In my view, appreciation for someone’s value as a person is notdistinct from loving him: it is the evaluative core of love. I do not meanthat love is a value judgment to the effect that the beloved has finalvalue as an end in himself. Love is rather an appreciative response tothe perception of that value. And I mean “perception” literally: thepeople we love are the ones whom we succeed in perceiving as persons,within some of the human organisms milling about us

If Kant thinks that we cannot sell our bodies for sex, must he also think that we cannot sellour bodies for manual labor? For massages?

Under what circumstances does Kant think that sexual desire can be acted upon morally?

What does Kant mean by ‘concubinage’? (Hint, it is more general than what many of uspicture when we think of concubines).

Why does Kant think that a person cannot own themselves?

Given his view of sexual desires, what is his purpose in this text?

Kant thinks that other philosophers have objected to sexual desire for its negativeconsequences. How does Kant differ in his criticisms of sexual desire?

Why does he think this degrades humans?

What does Kant think sexual desire aims at?

Sexual love can, of course, be combined with human love and so carry with it thecharacteristics of the latter, but taken by itself and for itself, it is nothing more thanappetite. Taken by itself it is a degradation of human nature; for as soon as a personbecomes an object of appetite for another, all motives of moral relationship cease tofunction, because as an object of appetite for another a person becomes a thing and can betreated and used as such by every one.

there does exist an inclination whichwe may call an appetite for enjoying another human being. We refer to sexual impulse.Man can, of course, use another human being as an instrument for his service; he can usehis hands, his feet, and even all his powers; he can use him for his own purposes with theother’s consent. But there is no way in which a human being can be made an object ofindulgence for another except through sexual impulse. This is in the nature of a sense,which we can call the sixth sense; it is an appetite for another human being.

Adult females of most mammal species use variousmeans of conspicuously advertising the brief phase of theirreproductive cycle when they are ovulating and can be fer-tilized. The advertisement may be visual (for instance, thearea around the vagina turning bright red), olfactory (re-leasing a distinctive smell), auditory (making noises), orbehavioral (crouching in front of an adult male and dis-playing the vagina). Females solicit sex only during thosefertile days, are sexually unattractive or less attractive tomales on other days because they lack the arousing signals,and rebuff the advances of any male that is nevertheless in-terested on other days. Thus, sex is emphatically not justfor fun and is rarely divorced from its function of fertiliza-tion. T

Sex in social mammals is generally carried out in pub-lic, before the gazes of other members of the troop. For in-stance, a female Barbary macaque in estrus copulates withevery adult male in her troop and makes no effort to con-ceal each copulation from other males. The best-docu-mented exception to this pattern of public sex is inchimpanzee troops, where an adult male and estrous fe-male may go off by themselves for a few days on what hu-man observers term a “consortsbip.” However, the samefemale chimpanzee that has private sex with a consort mayalso have public sex with other adult male chimpanzeeswithin the same estrus cycle.

Among the mi-nority of adult male mammals that do offer their offspringpaternal care are polygynous male zebras and gorillas withharems of females, male gibbons paired off with females assolitary couples, and saddleback tamarin monkeys, ofwhich two adult males are kept as a harem by one polyan-drous adult female.

Even mostsocialmammalspecies,suchaslions,wolves,chimpanzees,andmanyhoofedmammals,arenotpairedoffwithintheherd/pride/pack/bandintomale/female couples.Within suchaherd/pride/etcetera,eachadultmale showsno signsofrecognizingspecific infantsashisoffspringbydevoting himselftothemattheexpenseofother infantsintheherd

malesdonotprovidepater-nalcare;theirspermistheir solecontributiontotheiroff-spring andtotheirtemporarymate.

Likewise, fidelity can be taken too far. Imagine a woman in a broken marriage, whose husband neglects her and wantonly cheats on her, and who is miserable and maybe even suicidal. She knows a man at work who would be more than happy to take her out to lunch, get to know her better, maybe go to a movie (or more). It's not hard to imagine that a perfect devotion to the virtue of fidelity would be excessive in her case; it would not contribute to a good life in her case, and seeing her co-worker would hardly make her a bad person, especially given her circumstances (the same circumstances that would probably justify her behavior in deontological terms as well).

Virtue ethics focuses on those qualities of a person—the virtues, naturally—that make her a good person, or that contribute to leading a good life. As opposed to utilitarianism and deontology, virtue ethicists don't provide formulas or rules for determining which qualities count as virtues and which as vices; most of them are pretty common-sense. Honesty, obviously, is a virtue, as are kindness and trustworthiness. Fidelity would be another—we normally think of faithful people as good. Likewise, if you want to be a good person, and you think that fidelity is a virtue that contribute to a person being good, than you should aspire toward being faithful.

1. Some use the terms prima facie or pro tanto duties to describe duties that hold true in general, as long as there are no mitigating factors to speak against them. For instance, there is a prima facie duty not to kill, unless your own life is threatened. Likewise, cheating would normally be wrong, unless the person feels neglected by his spouse (for example). The mitigating factors may also include other duties that conflict with the duty of fidelity—for instance, the duty to look after your own emotional well-being. 2. Others would say cheating in general is wrong, but more elaborate descriptions of cheating, such as "cheating-when-neglected," would be OK. Again, think of killing in self-defense; while killing is generally wrong, killing-in-self-defense usually isn't, because the logic that forbids killing in general may not forbid killing in self-defense. In the same way, cheating may generally be wrong, but cheating-when-neglected may not be, depending on how the duties are formulated (for instance, by using the categorical imperative in Kant's ethics).

A deontologist would be likely to say that cheating is wrong because it involves violating a duty of fidelity contained in the wedding vows, or breaking the promise you made to your spouse at your wedding, of failing to respect your spouse. A deontologist does not consider the good or bad consequences of any particular instance of cheating—cheating itself is wrong, because you should not break promises, violate your duty of fidelity, etc.

Deontology is somewhat hard to define, but often it's contrasted with ethical theories like utilitarianism, that base ethical judgment on outcomes or consequences. (Generally, such ethical theories are called consequentialist; utilitarianism is one type of consequentialism that focuses on utility as the consequence of choice.) Instead, deontologists make ethical decisions based on duties, rights, or principles that are not based on outcomes or consequences. For instance, a deontologist might regard lying as wrong because it violates a duty of truth-telling, or the right to be told the truth, or respect for other people, but not because it leads to bad outcomes.

To make matters more ambiguous, there is another person who stands to gain from the affair—your paramour. She's a person, and her well-being must be included in your pleasure/pain calculations. So that's another "positive" to add to your own, possibly able to offset the harm to your spouse (and others).

And therein lies one reason utilitarians might allow for cheating in some circumstances, particularly cases in which there is good reason to believe that you will benefit from the affair more than others will suffer. Let's say the romance in your marriage has completely disappeared; you and your spouse no longer speak, touch, or connect in any way. You begin to look elsewhere for the affection and intimacy you crave, whether sexual, romantic, or both. Maybe you don't think your spouse would even care—he doesn't want to be with you anymore, so why should he care if someone else does? It might lift you out of your misery to have someone in your life that cares, that wants you around, that you mean something to, and vice versa. In such a case, and assuming that no one else (children, friends, etc.) would be significantly affected, a utilitarian would probably say "go ahead, do it!" Utilitarianism allows for some people to get hurt, as long as some other people are benefited by a greater amount (which is a frequent criticism of utilitarianism).

Utilitarians maintain that the morality of an action depends on the amount of utility it creates, which can be thought of (as seminal utilitarian Jeremy Bentham did) in terms of pleasure and pain (among other concepts). One action is morally better than another if it leads to a greater amount of pleasure (or lesser amount of pain), and the right action is the one that leads to the greatest amount of pleasure (compared to pain).

To explain all this vari ti :sociobiologists have found it useful to apply the reasonin: ofp ame |theory. That is, life is considered an evolutionary contest whos oonners are those individuals leaving the largest number ofsurvivingoffspring.

tronger measuresincludethebarbaric mutilations euphe-misticallyand misleadingly termed “female circumcision.” Theseconsistofremovalof the clitorisormostof theexternal femalegenitaliatoreduce femaleinterestinsex,maritalorextramarital.Menbentontotalcertainty invented infibulation: suturingawoman’slabiamajora nearly shut,so as tomakeintercourse impossible. Aninfibulated wife can bedeinfibulatedforchildbirthor forreinsemi

Theother sexualasymmetryrelevanttomatingstrategyinvolvesconfidencethatonereallyisthebiologicalparentofone’sputativeoffspring.Acuckoldedanimal,deceivedintorearing offspringnotitsown,hastherebylosttheevolutionarygamewhileadvancingthevictoryofanotherplayer,the realparent.Barringaswitchofbabiesinthehospital nursery,womencannotbe“cuckolded”:theyseetheirbabyemergefromthem.Norcan therebecuckoldryofmalesinanimalspeciespracticing externalfertilization(i.c.,fertilizationofeggsoutsidethefemale’s body). Forinstance,somemalefishwatchafemale shedeggs,thenimmediatelydepositspermontheeggsandscoopthemuptocareforthem,secureintheirpaternity.However,menandothermale animalspracticing internal fertilization—fertilizationofeggs insidethefernale’sbody-—canreadilybecuck--olded.All thattheputativefatherknowsforsureisthathisspermwentinto themother, and eventuallyanoffspringcameout.Onlyobservationofthefemalethroughoutherwholefertileperiodcanabsolutely excludethepossibility thatsomeother male’sspermalsoentered anddid theactual fertilizing.

For men, the minimum effort needed to sire an offspring is theof copulation, a brief expenditure of time and energy. The man whosires a baby y one woman one day is biologically capable of siring aby by another woman the next day. For women, however, theminimum effort consists of copulation plus pregnancy plus (throu h:out most of human history) several years spent nursing—a hugesone athens of time and energy. Thus, a man potentially can sire farg than can a woman. A nineteenth-century visitor whospent a week at the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, a polygam:Indian potentate, reported that four of the Nizam’s wives we birthwithin eight days, and that nine more births were antici ated fe ‘thfollowing week. The record lifetime number of offsprin for a manis 888, sired by Emperor Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty oF Moroc “O,while the corresponding record for a woman is only sixty-nin Gnineteenth-century Moscow woman specializing in triplets) F ,women have topped twenty children, whereas some me il ‘do soin polygynous societies.

the first thing one realizes when one starts to think about thentest is that the best game strategy differs between males andfemales of the same species. This is because of two profound diffences between the reproductive biology of males and females: in theminim necessary reproductive effort, and in the risk of beingcoke is fae 5 consider these differences, which are painfully fa-

WithmanyspeciesofanimalstheproblemofEMSneverarises,becausetheydon’toptformarriageinthefirstplace.Forinstance,afemaleBarbarymacaqueinheatcopulatespromiscuouslywith every adultmaleinhertroop and averagesonecopulationperseventeen minutes,However,somemammalsandmostbird species do optfor“mar-riage.”Thatis,amale andafemale formalasting pairbondtodevotecareorprotectiontotheir jointoffspring.

the baby had been siredsome other man, extramari i Camelitally. The true incid i. lence of extramaritalsex must have been consider. i manyably higher than 10 iother blood-group sub: i ty tests were notyestances now used in paternipier Bi paternity tests were not yetin the 1940s, and since most bouts of intercourse do not resultim conception.Attheti: is diimethatDr.Xmadehisdiscovery, researchonAmericansoxualhabitswaepealtaboo.Hedecidedtomaintainaprudentce,neverpublishedhisfindin:i¢gs,anditwasonlywithdiffithatIgothispermissiivtbetrayinghaussiontomentionhisresultswiiithoutbetrahiname.However,hisresulsmiles-tswerelaterconfirmedbimigeneticstudieswhoseresultsdiiosewaiidgetpublished.Thi iouslyshowed:betwee:vtofAmoinabout5and30iBackonespercentofAmericanand‘ohave beenadulterous!iilyconceived.Again,thportionof thetestedcoupl‘hadpracticedples ofwhomatleast thewifeh;iadulterymusthavebeireasoneeeenhigher,foriXsalyigher,forthesametwo reasonsas inDr.

We’re also afraid that people might take away the idea that our relationship isn’tserious.

(If you’re one ofthose struggling with the difference, consider that a necessary condition of cheatingon a partner is doing something that your partner is not OK with; something youhave, explicitly or otherwise, agreed not to do. To cheat is to break the rules of therelationship.)

metimes, people (presumably, people who haven’t given the matter much thought)talk as if ‘non-monogamy’ were more or less synonymous with ‘infidelity’.

‘The same point can be made with respect to fear. Some peopleget severely addicted to adrenaline rushes caused by abnormally in-tense fear processing in the emotional brain. They cannot get enoughof extreme roller coasters, paragliding, parachuting, race cars, androck-climbing without a safety line. They get addicted to visceralthrills because che adrenaline rushes cause a steep peak in dopaminelevels. This heavy dose of the reward chemical is gratifying. Overtime the dopamine system changes and a more intense adrenalinetush is needed te get the same pleasurable response. It is in part thepeak in dopamine levels that prepares our fight-and-flight responsein threatening situations. Dopamine motivates us to act now by ci-ther fighting off the danger or cunning away from it. Bur despitethe close correlacion between fear and peaks in dopamine levels,fear is an emotion. It’s even consideved one of the six basic emo-tions (the others being sutptise, disgust, sadness, anger, and joy).‘The conclusion co draw from this is thar whether a feeling is associ-ated with a peak in dopamine levels has no bearing on whether itreally is an cmotion. .A farther case Fisher makes for her view that love is a drive, notan emotion, is chat love is too long lasting to be an emotion. Thisline of argument docsn’t succeed cither. She mentions disgust as akey example of an emotion. Ir’s true that disgust, as consciously felt,usually docsn’t last long. But despite normally being treated as such,disgust may not be an emotion ar all, but a sensory reflex. What'smore, disgust can be long lasting, just like anger and sadness.

Anthropologist HelenFisherholdsthatromanticJoveisneveranemotionorfeeling.It’sjustlike sexandattachment:adrive.Fisher’sargumentfor thisclaimisthatromanticloveisassociatedwith increasedactivationofneuronsinthemidbrainthatsecretedopamine.Asthedopaminesystemisamoreprimitive systemthancheemotionalbrain andthecorticalsystem,romanticloveisnotanemotion, she says.1 HAVE FEELINGS TOO 41‘This argument, however, is not sound. Dopamine is one of the keyncurotransmitters in the modulation of anger. Dopamine motivatesenraged people ro shout, throw things, seck revenge and kill. Doesthat make anger a drive? Hardly. Anger is an emotion even ifitis asso-ciated wich a strong dopamine response, the very chemical that canmake people addicted to anger.

Lovemayinvolveanappreciationofanotherperson’s valueorthebestowalofvaluconanotherperson.But neitherappreciationofanotherperson’s valuc norbestowingvalueonanother personissufficientforlove.Wecanappreciatethevalueof JeremyGlick,whoattemptedtotakedownthehijackersonUnitedAirlines Flight93 chatcrashedinruralPennsylvaniaonSeptember11,2001,wichouttheappreciation addinguptolove.Webestowvalueonpeopleweadmirebutweneednotlovechem.

Somepeoplesaythatloveis aconcernforanother personforhersakeratherthanyourown,anappraisalofthevalueofanotherpersonorabestowalofvaluconthebeloved.Burnoneoftheseaccountsoflove canbeaccurate.Youcanhaveadeepconcernforanother personwithoutlovinghimorher,and youcanlovesomeonewithouthavingadeepconcernforthatperson.Anurseisexpectedtohaveadeepconcernfor hispatiencsbutheisnotexpectedtolovethem.Anincestuousmonstermaylove herchildbuthavenoconcernforhim.

Avid defendersoftheunionviewcouldarguethatloveiscitheraunionamongloversortheanticipationofordesireforsuchaunion.Butnoneof thathelps.Youcanlovesomeonewithoutanticipatingordesiringthataunionwillcomeintoexistence,because—sadly—loveisn’talwayssufficientforinitiatingorcontinuingarelationship.AsphilosopherAaronSmutsobserves, “To blindlyfollowtheheartisthemaximoffools”(“LoveandFreeWill’,p.20).

The union view is fraught with difficulties. It implies that lovecannot be unreciprocated and that there cannot be love of a deceasedlover or a hallucinared object. But it is hard to deny chat thegrief-stricken Anna loves

Similarly, I think we love others only if werespect them and then because we see them as capable of both respectand love. Kant would say that respect is always potentially mutual in thissense, because it is a response of our rational autonomy to instances ofrational autonomy—a response of rational autonomy to instances of itself.I think that love is always potentially mutual for the very same reason.

The solution to this puzzle, I think, is to realize that values arenormative, in the first instance, not for actions or choices but ratherfor appreciative attitudes.12 To be valuable is to be worthy of being valuedin some way—that is, worthy of being the object of some appreciativeresponse. This conception allows us to understand a kind of value thatis not merely incommensurable but incomparable, because it is properlyappreciated by a response that essentially involves a refusal to makecomparisons, an insistence on cherishing its object in isolation fromothers.Love is just such an attitude.

It is because the reality of other persons is not directly perceptibleto us that we love people for their faces and voices—and even their flaws—which somehow alert us to the presence of another inner life alongsideour own.

Here Kolodny concedes that when people love us, they regard us asvaluable in ourselves, because they regard us as persons. Yet according toKolodny, this appreciation of our value as persons is distinct from people’slove for us, which is based instead on our relationship with them

At a more fundamental level, I find love as Kolodny conceives it tobe self-centered, since it responds to a value that the beloved has, notbecause of what he is in himself, but because of what he is to us.

We probably cannot love people with whomwe aren’t acquainted, but I think that we can indeed love acquaintanceswith whom we have no significant relationship—love them at first sightor from afar. We can also love people whose relationship with us we donot value at all, as when divorcing couples still love one another despitelooking back on their marriage as a disaster from day one. People whoare estranged from their parents or siblings generally say that refusing tohave any further dealings with these people does not entail loving themany less

Finally, what I havedescribed as the fiercer and more compelling form of love can coexistwith, can indeed give rise to, the very opposite of benevolent affection,in the form of hostility or even hate. You can want to hurt someoneyou love, and both your love for him and your desire to hurt him canstill be wholehearted

Many philosophers assume that the emotionof love must be the attitude that naturally motivates such behavior, hencea benevolent form of affection.

since romantic or sexual love is largelypossessive, even self-seeking. The same goes for various other attitudesthat tend to accompany love, such as attachment. We can feel attachedto people without loving them, and we can love people to whom we arenot especially attached.

Wecanprizeromanticloveandtheformationofawe,withoutdenyingthattheremaybeextendedtimes, yearseven,whenanadultmightbestde-velopalone.Itisnotplausible,either,tothinkthateverysingleindividual,atsomeoranothertimeinhislife,wouldbemostenhancedaspartofaro-manticallylovingwe—thatBuddha,Socrates,Jesus,Beethoven,orGandhiwouldhavebeen. Thismaybe,inpart,becausetheenergy necessarytosus-tainanddeepenawewouldhavebeenremovedfrom(therebylessening)theseindividuals’activities.

he avowals of love may not stop,and neither may romantic gestures, those especially apt actions, breakingthe customary frame, that express and symbolize one’s attachment to thewe or, occurring earlier, the desire to form it

A more cynical view than mine might see infatuation as the tem-porary glue that manages to hold people together until they are stuck.

We love the person when being together with that person is a salientpart of our identity as we think of it: “being with Eve,” “being with Adam,”rather than “being with someone who is (or has) such-and-such. . . .” Howdoes this come about? Characteristics must have played some importantrole, for otherwise why was not a different person loved just as well? Yet ifwe continue to be loved “for” the characteristics, then the love seems condi-tional, something that might change or disappear if the characteristics do.Perhaps we should think of love as like imprinting in ducks, where a duck-ling will attach itself to the first sizable moving object it sees in a certaintime period and follow that as its mother. With people, perhaps character-istics set off the imprint of love, but then the person is loved in a way that isno longer based upon retaining those characteristics. This will be helped ifthe love is based at first upon a wide range of characteristics; it begins asconditional, contingent upon the loved person's having these desirablecharacteristics, yet given their range and tenacity, it is not insecure.

To be englowed by someone's love, it must be we ourselves who areloved, not a whitewashed version of ourselves, not just a portion. In thecomplete intimacy of love, a partner knows us as we are, fully. It is no reas-surance to be loved by someone ignorant of those traits and features we feelmight make us unlovable.

The heart of the love relationship is how the lovers view it from the in-side, how they feel about their partner and about themselves within it, andthe particular ways in which they are good to each other. Each person inlove delights in the other, and also in giving delight; this often expresses it-self in being playful together.

Each person in a romantic we wants to possess the other completely; yeteach also needs the other to be an independent and nonsubservient person.Only someone who continues to possess a nonsubservient autonomy can bean apt partner in a joint identity that enlarges and enhances your individ-ual one.

he individual self can be related to the we it identifies with in two dif-ferent ways. It can see the we as a very important aspect of itself, or it cansee itself as part of the we, as contained within it. It may be that men moreoften take the former view, women the latter. Although both see the we asextremely important for the self, most men might draw the circle of them-selves containing the circle of the we as an aspect within it, while mostwomen might draw the circle of themselves within the circle of the we. Ineither case, the we need not consume an individual self or leave it withoutany autonomy.

ustasareflectiveper-soncanwalk alongthe streetinfriendly internaldialoguewith himself,keepinghimselfcompany,socan onebewithalovedpersonwhoisnotphysically present,thinkingwhatshewouldsay,conversingwithher,notic-ingthingsasshewould,for her,becausesheisnot theretonotice,sayingthingstoothersthat shewouldsay,inher toneofvoice,carryingthefullwealong.

certainkindofdivisionoflabor.Apersoninawemightfindhimselfcomingacrosssomethinginterestingtoreadyetleavingitfortheother person,notbecausehehimselfwouldnotbe inter-estedinitbutbecausetheotherwouldbemoreinterested,andoneofthemreadingit issufficientforittoberegisteredby thewideridentitynowshared,the we.

apersoninawe oftenisconsiderablymoreworried aboutthedangersoftraveling—aircrashesorwhatever—whentheotheristraveling alonethanwhenbothtraveltogetherorwhenhehimselforsheherselfistravel-ingalone;itseemsplausiblethatapersoninaweisalert,ingeneral,todangerstotheotherthatwouldnecessitatehavingtogobacktoasinglein-dividualidentity,whilethesearemadeespeciallysalientbyasignificantphysicalseparation.

Tobepartofawe involveshavinganewidentity, anadditionalone.Thisdoesnotmeanthatyounolonger have anyindividualidentityorthatyoursoleidentityisaspartofthe we.However,theindividualidentity youdidhavewillbecomealtered. Tohavethisnewidentityistoenteracertainpsychologicalstance;and each partyinthewehasthisstancetowardtheother.Each becomespsychologicallypartofthe other's identity.

Peoplewhoformawepoolnotonlytheirwell-beingbutalsotheirau-tonomy.Theylimitorcurtailtheirowndecision-makingpowerandrights;somedecisionscannolongerbemadealone.

First,thedefiningfeature wementionedwhichappliestoloveingen-eral:Yourownwell-beingistiedupwiththatofsomeoneyouloveromanti-cally.

The desire to form a we with thatother person is not simply something that goes along with romantic love,something that contingently happens when love does. That desire is intrin-sic to the nature of love, I think; it is an important part of what love in-tends.