Irreplaceability and the Desire-Account of Love

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 25 (4):541-556 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Lovers do not relate to their beloveds as seats of valuable qualities that would be replaceable for anyone with relevantly similar or more valuable qualities. Instead, lovers take their beloveds to be irreplaceable. This has been noted frequently in the current debate on love and different theories of love have offered different explanations for the phenomenon. In this paper, I develop a more complex picture of what is involved in lovers taking their beloveds to be irreplaceable. I argue that in order to account for the beloved’s irreplaceability, a theory of love must meet two conditions: it must explain the subjective aspect as well as the moral aspect of the beloved’s irreplaceability. I show that current theories of love fail to meet these conditions, either one or both of them, and I offer an alternative account that does - an account according to which love is understood as a special kind of desire for the beloved as a person. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to give a more nuanced picture of the beloved’s irreplaceability, acknowledging in particular that there is a moral aspect to the phenomenon that has not been attended to thus far; second, to introduce and motivate a new desire-based account of love.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,449

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

A Lover’s Shame.Ward E. Jones - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (5):615-630.
Loving Someone in Particular.Benjamin Bagley - 2015 - Ethics 125 (2):477-507.
Love and history.Christopher Grau - 2010 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 48 (3):246-271.
Love in the Absence of Judgment.Ondřej Beran - 2019 - Philosophy and Literature 43 (2):519-534.
Normative Reasons for Love, Part II.Aaron Smuts - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (8):518-526.
Irreplaceability and Identity.Adam Kadlac - 2012 - Social Theory and Practice 38 (1):33-54.
Love and Integrity.Raja Halwani - 2022 - In Arina Pismenny & Berit Brogaard, The Moral Psychology of Love. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 213-230.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-08-02

Downloads
180 (#137,029)

6 months
33 (#114,703)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Nora Kreft
University of Winchester

Citations of this work

A couple of reasons in favor of monogamy.Kyle York - 2024 - Journal of Social Philosophy 55 (1):106-123.
Fitting Love and Uniqueness.Xian He - forthcoming - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.
Existential Happiness.Kyle York - 2024 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy:1-9.
Existential Happiness.Kyle York - 2023 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 53 (6):463-471.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Freedom and Resentment.Peter Strawson - 1962 - Proceedings of the British Academy 48:187-211.
The Sources of Normativity.Christine Korsgaard - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 49 (196):384-394.
Love as a moral emotion.J. David Velleman - 1999 - Ethics 109 (2):338-374.
The Reasons of Love.Harry Frankfurt - 2004 - Princeton University Press.
Love as valuing a relationship.Niko Kolodny - 2003 - Philosophical Review 112 (2):135-189.

View all 22 references / Add more references