Robert Nozick’s Love’s Bond is a clear and almost detached summary of romantic love, its goals and components, and its limitations. He first specifies that romantic love, in his view, has three main components that must be present. The first feature, which he sees as being present in all love, not simply romantic, is a sense that one’s well being is “tied up” with another’s. By this he means that when good or bad things happen to your beloved, they also happen to you, indirectly. Secondly, Nozick believes that in order to have romantic love, both members of a couple must surrender some of their autonomy and decision making. However, both parties must remain independent and cannot be dominated by the other, but instead work together to make decisions about what is best for the couple as a whole. Finally, the third necessary component in Nozick’s definition is public acknowledgment. He claims that couples will want to be perceived publicly as a couple and assert a joint identity. The combination of all these factors forms romantic love and a we between two people. This combined identity of a we is the “end goal” of romantic love in Nozick’s view.
Another important aspect of love according to Nozick is a desire to be loved for “yourself” and not for characteristics such as wealth, looks, or disposition. I will discuss this more later, as I feel that Nozick’s perception of characteristics and being loved for one’s self is misguided.
Nozick then launches into a very economic and detached explanation of why members of a couple tend not to seek out a “better” partner, and instead chose to remain in their already established relationships. The basic explanation is that it is “economically” unwise to attempt an upgrade to another partner, due to the inherent risks involved in a new partner and the effort and time needed to raise a new relationship we to the level of the we that was abandoned. He also believes that there is an inherent desire for monogamy in a relationship, and that the intimate nature of a we relationship necessitates that only two people partake in the relationship. This is another reason why a couple might stay together and not try to find another mate.
The final main point of Nozick’s article delineates the separation of romantic love and the love between friends. He believes that the love between friends does not include the sharing of identity that characterizes romantic love. He states that while friends share experiences, the lack of a shared identity is infact essential to friendships because the shared experiences have value without a shared identity.
The major issue I had with Nozick’s article is the idea that proper romantic love must be a love of someone “for themselves” rather than for their characteristics. On the surface this makes sense, however when one stops to consider what Nozick considers a characteristic, the argument breaks down. According to Nozick, a characteristic includes kindness and intelligence, and presumably other personal qualities. While it is obviously wrong to love someone for characteristics such as wealth or looks, loving someone for intrinsic characteristics and personality traits such as kindness and intelligence is not. In my view, these characteristics make up the person that is loved. When one is loved “for themselves,” the “themselves” that is loved is made up of these characteristics. Nozick argues that this makes love conditional, however he also recognizes that an abundance of newly appearing negative characteristics can end a loving relationship. This is a fallacy, as it indicates that conditional love is inferior or not fully romantic love under his definition, however it also indicates that a change in conditions is an acceptable reason to end a relationship. This means that, under Nozick's definition, love must be conditional, and can reasonably be based on personal characteristics such as kindness or intelligence.
The other issue I have with Nozick’s view on love for characteristics is that it leaves nothing to love someone for. Nozick states that love for characteristics is a precursor to romantic love, and must be put aside to experience true romantic love. If we ignore my previous point and accept that conditional love is not true romantic love, there is still a major issue with Nozick’s argument. Simply put, if one is not loved for their characteristics, they are loved for nothing. Under Nozick’s definition, true romantic love includes loving someone simply for existing or being. Nozick’s counterargument would likely be that the new shared identity of a true romantic couple would be the reason the relationship would continue to exist. However, I see no reason why a relationship would continue to exist under these conditions. Under this definition, a true romantic relationship would be a we relationship formed by an initial, non romantic love for characteristics that must become a relationship that exists simply for the relationships sake and is entirely self perpetuating, existing only for its continued existence.
I think when Nozick talks about wanting to be loved for yourself and not for characteristics such as wealth, he means that you want to be loved for essential and important parts of who you are, not for things that are superficial, peripheral, or likely to change.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't quite see the fallacy you attribute to Nozick. I think that there can be conditions which are necessary to give rise to love without making the love conditional. It's like the analogy of using a ladder to get up on a branch, but once you are there, you can kick the ladder over. Certain conditions can lead two people to form a "we", but that doesn't mean that if those conditions change, then the "we' dissolves. Once a we is formed, that creates a different way of judging situations. It is, in Kuhn's terms, a paradigm shift.