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Loving Relationships and Conflicts with Morality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2013

NINA BREWER-DAVIS*
Affiliation:
Auburn University

Abstract

Loving another person requires that we set that person apart from others, but morality is often thought to require that we view everyone as equally important. I argue that two approaches to the nature of love, robust concern and special perception, both miss crucial aspects of loving relationships: sensitivity to the beloved’s response, and history of the relationship. Love depends on the beloved’s attitude as well as the lover’s. Shared history as a necessary condition of loving relationships addresses these problems, and points the way to more productive analysis of conflicts between loving relationships and impartiality.

Aimer une personne exige que nous la considérions à part des autres, mais l’on croit souvent que la moralité exige de voir chaque personne comme également importante. Je soutiens que deux façons de concevoir la nature de l’amour, le souci robuste et la perception particulière, passent à côté d’aspects cruciaux de la relation amoureuse, soit la sensibilité à la réponse de la bien-aimée et l’histoire de la relation amoureuse. L’amour dépend de l’attitude du bien-aimé et de l’amant. L’histoire commune, comme condition nécessaire de la relation amoureuse, tient compte de ces problèmes, et ouvre la voie à une analyse plus productive des conflits entre les relations amoureuses et l’impartialité.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2013 

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