thatEdith has some grounds to love him better grounds, at least, than if heis mean and tiresome. If so, it looks as if Kolodny has gone too far ininsisting that love can neverbe justified by the personal qualities of thebeloved.

I have identified three objections to Kolodnys relationship theory:

(1) It over-intellectualises love;(2) It does not make a sufficiently clear distinction between acting

out of love for someone and acting from a considered desire tomaintain ones C-relationship with them;

(3) It does not allow enough room for unrequited love.

These look like serious objections. We might conclude that the rela-tionship claim is implausible, and that we should look elsewhere for asolution to our three puzzles. Instead, however, I shall try to developan alternative version of the relationship theory a version thatescapes these problems. The key difference between Kolodnysaccount and mine is that I am going to discard the assumption thatlove is sustained by a belief. Instead, I shall suggest that love is best

viewed as an emotional attitude. An emotional attitude, as I under-stand it, is a complex psychological state that does not depend on abelief.13


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My first task, then, is to explain this claim. In doing this, I am goingto take a certain view of emotional phenomena. Although I shall offersome considerations in favour of this view, this is not the place to enterinto a detailed discussion of the issues that it raises. My aim here is

rather to locate my views within an already well-developed philosophicalliterature on the topic and to find space for an alternative version of therelationship theory.

6. Introducing Emotional Attitudes

Suppose that Addie is indignant about the governments decision toexpand her local airport. We might take this to imply that Addie is, rightnow, fuming about the decision. Alternatively, we might take it to implythat Addie is disposed to become angry about the governments decisionwhenever the topic crops up. However, there is a third possibility. Sup-pose that Addie is so infuriated by the governments decision that shecannot stop thinking about it. Even after several weeks, it comes sponta-neously to mind: she is inclined to raise it in conversations with friendsand to check the internet for the latest news. She joins a campaign groupand begins to think of herself as an environmental campaigner.

In this third scenario, Addies indignation is not a passing episode ofemotion that will fade away after a time. Rather, it has grown into some-thing that may last a lifetime, shaping her plans and values, perhaps even

her sense of who she is. On the other hand, it does not seem to be a dis-positional state. Admittedly, it may involve certain dispositions: forexample, she may be disposed to become frustrated when the decision isnot reversed. But there is something else: an active propensity to thinkabout the issue, to keep an eye out for developments, and to takeaccount of it in her plans.

In what follows, I shall use the term emotional attitude to refer toan enduring psychological state of this kind.14

Addies indignant attitude seems to involve a number of elements:

(1) She evaluates the governments decision as stupid and unfair.(2) She is motivated to redress the situation, as a matter of priority.(3) She harbours a number of emotional dispositions with respect to

it.(4) She has an active propensity to attend to the issue.

It is possible to envisage other types of emotional attitude: for exam-ple, Addie might harbour a fearful attitude towards her neighbours dog,

an admiring attitude towards her sister, or a jealous attitude towards Joe.These emotional attitudes will involve a similar mix of evaluation andconcern, together with an active propensity to attend to the situation.


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7. Emotional Attitudes, Belief and Justification

I have suggested that an emotional attitude is characteristically gener-ated and sustained by an evaluation of some kind. I have not yet said,however, what I take an emotional evaluation to be. I am going to sug-gest that emotional evaluations are not beliefs, but intentional states of adistinctive kind. There are several (oft-rehearsed) reasons for taking thisview. I shall mention two of them here.

First, an emotional response can conflict with a belief. In harbouringa jealous attitude to Joe, for example, Addie may experience their rela-tionship as under threat; yet, despite a parade of jealous thoughts, shemay not actually believe that it is. What someone feels, then, seems tobe distinct from what they believe.

It might be objected that this is too quick: perhaps Addie holds two

contradictory beliefs. But if this is Addies situation, she should be ableto resolve the conflict either by suspending judgement or by examiningthe available evidence to reach a final verdict. A conflict between emo-tion and belief, however, can persist long after the subject has reached aconsidered judgement on the issue: changing an emotional response isoften a much more extended and indirect process than revising a belief.Like many other philosophers of emotion, I take this to suggest thatemotion and belief involve different processes of evaluation.15

Secondly, emotional responses and evaluative beliefs do not draw on

the same sources of information: in particular, emotional responses seemto be particularly dependent on perception and imagination. One mighthear all the grisly details of a car accident and judge that it was a dread-ful event. And yet one might not experience it as distressing until onesees, or perhaps imagines, what has happened. I take it that this offersfurther support to the claim that emotional responses are not sustainedby beliefs, but by intentional states of a distinctive kind.16

It is important not to overstretch this point. I am not denying thatan emotional response will characteristically involve certain beliefs.

Indeed, it is compatible with what I have said that emotional attitudesnecessarily involve beliefs. Emotional attitudes involve beliefs in atleast two different ways: first, as we have seen, an emotional attitudedirects the subjects attention to certain aspects of the situation andmotivates the subject to respond to it in certain ways: as a result, emo-tional attitudes involve certain characteristic trains of thought, andthese may well carry conviction when the subject thinks them. Addie,for example, may well assent to her jealous thoughts as they form inher mind; it is only when she examines them more closely that shedismisses them as false. (In dismissing her thoughts, however, she neednot have dismissed her jealousy: she may still be strongly disposed tohave those thoughts, and she may have to expend some effort to keep


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them at bay.) Emotional attitudes, then, are partly constituted bythoughts and beliefs. Secondly, nothing I have said rules out the possi-bility that a subjects background beliefs will play a significant role inexplaining why they respond emotionally in particular ways to particu-

lar situations. Addies jealousy, for example, may depend in part onher beliefs about Joes action; about certain social conventions; aboutthe attitudes of potential rivals; and so on. These beliefs may help toexplain Addies jealous attitude, even if, in the end, she believes thatthere is no genuine threat to her relationship with Joe.

There is, then, much more to be said about the relationship betweenemotion and belief.17 The claim I am making here is quite specific: I amclaiming that the evaluation that directly sustains an emotional attitudeis not itself an evaluative belief. That this is so, I have suggested,

explains why ones emotional evaluation of the situation can sometimesclash with ones evaluative beliefs about it; and why ones emotionalresponse and ones evaluative beliefs sometimes appear to draw ondifferent sources of information.

The claim that emotional evaluations are not beliefs might prompt usto wonder what standards of justification apply to them. Indeed, it mightbe suggested that emotional evaluations should be classed with percep-tual states, as states that can be assessed as accurate or inaccurate, butnot as justified or unjustified.18 I take it, however, that emotional evalua-tions do answer to standards of justification, and that, in this respect,they are closer to beliefs than to perceptual states. The difference, Iwould suggest, has to do with the educability of our emotional responses:it is possible, if not always easy, to reshape our emotional susceptibilitiesto get rid of emotional responses that are disproportionate or mis-placed.19 We can do this, for example, by desensitising ourselves to cer-tain cues or by finding different ways to interpret a certain kind ofsituation. Because we can educate our emotional sensibilities in this way,there is some point in evaluating the cues that prompt our emotionalresponses; in other words, there is some point in asking whether our

emotional responses are well or poorly grounded.I take it, then, that emotional evaluations do answer to standards of

justification. Nevertheless, this does not imply that they answer to thesame standards of justification as evaluative beliefs. Indeed, some theo-rists of emotion explicitly deny this. In particular, Patricia Greenspanhas suggested that emotional evaluations answer to weaker standardsthan beliefs. While a belief answers to all the evidence the subject pos-sesses, she argues, an emotional response may be justified provided thatit has some evidential support: emotional responses, she suggests are

all-out reactions to portions of the evidence (Greenspan, 1988: pp.878, her italics). I shall return to this suggestion towards the end of thepaper.


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I have suggested that emotional attitudes are not underpinned bybeliefs, but by evaluations of a distinctive kind. Because our emotionalsensibilities are educable, there is some purpose in asking whether anemotional evaluation is well or poorly grounded. Nevertheless, there is

no need to assume that emotional evaluations answer to the same stan-dards as evaluative beliefs.

8. Emotional Attitudes and Function

There is one final point to be made before I return to the subject oflove. I have suggested that emotional attitudes are complex psychologi-cal processes, which follow recognisable patterns. Each pattern of emo-tion can be seen as a response to a specific kind of event: for example,

indignation is a response to injustice; fear is a response to a threat; sor-row is a response to loss, and so on. Moreover, in many cases, emotionscan be seen as functioning to help the subject to cope with the situation:for example, Addies indignation helps her to deal with the injustice bymotivating her to redress it; fear helps her to deal with a threat by moti-vating her to escape from it, and so on.

The idea that emotions serve functions has a long history. In recentyears, theorists interested in the evolutionary origins of emotions haveargued that our emotional capacities evolved to help us to deal withchallenges that commonly faced our ancestors (Tooby and Cosmides,1990: pp. 4078; Ekman, 1992: p. 171). In contrast, social constructivistsargue that our emotional capacities are acquired through learning, andthat they serve significant social functions (Averill, 1980). For the pur-poses of this discussion, I do not need to take a view on whether ouremotional capacities are inherited, or learned, or both. What matters isthe claim on which all these theorists agree: that many, if not all, emo-tions serve functions.

This is significant for the following reason: understanding what it isthat an emotion functions to do enables us to explain why it takes the

form it does. For example, the fact that Addies indignant attitude moti-vates her to seek redress makes sense, given that the function of indigna-tion is to enable the subject to respond appropriately to an injustice. Thisis not an intentional explanation: it does not appeal to what indignant peo-ple characteristically believe or value; nor does it appeal to the content ofan indignant evaluation. Instead, it is a functional explanation: it appealsto the function of indignation to explain why it takes the form that it does.

9. Love as an Emotional Attitude

Love, I would suggest, is best understood as an emotional attitude.Certainly, Addies love for Joe has much in common with her indignant


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attitude. Love is characteristically an enduring state. It involves both anevaluation and a set of concerns. Moreover, as has often been pointedout, love also seems to imply an active propensity to pay attention tothe beloved.20 Indeed, in loving Joe, Addie can be expected to pay

attention to him in many ways: by dwelling on his lovable qualities; bynoticing how he is; by taking an interest in what he thinks and does; bytaking account of him in making plans.21 Hence, her loving concerns forJoe are active concerns, which play a prominent role in her life. Thisattentional element ties love to (other) emotional attitudes and to emo-tional phenomena more broadly.

Again, there are reasons to deny that the evaluation that sustainslove is a belief. First, people sometimes seem to love against their betterjudgement: they go on loving someone despite believing that they are

abusive and unfaithful, or that their relationship is damaging or futile. Inthese cases, there seems to be a gap between what the subject feels andwhat the subject believes. Furthermore, while biographical researchmight lead me to believe that someone whom I have never met is a verylovable person, or that I share a significant familial relationship withthem, this kind of second-hand knowledge does not seem sufficient forlove.22 Love characteristically requires personal acquaintance and inter-action with the beloved.23 In this respect, too, love is similar to (other)emotional responses such as fear or distress. There are good reasons,then, to classify love as an emotional attitude.

10. A New Relationship Theory of Love

If love is an emotional attitude, what difference does it make? Earlier, Isuggested that understanding the function of an emotional response canhelp us to understand why it takes the form that it does. The availabilityof this kind of explanation is crucial in what follows. It is crucial becauseit suggests a new way of understanding the relationship claim. We canunderstand it as a claim about the function or purpose of love:

R3 Love is an emotional attitude, the function of which is to fosteran intense personal relationship between the subject and thebeloved.

How does R3 differ from Kolodnys R1 and R2?The first point to note is that R3 makes no distinction between

different kinds of relationship. As we have seen, this distinction plays asignificant role in Kolodnys theory: in particular, Kolodny denies that

friendly interaction can constitute grounds for love; and he insists that itis mutual concern, not friendly interaction, that is the focus of lovesconcerns. Yet he does not make it altogether clear why this should be.


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In contrast, I shall understand the term personal relationship to refer toa complex, reciprocal relationship, which might include not only mutualinterest, appreciation and concern, but also friendly and intimate interac-tion. Some personal relationships are characteristically intense, in the

sense that they involve strong mutual concern and interest and regularand intimate interaction. Parent/child relationships, romantic partner-ships and close friendships are examples of intense personal relation-ships. If R3 is correct, the function of love is to foster an intensepersonal relationship of this kind.

Secondly, R3 does not presuppose that a personal relationshipalready exists between the subject and the beloved: fostering a relation-ship might be a matter of establishing a new relationship, or restoringone that has died. Indeed, the claim that a loving attitude has the func-

tion to foster an intense personal relationship leaves it open that, insome cases, love fails to fulfil this function. Thirdly, R3 is not a claimabout what the subject believes: for, as we have seen, an emotional atti-tude need not depend on the subjects beliefs.

In the next two sections, I shall consider how adopting this concep-tion of love might help us to resolve the puzzles I raised earlier.

11. Lovability and Justification

In loving Joe, Addie evaluates him as a lovable person. R3 implies thatthis will be appropriate, provided that Joe is someone with whom itwould be fitting for Addie to pursue a close personal relationship. Thisshould not be taken to imply that, in loving Joe, Addie believes that Joeis such a person. If I were to claim this, my account would be open tothe charge of over-intellectualisation that I levelled at Kolodny. Myclaim is not about what Addie must believe, but only about the circum-stances under which it is appropriate for Addie to respond to Joe as lov-able that is, to care about his welfare, to seek his company, and so on.

What might constitute grounds for such an evaluation? A key point

here is that, unlike R2, R3 is compatible with the view that there aremany different ways of justifying love.

First, given R3, there is no reason to deny that some of Joes per-sonal qualities might constitute grounds for love. Indeed, it seems rea-sonably obvious why Joes kindness or sense of humour might providegrounds for Addies love. It is also possible to see why his untidinessmight also be relevant: perhaps it gives Addie an opportunity to teasehim in a way that she (and hopefully he) enjoys. In contrast, it ishard to see how someones being unremittingly tiresome could consti-

tute grounds for sustaining a personal relationship with them. Again,we can appeal to R3 to explain why not all positive qualities consti-tute grounds for love: for example, perhaps Joes dedication to his


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career has no impact (or perhaps a negative impact) on the relation-ship that he shares with Addie. Moreover, because R3 allows thatpersonal qualities may constitute grounds for love, my account has nodifficulty in accommodating the case of unrequited love described ear-

lier: Lauries intrinsic personal qualities may well give Edith adequategrounds to love him.

Nevertheless, R3 does not imply that personal qualities are the onlygrounds for love. R3 can also allow that the nature of the relationshipbetween two people can constitute grounds for love. That two peoplehave a close familial relationship, or that they already share a relation-ship of mutual concern, or that they find fulfilment in each others com-pany might all constitute strong grounds for a loving appraisal, given R3.

Indeed, I take it that R3 leaves scope to recognise yet other kinds of

justification for love. In particular, I take it that grounds for love caninclude past events: that Joe supported Addie through a difficult time, orthat they have achieved something valuable together might also consti-tute grounds for love. This may be, in part, because Joes behaviour onthese occasions provides particularly strong evidence of his lovable quali-ties or of his continuing concern for Addie. But another possibility isthat these experiences have demonstrated the worth of the relationshipitself, or increased the value of the relationship by fostering a sharedoutlook on life. In some cases, past events might justify continuing love,even though the subject is now estranged from the beloved.

This version of the relationship theory, then, licenses a relatively lib-eral interpretation of what might constitute grounds for love. In part,this is because R3 assumes a relatively inclusive conception of a personalrelationship. But it is also because it does not presuppose that love mustbe founded on a relationship that already exists. Rather, it claims thatlove functions to foster a relationship in the future. Hence, although itallows that there are cases (familial love, say) in which love is groundedon an existing relationship, it can also allow that here are cases (unre-quited love) in which there is, as yet, no relationship at all.

12. Loves Concerns

Love, I have suggested, implies a number of motivations: in loving Joe,Addie will have a concern for his welfare; she will want to spend timewith him; and she will want Joe to reciprocate her concerns. Given R3,it is not difficult to explain why this should be: these motivations and thebehaviour they generate help Addie to sustain an intense personalrelationship with Joe. For, first, they partly constitute that relationship.

And secondly, they encourage Joe to reciprocate in kind.In making this claim, I am not suggesting that Addie herself must

believe that her relationship with Joe is worth fostering; nor am I


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claiming that fostering their relationship is something that she con-sciously sets out to do. Of course, Addie may have such beliefs andgoals: but if so, they will be the result of conscious reflection on thevalue of her relationship with Joe and its importance to her. On my

account, this is something distinct from Addies love. To say that Addieloves Joe implies that she wants to spend time with him, and that shewants him to care for her in return. But these concerns do not dependon her belief that she shares a valuable relationship with Joe. Indeed, aswe have seen, she might want these things despite believing that herrelationship with Joe is damaging or futile. If we want to explain whyAddie has these concerns, the best thing to say is simply that they arepart and parcel of her love for Joe.24 On this account, then, there is aclear distinction between acting out of love and acting from a considered

appreciation of the value of a relationship.If this is right, R3 has no role in explaining Addies loving actions:Addies loving actions are explained, simply, by her love. R3 becomesrelevant only when we ask a more general question: why does love implyconcerns of these kinds? In other words, we can appeal to R3 to resolvethe puzzle of loves concerns. The explanation offered is a functional,not an intentional one: it implies nothing about the beliefs or values ofthe subject. Loves concerns make sense, given the function of love.

13. Love Without Hope

I have sketched an account of love as an emotional attitude, the functionof which is to foster an intense personal relationship between the loverand the beloved. I have tried to show how this account might explainwhy love takes the form it does, while avoiding the objections that Iraised to Kolodnys account. I shall end by considering a case that mightbe thought to pose some difficulties for my account. As we shall see, thecase raises some broader issues, and as a result, I cannot resolve it deci-sively here. Instead, my aim is to explore the case, and to indicate my

preferred response.Suppose that Zack loves Helen, with whom he has shared a close

relationship for many years. Recently, Helen has suffered a massivestroke, leaving her paralysed and aphasic, unable to recognise Zack, toremember their life together, or to respond to his presence. She is nolonger the witty and active woman with whom Zack fell in love. As hecomes to understand the situation, Zack is seized by grief and compas-sion for Helen. Yet he also continues to love her.

This is, of course, a case of unrequited love. However, it differs from

the case of Edith and Laurie in one crucial respect: there is no hope thatZacks love will be returned. Hence, Helen is no longer a person withwhom Zack should or even could pursue an intense personal


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relationship. It might be thought, then, that my account implies thatZacks love is unjustified. On the face of it, though, this seems ratherharsh: certainly, Zacks love seems perfectly intelligible.

In considering this case, we need to bear some distinctions in mind.

First, we need to distinguish between the claim that Zack has goodgrounds to love Helen and the claim that his love fits the situation. Justas a belief may be justified by the evidence and yet false, an emotionalresponse may be well-grounded and yet misplaced. Secondly, we shouldbear in mind that the claim that Zack continues to love Helen might beinterpreted in two ways. One possibility is that Zack continues to loveHelen as she was; in other words, that he remembers her with love.25

Another possibility is that he loves her as she is now.The possibility that Zack remembers Helen with love raises no spe-

cial difficulty for my account. Memories commonly produce emotionalresponses: one can remember a success with pride, or a clanger withembarrassment. There is no general reason to suppose that such emo-tional responses are redundant or out of place. Admittedly, these emo-tional responses can no longer fulfil their function in helping the subjectto deal with the situation that has elicited the response. Hence, some ofthe behaviour that they prompt may no longer be apt: there is no pointin blushing two years on. Nevertheless, our capacity to appreciate theemotional significance of past situations itself has a point: it is an impor-tant source of practical knowledge, helping to ensure that past successesare repeated, and that past mistakes are not. Nor is there any specificreason to suppose that Zacks feelings are either groundless or mis-placed: in remembering Helen as she was, he is remembering an activeand witty woman with whom he has shared a great deal someone whois certainly a fitting object of his love.

But what about the possibility that Zack continues to love Helen asshe is now? Certainly, there is no reason to deny, on my account, thatZack has grounds to love Helen as she is. Admittedly, Zacks love can-not be justified by the personal qualities that Helen now has; or by the

relationship that now exists between them. But it might well be justifiedby their history by the experiences and achievements that they haveshared. Given the length and intensity of their relationship, it is likelythat Zack has many such grounds for loving Helen as she is.

It might be objected, though, that this is not enough to show thatZacks love is fully justified: for whatever grounds Zack has to loveHelen, they will be outweighed by the fact that (as Zack knows) Helencan never again return his love. Hence, on my account, the objectiongoes, Zacks continuing love for Helen cannot be justified overall. The

issue here depends on the standards of justification that apply to emo-tional evaluations. A belief, certainly, is supposed to answer to all theevidence that the subject possesses. As I mentioned earlier, however, we


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do not need to assume that emotional evaluations answer to the samestandards as beliefs. In particular, I referred to Greenspans suggestionthat an emotional evaluation need answer to only a portion of the avail-able evidence. If Greenspan is right about this, there need be no require-

ment that Zacks love is justified overall: Zacks long history with Helenmay well be justification enough.

On my account, then, we can allow that Zack has strong grounds tolove Helen; and perhaps even that his love for her is fully justified.There is, then, nothing puzzling or gratuitous about his feelings. But afurther question remains: on my account, can Zacks love be said to fitthe situation? I take it that the answer to this question is no. For what-ever grounds Zack has to love Helen, the fact remains that she is nolonger someone with whom Zack can sustain an intense personal rela-

tionship. The mismatch between his feelings and the situation will bereflected in the inevitable frustration of his loving desires for interactionand reciprocity. Zacks compassion and grief better fit the situation as itis now.

Nevertheless, there is an important proviso here: there are significantcontinuities between Zacks love for Helen and the compassion and griefhe also feels. First, these new responses are predicated on his love forher as she was. This is particularly obvious in the case of grief; butZacks compassion, too, is likely to be shaped by his loving appreciationof the person that she was. Compassion and grief are not love; but inthis case, they manifest love.26 Moreover, these emotions overlap withlove in important ways: grief, for example, implies an evaluation of itsobject as precious and important; while compassion implies a concernfor their welfare. Hence, Zacks appreciation of Helen and his concernfor her welfare both central elements in his love for her will remainas apt as they were.

My account does imply, then, that Zacks love for Helen as she isdoes not fit the situation. Simply to state that, however, risks overlookingother important features of the case. In particular, Zack has strong

grounds for his loving evaluation of Helen. Moreover, even if Zackslove is misplaced, his appreciation of her as she was and his continuingconcern for her welfare are not.

14. Conclusion

I have argued that the relationship claim is best understood, not as aclaim about the subjects beliefs, but as a claim about the function oflove. The function of love, I have suggested, is to foster an intense per-

sonal relationship between the subject and the beloved. By adopting thisversion of the relationship claim, we can explain loves concerns, whilemaintaining a distinction between acting out of love and acting from an


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intellectual appreciation of the value of ones relationship with them;and we can explain how love is justified, while recognising the diversityof possible grounds for love. Underpinning this version of the relation-ship theory is a conception of love as a complex emotional attitude, irre-

ducible to the subjects beliefs and desires.

The Open University, United Kingdom

Notes

1 Compare Hamlyn (1978); Brown (1996); Solomon (2002).2 For objections, see Velleman (1999); Hamilton (2006).3 Brown (1996) emphasises the importance of reciprocity in love.4 See also Pugmire (1998: pp. 11213).

5 Singer (1984) and Frankfurt (2004) offer accounts of love as independent ofreasons; see also Hamlyn (1978). For discussion, see Kolodny (2003: pp.1426).

6 As I have set it out, Maias age is crucial to the force of this case: given herage, it is hard to see how Joes love for Maia could be justified, if not by thefact that he is her father. Whether other kinds of familial love can be sus-tained wholly by the existence of the familial relationship is more debatable.On Kolodnys view, as we shall see, the mutual care and concern shared byfamily members can also justify their love for each other; on my own view,familial love can be grounded in a variety of ways, and these may differfrom case to case.

7 As we shall see, Kolodny takes this view.8 This is a very condensed version of Kolodnys analysis. But I have not omit-ted anything that affects the argument that follows.

9 Indeed, Kolodny adds the further requirement that love implies the beliefthat anyone who shares a similar relationship with another person has simi-lar reasons to care about, and act in the interests of, that person and theirrelationship (Kolodny, 2003: p. 150). However, this claim is perhaps notessential to his analysis, and for this reason I did not include it in my earliersummary of his account.

10 It might be objected that my description implies that Addie no longer lovesJoe. But this seems too strong: love can be numbed by exhaustion, or

masked by anger, without disappearing. Nothing in my description of the sit-uation implies that Addie has lost the concerns that help to constitute herlove for Joe: we can assume, for example, that if she saw him in serious dan-ger, she would rush to help him; if she saw him packing his bag, she wouldbe distraught.

11 There are other similar cases. For example, it seems possible that Addiemight love her mother, and yet on occasion visit her out of duty, rather thanlove. It seems likely, though, that Addie would regard her sense of duty asjustified by the F-relationship that she shares with her mother. If so, then onKolodnys account, we cannot say that Addie acted out of duty, rather thanlove.

12 Kolodny (2003: p. 171) discusses a similar case. Puzzlingly, he characterisesit as a case of love, arguing only that the lovers feelings are inappropriate.But this is hard to square with his account of what love is.


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13 Compare Rorty 1986.14 I have borrowed the term emotional attitude from Ekman (1992: p. 194)

and Frijda (1994: p. 64). However, Frijda uses the term to refer to a com-plex emotional disposition. See also Stocker (1996: p. 123) Goldie (2000: p.11) and Charland (2010) who also distinguish enduring states of emotion

from brief emotional episodes.15 Compare, for example, Greenspan (1981); Goldie (2000: p. 75); Helm (2001:

pp. 6075); Doring (2003: p. 223).16 There is much more to be said about what these states are and how they dif-

fer from evaluative beliefs, but these details are not crucial here. For myown account, see Price (2006). For other accounts, see Goldie (2000:pp. 7283); Helm (2001: pp. 2959); Prinz (2004: pp. 5278); Robinson (2005:pp. 417).

17 I am grateful to an anonymous referee for this journal for helping me toclarify this point.

18 For recent discussions, see Helm (2001: pp. 518); Prinz (2004: pp. 23640).

19 It is true, of course, that our perceptual responses can also be educated: it ispossible to develop a more discriminating palate by paying more attentionto certain perceptual cues; and it is possible to desensitise oneself to certaincues in order to avoid experiences that one finds unpleasant. However, wedo not seem to be able to rid ourselves ofinaccurate perceptual experiences:the power of visual illusions, for example, is not undermined by training.Educating our perceptual responses, then, does not seem to involve evaluat-ing the reliability of perceptual cues.

20 For a recent discussion of the role of attention in love, see Velleman (1999).21 Sometimes, perhaps, love fades into a set of dispositions to help when help

is sought, to visit when asked, and so on; in these cases, though, it seems

more appropriate to talk of good-will rather than love. For a contrastingview, see Velleman (1999: p. 353).22 Kolodny (2003: p p. 1412) takes this to be an objection to the view that the

personal qualities of the beloved constitute reasons for love. As I hint here,however, an analogous objection might be applied to his own account. Kol-odny takes it that biographical research gives the wrong kind of information;I am suggesting that biographical research provides the information in thewrong way.

23 Perhaps it is possible to fall in love with a fictional character: but if so, thisrequires imaginative engagement with the character, not just a set of beliefsabout them.

24 As Goldie (2000: p. 43) puts it, they are primitively intelligible in the lightof her love.25 In this case, Zacks situation is similar to one in which love continues after

the beloved has died: here too, I take it, the subject remembers the belovedwith love.

26 To put it another way, love implies dispositions to feel compassion and griefin these circumstances.

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Documents

Price - What is the Point of Love