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Single Idea 5262

[filed under theme 22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love ]

Full Idea

It is generally accepted that not everything is loved, but only what is lovable; and that this is either good, or pleasant, or useful.

Gist of Idea

Only lovable things are loved, and they must be good, or pleasant, or useful

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1155b16)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.260

A Reaction

It needs the great analyst himself to explain to us the ingredients of love. He, of course, goes on to say that good things are the most lovable. It is hard to disagree.

The 55 ideas with the same theme [role of the feeling of love in moral behaviour]:

19941 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself [Anon (Leviticus)]
6327 Do good to him who has done you an injury [Laozi (Lao Tzu)]
14177 Love assists men in achieving merit and happiness [Plato]
176 Love follows beauty, wisdom is exceptionally beautiful, so love follows wisdom [Plato]
179 Love is desire for perpetual possession of the good [Plato]
5262 Only lovable things are loved, and they must be good, or pleasant, or useful [Aristotle]
5263 Most people want to be loved rather than to love, because they desire honour [Aristotle]
22582 Spirit [thumos] is the capacity by which we love [Aristotle]
507 Virtuous love consists of decorous desire for the beautiful [Democritus (attr)]
7894 Hate is conquered by love [Anon (Dham)]
20851 Virtuous men do not feel sexual desire, which merely focuses on physical beauty [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
6289 Love your enemies [Jesus]
6292 Love thy neighbour as thyself [Jesus]
13321 Is anything sweeter than valuing yourself more when you find you are loved? [Seneca]
23357 Knowledge of what is good leads to love; only the wise, who distinguish good from evil, can love [Epictetus]
18448 We should avoid the pleasures of love, or at least, should not enact our dreams [Porphyry]
4348 Love, and do what you will [Augustine]
2359 Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present [Hobbes]
7912 Judging by effects, love looks more like hatred than friendship [Rochefoucauld]
4848 Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause [Spinoza]
17217 Love is joy with an external cause [Spinoza]
12958 Love is pleasure in the perfection, well-being or happiness of its object [Leibniz]
23115 We have no natural love of mankind, other than through various relationships [Hume]
21429 The duty of love is to makes the ends of others one's own [Kant]
22071 True love is ironic, in the contrast between finite limitations and the infinity of love [Schlegel,F]
23238 If life lacks love it becomes destruction [Fichte]
22784 Love is ethical life in its natural form [Hegel]
6927 If you love nothing, it doesn't matter whether something exists or not [Feuerbach]
16003 If people marry just because they are lonely, that is self-love, not love [Kierkegaard]
15998 Perfect love is not in spite of imperfections; the imperfections must be loved as well [Kierkegaard]
20236 Marriage upholds the idea that love, though a passion, can endure [Nietzsche]
20252 Marriage is too serious to be permitted for people in love! [Nietzsche]
20263 Fear reveals the natures of other people much more clearly than love does [Nietzsche]
24148 If you love something, it is connected with everything, so all must be affirmed as good [Nietzsche]
14855 Simultaneous love and respect are impossible; love has no separation or rank, but respect admits power [Nietzsche]
18319 Love is the spiritualisation of sensuality [Nietzsche]
20113 Friendly chats undermine my philosophy; wanting to be right at the expense of love is folly [Nietzsche]
18301 We only really love children and work [Nietzsche]
21746 Unlike hate, all desires can be satisfied by love [Russell]
23759 Everything which originates in love is beautiful [Weil]
22233 Love is the demand to be loved [Sartre]
19614 Lovers are hateful, apart from their hovering awareness of death [Cioran]
21751 Love seems to diminish with distance from oneself [Quine]
9252 The more one loves the stronger the absurd grows [Camus]
22339 Love is a central concept in morals [Murdoch]
22348 Ordinary human love is good evidence of transcendent goodness [Murdoch]
22713 Love is realising something other than oneself is real [Murdoch]
9235 Rather than loving things because we value them, I think we value things because we love them [Frankfurt]
9236 Love can be cool, and it may not involve liking its object [Frankfurt]
9237 The paradigm case of pure love is not romantic, but that between parents and infants [Frankfurt]
9239 I value my children for their sake, but I also value my love for them for its own sake [Frankfurt]
23962 Lovers adopt the interests of their beloved, rather than just valuing them [Solomon]
23117 Love should be partial, and discriminate in favour of its object [Kekes]
23119 Sentimental love distorts its object [Kekes]
24167 Love is a mutual reciprocation, not just a desire for something [Cochrane]