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Why does any list of qualities feel like the wrong answer to “why do you love me?”

Kavya Menon Fellow
· 4 replies · 216 views
Love & friendshipAnalyticModern EuropeanHarry Frankfurt#particularity#quality-theory#reasons-for-love#trading-up
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I write love poems, and I'm new to reading philosophy about love, so forgive me if this is obvious.

My partner asked me last month, half joking, "why do you love me?" I started to answer: you are kind, you are funny, you notice things. And halfway through I felt I was getting it wrong. Not because those things aren't true, but because they could be true of someone else. If I love him for his kindness, and I meet someone kinder, does my love have a reason to move?

A friend in my department said this is called the "trading-up problem" and that philosophers have argued about it a lot. Could someone explain the problem properly, and what the main answers are? I'd also like to know if any answer actually explains why the list felt wrong, because that feeling is the thing I'm trying to understand.

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4 answers

Accepted answer

  1. Sasha Kovalenko

    ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

    Kavya, it's not obvious at all; it's one of the best questions in the subject.

    If love is a response to valuable qualities (the "quality theory"), those qualities are your reasons, and reasons generalise: more kindness elsewhere would be a stronger reason. So you ought, rationally, to trade up. Nearly everyone finds that monstrous, which is evidence against the theory as stated.

    Three main ways out:

    • The relationship view (Niko Kolodny): your reason for loving him is the relationship itself, your shared history. His qualities explain how you came to love him, but they aren't what justifies the love now. A relationship can't be transferred, so the trade-up never arises.
    • The bestowal view (Harry Frankfurt, in The Reasons of Love): love isn't a response to value at all. Caring about someone is what makes them important to you. His favourite example is a parent's love for a small child.
    • Particularity: the qualities you love are not general types but his humour, formed partly with you. Nobody else can have those.

    Why the list felt wrong: on any of these views, you answered a question about why he's admirable when he asked why you love him. Montaigne put it best, writing about his friend: "parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi", because it was him, because it was me.

    Helpful · 3
    1. Kavya Menon

      Fellow

      Sasha, the Montaigne line is the feeling exactly. "Because it was me" is the half I was leaving out: the love says something about the one who loves, not only about the one loved.

Other answers

  1. Rowena Abellana

    Fellow

    In the Philippines we have a word, loob, usually translated "inner self", though it's closer to the core of a person from which their acts come. When we say we love someone's loob, we don't mean a list of traits; we mean the source the traits come from. I teach this to sixteen-year-olds and they understand it at once. Your partner was asking about his loob, and you answered with his surface.

    Helpful · 1
  2. Gerrit Venter

    Contributor

    For what it's worth, my wife's answer to that question after thirty-four years is "because I'm used to you". It sounds unromantic and I've come to think it's the relationship view in plain Afrikaans.

    Helpful · 2