Unconditional love does not exist; so why is it so popular?
The concept makes no sense. Any attempt you make to define what unconditional love is will result in conditional criteria. "Unconditional" itself if a condition. For the love to be different from conditional love, the condition is that it must be unconditional.
And yet, people will argue tooth and nail that it is a real thing. One of the most common examples is that of a mother's love for her child, but the first condition is that the child must be hers.
I believe the reason for the popularity of this concept is that it is convenient. It is akin to "the devil made me do it". It is tempting to legitimize the removal of standards and conditions on the basis of love. This kind of reasoning is not based on real love, but rather emotional appeal.
I look forward to hearing what you all think.
And yet, people will argue tooth and nail that it is a real thing. One of the most common examples is that of a mother's love for her child, but the first condition is that the child must be hers.
I believe the reason for the popularity of this concept is that it is convenient. It is akin to "the devil made me do it". It is tempting to legitimize the removal of standards and conditions on the basis of love. This kind of reasoning is not based on real love, but rather emotional appeal.
I look forward to hearing what you all think.
Comments (174)
It might be that the idea exists because it is what people wish to receive, rather than are able to give.
The biggest problem is that since the most defining experiencing during adulthood is the experience of romantic love, most people assume that this is what love actually is and thus compares the experience to the interpretation as a whole. Unfortunately, romantic love is merely an expression as is a number of other - familial, brotherly/friendship etc - but if you think of unconditional love as symbolic, referent to things like motherly love where, for instance, in the event that her child does some wrongdoing to her she still cannot stop loving him, it may start to make some sense.
I believe unconditional love is an expression of how a person gives love, that is, to give love without seeking anything in return. For most people, love is something that they want, they seek it from others and they behave and express themselves in a way where they can present an ideal person - beautiful woman or strong man or wealthy etc - in order to receive the love from other/s. Unconditional love works in reverse; it is a person who is not seeking this love from others, but rather giving it; being charitable is an expression of unconditional love, showing mercy is an expression of unconditional love. The act of giving without the desire for any accolades and applaud in return.
I may have been hurt by a man, for instance, but showing him unconditional love would be to hope that he improves rather than desire revenge. It is not appealing to emotion if there are reasonable grounds in this hope, because love itself is a decision and a choice and as such requires reason and intelligence in making those choices. A mother who defends tooth and nail a son who committed murder is selfish and appealing to emotion alone, there is nothing reasonable about her actions and it is conditional love for that reason, the condition being for her own benefit. But, if I have been hurt by a man and choose to not speak to the man and may even reasonably conclude that it is impossible for the man to improve, I would be showing unconditional love by having the hope that he improves and would show kindness and mercy if he does. It is unconditional because the hope is not for myself, but for him. It is still an act of giving love.
I have loved a child that was not my own, by the way, very deeply and still do. I took care of her for a long while when she was a baby because her mother couldn't and I am still heartbroken that I could not adopt her for my own.
Wishing to receive is still a condition.
Still a condition.
"If the condition is met". Unconditional love is automatically excluded. If something ELSE is meant, then the "unconditional" part needs to be dropped.
No, because the condition is that the wrong-doer is HER child; not some other person's child, and, her love may not be real love at all if it causes her to ignore injustice toward those who are not her child. If unconditional love is meant to be symbolic, then a better symbol is needed than a word which suggests that standards do not matter.
Quoting TimeLine
"Without seeking anything in return" is a condition.
Quoting TimeLine
No, because "showing mercy" is a condition. If mercy is not shown, the the love is not real love. Without conditions, there is nothing to distinguish between real love and fake love. Calling it "unconditional" is a misnomer which SOUNDS nice, but is not practical at all, and when people delve into concepts of love which are not practical or based on conditions, then almost always hypocrisy is the result.
Quoting TimeLine
If the love really was unconditional, then whether or not you were hurt would be irrelevant.
Quoting TimeLine
Reason and hope are the conditions on which those decisions are made. There is no way you can try to define something which is unconditional, because the attempt itself to define that concept requires conditions. Therefore, unconditional love is an emotional concept which is specifically designed to overlook conditions which may contradict what real love is for the sake of satisfying emotional desire.
Is a condition.
"Giving" is a condition. If the giving does not happen, then the condition is not met and the love is not unconditional. the concept is a contradiction which is based purely on emotionalism. It's tempting to suspend standards when we feel strongly about an issue, but claiming that our suspension of standards is an expression of love is just hypocrisy and convenience. It is not rational to suspend conditions for the sake of love, because that would suggest that love could be unjust.
Unconditional in the context means that there must be conditions in order for something to happen? Huh?
An example of what I mean: that's a condition of the love being unconditional, not a condition of love.
sorry, but this just sounds like word-salad now. You literally said, " that's a condition of the love being unconditional"
How can it be unconditional if it is defined by conditions?
Quoting John Days
But its my condition that the other side has no conditions. Even so, it's not really even my condition. It's just nice if it happens.
Nope. Giving love is to give love to someone and not want anything in return. Wanting love or something in return is a condition and if it is the reason for giving love then it is no longer unconditional.
What is emotionalism, by the way? This little rant of yours against unconditional love?
Still a condition.
It may not be irrelevant, on the contrary giving love is not always a pleasurable experience, but these feelings have no effect on my decisions to give love. That is why it is unconditional, what I feel is irrelevant because reason prevails.
Quoting John Days
You are just not getting it. A "condition" is getting something in return for giving and so the decision to give is to get. You set conditions against others for yourself. Having hope that someone improves for their own sake and happiness without desiring anything in return - including awareness of the things that you do to help - would make it is unconditional. It would only satisfy your emotional desire if it had conditions, because it would imply selfish rather than a selfless act.
Quoting John Days
It is not about her child or not. A lover could do the same, defend a murderer tooth and nail. Again, the motherly love concept is symbolic.
Which rationally contradicts anything you say afterward about how love can be unconditional.
I think this illustrates my original point; unconditional love does not exist. Any attempt to define what love is requires conditions which separate it from concepts which are not loving, like greed, fear, and pride.
But still, people want to believe that unconditional love is legitimate. Why? It makes no sense. How much better to just say, "No, it doesn't exist, so now we can move on to what are the conditions that rationally constitute real love" instead of, "I don't care about reasons; my feelings are enough to justify my behavior".
Which is a condition.
No, it isn't.
Well, this situation is easily testable. If someone gives expecting something in return, will you say this is unconditional love? Of course you will not. Why? because the condition of "giving without expecting anything in return" is not met.
Where is the real disagreement here? I suggest it is in the emotional value of the concept. Unconditional love provides a seriously convenient method of escape from accountability. But justice is impossible without standards or conditions, and for you to say that justice is separate from love opens a whole new can of worms.
No, it doesn't. Unconditional love means that the love has no conditions. Every condition you've presented in this discussion is a condition for it being unconditional, not a condition of the love itself.
My brother is a very good uncle, but he has never had kids. Once, when my children were running around being kids - yelling, crying, making noise, he said "I have trouble with all this emotionalism," by which he meant emotion. Calling it "emotionalism" let's you put distance between yourself and feelings.
The first condition is that it has no conditions. This isn't hard.
I just said to you - actually, I wrote it so I am unsure of how you could have missed it - that if someone gives expecting something in return, then it is conditional love. Your "emotionalism" or what I assume to be the emotionally decisive responses that lacks reason would mean that a person compelled to defend a murderer because they apparently 'love' that person is entirely selfish and unreasonable and they have made this decision because they emotionally want the love to be returned back from the murderer. Being "emotional" can also be an attempt to avoid emotional pain or hurt as well and it is why emotions without reason is dangerous.
Unconditional love is not just being swept away by emotions, it is thinking reasonably about the welfare of others and caring enough to believe their needs and happiness - irrelevant to your own - is worth something. It is moral consciousness.
Quoting John Days
Yes, it is emotional, if it lacks reason and if love lacks reason, it would contain conditions because it is solely emotional. We are not talking about justice or righteousness. We are talking about the expression of unconditional love.
It may be that we are talking past one another. I'm suggesting that conditions cannot be separated from the concept of what love is. As soon as you try to define what love is, you must have conditions which separate it from other things like indifference or hate.
And you seem to be talking about some quality of love which makes it unconditional, and I'm just not getting that part. Personally, I don't know how to reconcile the two because they are contradictory concepts, but it may be that I'm just not understanding some aspect of your interpretation of love.
It may be that you are looking more deeply than what the topic suggests. I'm only saying that "unconditional" ANYTHING is irrational, because conditions are what we use to make distinctions between one concept from another. It's just that unconditional love is a much more popular concept than unconditional patience, or unconditional hate, or unconditional mechanics. Any time you try to identify what makes those concepts different from one another, you must apply conditions. If those conditions are not met, then the label does not apply.
The conditions for posting on this forum are that people should not post frivolous thoughts, or insults, or advertising etc. If those conditions are not met, then the post/poster gets deleted or banned. We see value in such conditions because they present important distinctions which work in real life.
The same is true for love. Without conditions, what reason do we have to distinguish between good behavior and bad? Just because a mother says, "I love my son unconditionally despite him bullying his class mate" doesn't mean he should be exempt from facing the consequences of his actions.. That would be UNloving to the person he bullied. Love requires that there should be SOME kind of consequence for bad behavior, even though the person being judged is still loved while being punished.
There are conditions which must be met for love to be love. If those conditions are not met, but the behavior is still pretended to be loving, then that is a perversion of what real love is.
Actually, I strongly believe that love cannot be love without justice or righteousness, so it may be that our disagreement is based on a misunderstanding of what you think "we" are talking about.
That's not a condition, it's a definition. Unconditional love has no conditions. You're being obtuse, probably intentionally, in order to get a rise out of those romantics among us.
The closest I have come to unconditional love is with my children. The thing I want most in the world is for them to be happy and safe. I like it when they show their love for me and show that they see me, but I don't really care what they think of me or whether they think I'm a good father. I don't want anything from them and I don't want them to change or live their lives the way I think they should.
I've never had an unconditional love with a romantic partner, although I've come close with a former lover, but not till long after we were together.
According to who? Some cultures would think it is righteous to honour kill their own children.
Quoting John Days
Preceding justice and righteousness is love (morality); justice itself is an expression of righteousness and morality and one cannot be just or righteousness if they are unable to... *drum - roll* give love. It is the ability to be able to give love to others without expecting anything in return, including emotionally. The conditions come where the emotions leave-off, when it is solely about reason. But we, as humans, require both - love and emotions - in order to express this sentiment. That is all that unconditional love is referent to, an expression, a symbol.
You are making the mistake of emphasising conditions by creating conditions yourself, saying "this is what love is" and indeed, when justice and righteousness are in question, this is certainly the case. But unconditional love is the act, what compels, the very motivation. When you are thinking of justice, you should think about the concept of intent.
I hope not too far a distance; emotions are a part of our humanity, it is about finding that balance between reason and our feelings.
The first condition is that they must be YOUR children.
Quoting T Clark
Which is a condition defining what you like.
Quoting T Clark
A statement which makes no sense in terms of love. How could a loving father have no expectations for his children? The expectations may not be perfect, but they will still be there as a result of the love you feel for them. Like, if your kid decides, "I don't want to school anymore", you will probably say, "Too bad, I'm your parent and I know what's good for you, so you WILL go to school" or something along those lines. If your kid says, "I don't want to brush my teeth or shower" you will probably MAKE him do those things because you have a better understanding of why those things are important. To say you don't want your kid love you or at least listen to you makes no sense.
If you read a story about a parent who does NOT make his kids get an education or brush their teeth or shower, you will probably think, "what terrible parents". You will probably not be thinking, "Ok, they are terrible parents, but at least they have unconditional love for their kids" because the conditions for what it means to be loving are not met.
Somehow I feel that I could have a more fruitful conversation with a log. Conditions according to who?
I'm going to bed. :-d
I actually listed a few example conditions in the same post from which you quoted me. Maybe tomorrow, when you feel more rested, you'll feel more agreeable. :p
I guess I was not clear. Unconditional love is unobtainable in the sense of a realized state.
I think there may be moments, but these moments are rare and they can not be maintained, they are like a brilliant burst in a firework display.
When it comes to linguistic expressions of this issue, I tend to prefer you’re overall approach.
[To others here about, I grant it can be a bit harsh sounding. It’s like saying, “No, you’re not selfless. You’re only more selfless than others by comparison; and this, to be even more explicit, in your self-ish strivings/yearnings/intentions to become even more selfless (a striving of the ego which paradoxically entails that one becomes ever-more devoid of ego).”]
Yet, while I agree with you that pure/absolute/untarnished/etc. unconditional love does not exist in space and time, I’ll first ask this: Can one approach the ideal of a perfectly unconditional love (and, conversely, further oneself in mood and action from such an ideal)?
I admit to having a presumption that most would answer “yes”.
The next step, then, is for me metaphysical: Does this ideal of a perfectly unconditional love—which we can be either closer to or further from—in and of itself exist?
Here we may part ways. To me this goal, or endstate, is real; is a teleological cause/reason/motivation which awaits to be discovered (felt, experienced, lived, etc.). To others it may not be.
But, then, my next question would be: If we are to any extent governed by this ideal of unconditional love—be it by desiring closer proximity to this state of being or by aversion to it—then how can this ideal not be real (to further clarify, as real as we ourselves are as conscious agents)?
Hey, we agree on something, almost at least. I don't think it's as rare as you say. Actually, all love is unconditional. If what you feel isn't, then it is either 1) not love or 2) love mixed, contaminated, with desire and expectations.
I wasn't endorsing it as a strategy, I was describing it as a phenomenon.
As a partisan of physics, I've developed Clark's law of conservation of love.
If it's not love now, it never was.
Silly.
Quoting John Days
Not a condition at all. I don't expect or require their love, but I enjoy it.
Quoting John Days
When my children were younger, I enforced, tried to enforce, rules. Young children need to be protected until they can take care of themselves. That's a parent's job. Now my youngest is 27 and all three can take care of themselves. I still want them to be happy and safe, but I don't expect them to live their lives the way I think they should. I don't have any expectations except I wish the 27 year old, who still lives at home, would wash his !@#$% dishes.
@Rich
@John Days
OK, my previous wording was imperfect.
On the one hand I agree with Rich. We get a taste of it—of perfectly unconditional love—at times. We dwell within its bounds for the given timespan (sometimes a lifetime); we feel/experience and act out an unconditional love in the perfect absence of all aspects of hate.
Yet, on the other hand, there’s the other reality of others’ in the world unjustly suffering while we, at these junctures, don’t. From this more metaphysical—or global—vantage, all our tastes/experiences of unconditional love are yet imperfect, this in being conditionally limited to “us” and not applicable to “all” … hence is yet, to some degree, self-centric—and, therefore, is not yet that of a perfectly unconditional love. It’s why I mentioned this state of being as the ideal—one not realizable while within a world of separation, a world of quantity and ratios of which we are ourselves a part.
Hope this better clarifies my previous post.
You are tripping up on the semantics. Unconditional is the condition needed to call it unconditional, and not a condition of how that love is expressed. If you are unable to see that then clearly it would unconditional save that condition.
To be honest you are making a trivial point which does not disprove that unconditional love exist. Although I agree it likely does not exist but for different reasons.
I'm practically begging for reasons.
So far I agree, these kinds of conditions exist for everything. In order to love something unconditionally, the conditions of you existing, loving that something and that love being unconditional, for example, must be met. However, those are not the kind of conditions that the word unconditional means in the context.
You can neither prove or disprove unfalsiable claims.
We know what conditional love is: I will love you IF you obey -- otherwise, not. I will love you IF you make me proud of you -- otherwise, not. and so on. Some people have quite conditional love for their own children, spouses, parents, etc.
Unconditional love is possible: It means that someone loves you--period. God's love is said to be unconditional--Agape. Other kinds of love - storge, eros, filio - could be, but probably are not often unconditional because they arise from fraught motivation -- getting turned on sexually, being related to somebody by blood, and so on.
Practitioners of Carl Rogers' therapy try to offer their clients "unconditional positive regard", which means they ALWAYS have the client's self-definition of their own good as their goal. They don't have a view of their own about what is good for the client.
Difficult to deliver? Absolutely. Unconditional love is the bread of heaven, not our run of the mill product. We are bid to try.
I disagree. Realizing that all things, including love, are conditional, we might better respect those conditions.
Exactly. We say the love is unconditional, yet we define it with conditions. Maybe it is just semantics, but if that's so, why the insistence on the contradiction? I believe it's because there's a whole lot of room for hiding in contradictions.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Not must have. Does actually have. Look at your own words.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You yourself are using "if, then" statements. If the love requires payment of some kind, then it is not unconditional love. That's a conditional statement you're using to define what supposedly should not have any conditions attached to it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
But it's not. God definitely has requirements and standards for human behavior. Jesus himself said, "If you love me, you will obey me". Love is contingent on how we behave. The teachings of Jesus tell us HOW to love God and our neighbor. Yes, God loves his creations even as he destroys them for their disobedience, because love cannot be love without the condition of justice.
Christians LOVE the unconditional love argument because it's so convenient. They can lie, cheat, steal (yes, I've ironically quoted the band tool) and any number of other sins and then point to the cross saying, "Jesus loves me unconditionally" and all responsibility for their actions magically disappears. In religious terms, this is called the false grace teaching.
Quoting Bitter Crank
No, it is not. It is the exact opposite. It is a convenient doctrine which allows the excuse of any bad behavior, and it is justified by extremely powerful emotions.
Think about it, BC. Think about it from a purely logical point of view, rather than the emotional. This is not semantics, but rather a honest examination of a legitimate loophole. How can something which claims to be unconditional still be governed by conditions? It makes no sense.
It's like Christians who say, "you can't judge me". What balderdash. Of course we can judge. Life without judgment is impossible. What we need is FAIR judgment, which is why Jesus said, "Judge yourself first, so that you will see clearly on how to judge others".
When people say, "you can't judge me" what they are really doing is using a pseudo religious argument to avoid accountability or their bad behavior. Righteous indignation is like blind rage; for the one experiencing it, it is like an invincibility cloak. That is exactly what happens when people say, "there should be no conditions to the way I love". What they really mean is, "My behavior should be above examination on the basis of my very strong emotional feelings".
But we can prove contradictions. Unconditional love cannot possibly exist, because any attempt to define what it is will be based on conditions.
Even IF those are not the kind of conditions unconditional love means in the context, the point is that there is SOME condition which is used to define unconditional love. Otherwise there would be no way to separate unconditional love from hypocrisy, greed, or fear. Why insist on using the word "unconditional" when conditions are clearly present?
Something wrong is happening with that reasoning. Something is hiding in that gap of logic. When people attempt to remove conditions which define what is right or wrong, and then attempt to justify that removal on the basis of goodness, only hypocrisy will result.
If we want to talk about unconditional love in terms of a love which is shared with others regardless of payment, then that is not unconditional love. The condition is that the person sharing the love does so regardless of personal benefit. That is not unconditional love. That is just love itself. Adding the "unconditional" part is an attempt to qualify that there is a kind of love which cannot be limited to standards or criteria, and anytime people try to argue that their behavior should be above standards, only abuses will result.
Unconditional love sounds so appealing, but it is an illusion. It is like addicts who think drugs will make their life more bearable. The drugs can make them forget, make them space out, make them unaware, and give a temporary sense of pleasantness, but it is not real.
How much better to forsake these emotionally appealing illusions and instead grab the bull by the horns, where we acknowledge that love requires standards, and then we get busy working out what are fair or unfair standards for love.
I never said you were.
No, we don't say that love is unconditional. We say that unconditional love is unconditional. It is an expression of love, as is romantic love, brotherly love etc &c., and does not define a constant state. Brotherly love - my favourite kind of love - which is really just genuine friendship, contains conditions. Heck, romantic or erotic love needs conditions. Familial love and so on, they are all ways in which we can express this subjective sentiment or feeling, but to say that 'love' is just one of them is mistaken.
Mens Rea is a comparative example that explains how intention plays a role in criminal behaviour vis-a-vis justice. You can be charitable, for instance, but if the act of giving is only because you know that in doing so people will acknowledge you for being wonderful, the intent or motivation behind the act is false and the condition has been set, namely that you are only giving love to receive appreciation for it.
Unconditional love denotes a purity of this motivation to give love to another or others without a moments thought about receiving anything in return. The other or others' welfare or happiness or immediate concerns are the only concern for you and not your own. But you cannot give love without the right frame of mind and so it is only possible when one transcends or basically has an authentic understanding of themselves, their feelings or sentiments; to become morally conscious.
True love is not 'hollywood' but when two people are capable of giving love rather than solely wanting it, so the only condition here is that to genuinely love someone - with the right frame of mind and a genuine understanding of your own feelings - one must learn how to give love unconditionally.
Exactly. There is an "if, then" statement which separates unconditional love from non-unconditional love, therefore rendering the concept of unconditional a contradiction. Why continue to defend the contradiction as though it is legitimate? Isn't it just an emotional response? We like the idea of a love which is so powerful and pure and true that there are no conditions which can define it, but that is the illusion. Love without some kind of qualifying condition which defines what it is and what it is not is a breeding ground for hypocrisy. Why insist that there are no conditions when clearly there are?
Again, and please for pity's sake read this, it is not a constant but an expression and that there are and can be those that express unconditional love.
You have yet to show a real contradiction; all you did was babble your misunderstanding of the semantics.
Nah. They can express love which does not expect any kind of payment in return, but that is still a condition for what makes this love what it is. If this condition is not met, you will say it is not unconditional. It's a contradiction.
Of course it's not constant, a feeling of love is fleeting and dependent on particular conditions. The difference between a feeling of love and 'unconditional love' is that the latter implies unconditional future acceptance and support, otherwise it's expressing a meaningless sentiment.
Is unconditional acceptance a good thing? Sure, why not. If the object of our love voted for Trump, for example, we could still accept them for what they are.
Is unconditional support a good thing? If the object of our love turned out to be a sociopath (they can be quite charming) and began a campaign of abuse against us it would be foolish to support them in their abuse. The best thing we could do is get away from them. And though we might be able to accept them for what they are we could in no sense support them. Our support is conditional.
I agree, but this is an interesting conversation. Let's go on and have it among ourselves. We can be true to the OP without playing John Days' game. Let's go on on our own and avoid the bologna.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It's not that difficult to deliver. It's one of those things, like enlightenment, that seems so simple once you look back on it. Not that I am enlightened.
I've experienced it. You're wrong.
Relationships - families, spouses, lovers, friends - require conditions, love does not. You can love someone you can't be with. That's part of its unconditionality. Unconditionalness. It's still there when whatever conditions are on the relationship are violated.
Quoting TimeLine
I think your view is a bit more high falutin than it needs to be. As Laurie Lewis wrote "You don't choose who you love, love chooses you." I haven't used that quote on PF yet. I appreciate the opportunity. The rest is just not doing things. Stopping doing destructive things.
Ok, acceptance. But not necessarily support if by support you mean encouragement of behavior.
Quoting praxis
While I still uphold what I upheld, why not be more concrete in your arguments against the notion of unconditional love?
Here’s my reasoning against the terminology: little girls all over the world (not to exclude little boys, who can do the same in different ways) grow up fantasizing about the perfect love. The happily ever after, unconditional, romantic love that conquers all shall one day be theirs (as shall be that grand wedding with the biggest wedding cake and all the trimmings). They fall in love. Now, romantic love, as Pat Benatar once sang about, can be quite an intense dance between interests of ego. Give in to easily and the other can then presume to have you under their thumb. The now grown up young woman then thinks, “my love for the other is unconditional; I will prove it by not losing the taste of unconditional love we both once shared; and, in so doing, will eventually show the other the error in their ways when they … verbally abuse me, maybe hit me, maybe threaten me with my life (… and it can get worse). And then we will live happily ever after together: with my true unconditional love having paved the way”.
Not only does this interpretation of unconditional love not result in good/healthy things for the girls/women who hold it, it also happens to make far more ass holes in the world than there otherwise would be. From the ass holes’ point of view (be they male, female, transgendered, whatever), their partner who holds unconditional love for them only reinforces their beliefs of the way the world “really works” (scare quotes fully intended). Mildly or extensively, it teaches all too many that Marquee de Sade’s philosophy of life is a quite accurate depiction of what life and love is all about.
[edit: Since I know some will view things from as many vantages as possible, this having virtually nothing to do with Servant&Master/Bondage/Spankings/Explicitness/etc. in the bedroom … which - unlike de Sade’s philosophy - can quite readily be aspects/facades of closer proximity to unconditional love as (sometimes) practiced out in the bedroom (as fantasies). It’s a fully different issue than the one I here intended, but, in trying to be clearer about my stance …]
And then I, my family members, and others I care about in this world have to deal with these ass holes out there.
Again, I still uphold what I previously upheld in this thread: Unconditional love is real, but its perfect reality cannot be found within space and time, only closer approximations of it. That said, leaving the logics to unconditional love alone for the moment, there is still this quite, to me, pertinent reason to try to avoid the terminology of “unconditional love” … especially around children, imo.
This is a really good example, and the obvious answer is that no, unconditional acceptance is not a good thing. There's no person here who could honestly say that are willing to accept an agreement without first understanding what the conditions of that agreement are.
The issue was never about whether someone is able to experience altruistic love (i.e. the kind which works even if there is no payment or reward). The issue was that it is irrational to call it unconditional when there are clearly conditions which define it.
I think you are confused by what unconditional actually means, and this fits with my point that people are viewing this from an emotional point of view rather than rational.
If a plumber were to say, "Yes, I can see your basement is flooded but I won't fix the problem until you pay me", then he has added a condition to his love, but then again, that kind of behavior isn't love in the first place. His demand for payment eliminates his behavior from what love is, in the same way that a prostitute demanding payment for her time automatically eliminates her behavior from what love is. No rational person will believe a prostitute loves them while she's still asking for payment.
When you add "unconditional" to the love, you only add confusion to what love is, as though there are some kinds of love which do allow demands for payment, and that unconditional love is just a better kind of love because it does not demand payment? This is delusion about what love is, and it's popular because it allows the majority of the world to continue thinking of themselves as loving despite demanding payment for their time, skills, and services.
You're still talking about an emotional kind of love rather than behavioral love. Of course we choose who we love. If a man tells his wife, "Sorry that I cheated on you, honey, but that gosh darned love just chose me" we'd think that is a ridiculous argument, because even if a man is tempted to cheat, he still has a responsibility to refrain for the sake of the love for his spouse.
It would be even more ridiculous if he were to say to his wife, "Don't we have unconditional love for one another? Why are you putting these conditions on our love by forbidding me from loving this other woman?"
Unconditional love sounds nice and fluffy and soft and warm and fuzzy, but it is a delusion.
Excellent point. Romantic love can feel so extremely powerful, which is why it is so popular in movies, books, music etc. It sells, and it sells BIG, but the make-believe of it has become a little too real and many people believe the lie that if they can only make their feelings strong enough then their feelings will overcome everything else. I talked to a guy who said he was ready to marry his soul-mate because they could talk on the phone for hours and never get bored. He couldn't hear anything about life goals, religious/political views, spending habits, living habits or any of the other things that have a huge impact on what makes a relationship work after the strong emotional feelings taper off over time.
Powerful emotional feelings are a legitimate part of love, but only a part. Other aspects of love include a rational examination of the issues, as well as patience, kindness, forgiveness, and even hardness, as is the case with parents who discipline their children, or spouses who make a stand against their partner over some important issue. These are all conditions which make love what it is.
It would be foolish to talk about unconditional science, because science is based on conditions like observation, experiment, and evidence. If someone tried to prove a conclusion, we would expect him to do so based on these conditions. If he tried to argue that his conclusion is proved on unconditional science, we would not accept it, because that kind of method would allow anyone to prove anything without condition. There would only be chaos.
It is difficult for most of us to see the problem with unconditional love because we've been taught that it is inherently good, and because it is unconditional, it cannot be questioned. Even here on this philosophy forum, where the whole point of discussion is to be reasonable, thoughtful and to consider the evidence of various arguments in a rational, critical way, there are people who just cannot let go of the obvious contradiction in the concept. They acknowledge that there are conditions to unconditional love, but they still say it is right to call it unconditional. This is an emotional connection, like the fairy-tale fantasy romance that javra talked about.
I am suggesting that we break out of the fantasy, good-feeling cultural traditions surrounding the concept of unconditional love, and instead view love in terms of what is practical in day-to-day life.
As I, and others, have said before, you have lost yourself, or are intentionally hiding, in a maze of words. We're talking about an experience, your talking about talking about an experience. Talking about talking about talking.
An expression of love is fleeting; a feeling of love is not fleeting, on the contrary is the very fabric of our humanity. It is what enables the experience, just like how empathy can cause pangs of conscience that differs entirely to a sociopath. We are enabled with authenticity or genuine love when we experience giving love to another without any return (conditions), where we thus transcend from being a mindless drone to a human being and where morality is thus born. Moral consciousness is a combination of this capacity together with reason, to be conscious or aware of ourselves and applying it to our expressions and why these expressions of love contain conditions and rightly so. Yet, without self-awareness reason itself is useless or even dangerous; it is what makes a person vote for Trump. As I said earlier, a mother defending her son tooth and nail despite him being a murderer is not showing unconditional love, on the contrary the condition of her actions is selfish and unreasonable.
Unconditional love is symbolic of this ability, a symbol of our ability to give love authentically or genuinely. It is the very ability we have to feel love, basically, before all else starts to follow.
Indeed, in our day and age people actually "love" the economics and social condition of their situation and not their partners, or they abandon their children or they say nasty things with a smile on their face and sweet lips; it is all just a show, a display and there is nothing genuine in their behaviour whether it is romantically or morally. Whenever these people end up finding something better or even worse when they start thinking that they are better, bang, out comes the disloyalty and it could even be years and years later. There is no future in inauthentic love even if they say it is unconditional.
This certainly serves some food for thought. It depends on why you cannot be with them; if you choose not to because your circumstances would be less appealing by being with the person that you love, you have set a condition or made the choice and it is entirely selfish. If they are in a relationship and though you love them, you choose to refrain from those feelings hoping that they are happy or if they have hurt you and you are reasonable enough to keep your distance but still hope that they are happy, then perhaps.
Not at all. I'm not saying "be like I want or I won't be with you." I'm saying "I love you, but I can't be with you." I was just thinking about how to respond to you and this thought came to me. The thing that makes love unconditional is compassion.
I have also been thinking about something that happened to me several years ago. I'm getting old, thinking about death sometimes. Not really afraid, but sorry that I haven't done more with my life. It struck me then - the secret is to be ready when the time comes. If it comes three minutes from now, be ready not to hold on to life, but to let go. Have your bags packed. At the same time I was dealing with emotional issues with a good friend. Again I was struck - love is the same as life. I guess Joni Mitchell was right. With love, you have to be ready to let go now. You have to pack your bags now. I don't mean letting go of the love, I mean letting go of hopes.
Singling out an object of love is basically defining a set of conditions. Our feeling may not depend on the object of our affection giving anything in return, but the feeling nevertheless depends on the object remaining true to our limited conception. If it didn't that would only suggest that we're in love with the conception rather than anything in the real world. The feeling also depends on our conception and values remaining relatively constant.
To me, it would make more sense to say that unconditional love has no object or focus, and would be a spiritual sense.
So how about the opposite approach, since your main line of arguing here is pointing out various conditions through which people arrive at concepts of love, concepts of how love happens, how people experience it, etc? So, let's start with love as conditional. What are the conditions in which love occurs in our experience?
I think that love requires knowledge. Can't love something that you don't know very well, let alone don't even know exists. So there has to be some kind of intimation.
People talk about loving their children unconditionally. But surely the fact that they're your biological children only matters conceptually, and not actually. As something like 12% of fathers are raising children that they only think are biologically theirs. Though studies show that step parents actually are crueler and more abusive, but I think that that has something to do with not having know them from the start. One of the things that aren't a condition, I would hope, would be that they're actually your biological progeny. Finding out that they aren't, 17 years into raising them hopefully wouldn't reduce your care for them, clearly it would be their mothers fault (lol) not theirs.
Issues of biological parents/vs not, and how that affects the care given to those children is absolutely something to be discussed, but what I was mentioning to JD is just a basic starting point; since he's just pointing out "conditions" that various people bring up in their arguments for unconditional love, why not start with the assumption of "conditional love" in order to surmise whether or not unconditional love exists? As to love requiring knowledge...it looks like your concept there is based on your remarks about parental situations? Correct me if I'm wrong. Do you have more to add about that idea?
No, the knowledge part is unrelated. Even "love at first sight" is conditional upon actually knowing that they exist at bare minimum. Though I think that is silly as well. If you think that you love someone the moment you meet them, or tell someone that you love them on the first date, I think that would be pretty red flag raising.
Just neurochemically, infatuation, a kind of obsession is what you feel immediately, which always fades. It can be kind of re-kindled by continually doing new and exciting things together forever. The novelty will drive it, as it will continue to reveal more and more things about them. Normally though, the bonding that takes place over years, which is what I would think is really the love, is both conceptually and biochemically distinct from the attraction, or infatuation.
Is seeing an attractive person knowledge?
Seeing anything new is of course knowledge. You didn't know that they even existed before. It isn't like "seen one seen 'em all" or something... we're talking about human beings here...
My point was that seeing is perception, which isn't knowledge, but that's off topic...
? So I saw you hit someone, but I don't know that you hit them? The perceptual evidence of an event isn't how we know things about it? Then how do we?
?näl?j/Submit
noun
1.
facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
It clearly is knowledge. That's just dismissive hand waving.
Guess I was being pedantic; sight -> perception -> interpretation -> knowledge, or something along those lines, but it all happens quickly.
How is that at all relevant. It doesn't mean that you know them without having any experience of them at all, and the less time spent, and attention paid to them, the less you'd know them. Is that controversial to you?
No idea; you responded to my question posed to someone other than you.
Don't be mean 'cause you can't respond bro, but fine, I'll bow out.
I was annoyed because I admitted to being pedantic there, and then you just kept criticizing. I basically handed your argument to you, and you continued. I've been taking a break here, and then jumped back in on this thread in good faith with an idea I thought was relevant, and then within 30 minutes or so, we're here already. Good to be back! Don't bow out on my sake.
That makes no sense. The feeling is the enabling experience otherwise 'love' would not exist at all; empathy is the source of our moral consciousness of others in an external world and what differentiates from a sociopath. The object mirrors the authenticity of our motivation.
Quoting praxis
As I said, unconditional love is symbolic of this experience of giving love.
That is what I already said, it is the enabling experience, empathy and what makes us human; it didn't just come to you.
Quoting T Clark
For me, it is about letting go of the lies that keep you living in a hole or a shell. I had a severe car accident and preceding that was bullied and harassed and I was forced to confront the truly disgusting side of the people around me. My vulnerable situation proved not just how vicious others can be but how much I was wasting my time with the wrong sort. It was what strengthened me, despite crying almost every day as I came to confront this unreal reality as though an existential withdrawal of an ethereal drug that I was addicted to.
Only authenticity in your perceptions of the external world matter and it compels the genuine experience of love. Whether your hopes are real in the first place, or whether it is merely a mirror for something subjectively wrong in you is questionable.
To turn your back on someone and stop hoping is what I did too only because after the long and difficult experience above, I realised he was not what I wanted him to be. He was a monster, and that's that.
The feeling is part of it but there’s more to it. Any emotion could be seen as comprising of our past experience, affect, our learned or created emotion concepts (such as unconditional love), and of course whatever external stimuli inspired the emotion. So indeed there could be a feeling without ‘love’ existing at all. For example, many social animals demonstrate behavior that we might call unconditional love, yet they have no such concept.
Perhaps it's just an exaggeration. Some mothers will take a lot of sh*t before they throw in the towel.
Good question. What separates love from something like indifference or manipulation? Several people here have already suggested that love does not demand payment for itself. In other words, if love can b bought, then it automatically becomes excluded from what love is.
Other conditions for love include a willingness to forgive, kindness, patience, and, as is the case with the concept of "tough love", it also includes justice. If we practice injustice toward one another, it cannot be said that we love them.
I get what you mean, but whether or not the father knows for 100% that the child is his or not is beside the point. His behavior toward the child is what shows whether he loves the child or not. Lets say he takes the kid out to a theme park and buys him ice cream. Lets say, for the sake of this argument, the father is a billionaire. Still, he will not buy ice cream for every kid in the park, because they are not HIS kids. That is not to say he's wrong or unloving for only buying HIS kid the ice cream, but it does show that his love is not unconditional. If his love was unconditional, he'd be buying ice cream for everyone regardless.
I don't remember you saying that unconditional love is only symbolic. Can you elaborate on what you mean by symbolic? What is it a symbol of?
Unconditional love is when you love someone no matter what. The examples you gave of purported conditions that unconditional love is subject to, such as the condition that it must not be conditional, or the condition that the one loved is a son or daughter, a male or female and so on, are nothing more than red herrings.
Really no other kind of "love" is love; it is rather some form of attachment or obsession.
The fact that it is possible to love someone no matter how badly they treat you is not affected by other facts such as that you may not be able to stand having anything to with the loved one on account of the pain they cause you. There is no contradiction involved in loving someone and yet not wishing to have anything to do with them. In cases like that you will simply wish them well...from a distance.
I really like the way you've worded this part of the sentence, and I believe this is exactly why adding "unconditional" into the mix actually takes away from the genuineness of love. I was talking to someone else about this earlier so I'll paste my comments here as I think it relates:
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the concept of altruistic kidney donation. It's also called good samaritan donation. It's what happens when a person volunteers to donate one of his kidneys to a complete stranger suffering from kidney failure. There is no payment involved and in fact, the donor does not even know who the recipient will be. The hospital arranges everything. Only after the donation, and only if both parties agree, will the hospital organize for the two to meet and even then they closely monitor the situation to be sure that there is no pressure from either side as a result of the procedure.
Because this kind of donation is so rare in a world where nothing is free, the donor is often praised as being a hero who behaved in a very special way unlike how other people would behave. It sounds very nice, but it's a wrong way to view the situation. This kind of altruism should not be treated as special or heroic, because doing so elevates this kind of behavior above what the average person could do.
Instead, it should just be normal, precisely because the behavior is so good. If everyone was a hero, there'd be no point in using the word hero anymore.
This is what it is like with unconditional love. You can see the way people talk about it, like this very special thing that is so rare that it is hardly ever practiced, and yet the examples people give of unconditional love is the kind of behavior all people should be practicing as just something normal.
Is a condition.
Quoting Janus
EDIT: I realized that I misunderstood something you said here. The only condition in what you've listed above which I talked about was the one about a parent's love for their child is based on the condition that it is their child and not some other person's child. It is possibly that some parents can have the same kind of loving behavior toward other kids as they would their own kids, but even then it would be inappropriate to show the same kind of love to children as we would to adults (like buying diapers for adults or a bottle of nice whiskey for a kid). There are still conditions which dictate how the love should be appropriately expressed. If those conditions are not met, then the love will not be love.
Quoting Janus
Is a condition. If the condition is not met (i.e. you stop loving them because they treat you badly) then the love is not love any more.
Lets say a parent has a grown child with some kind of dangerous drug addiction, and the child keeps coming back to the parent to borrow money. At some point the parent will say, "I won't give you money anymore because doing so is only hurting you" and the child responds, "don't you love me unconditionally?" and he would be right. If there really was no condition to the love, then the parent would continue giving the money.
Can you see how adding "unconditionally" just confuses the issue?
This is probably the closest thing to what adding unconditionally is actually meant to achieve; exaggeration. The question is, why do people feel a need to exaggerate their feelings for one another? Why isn't love on it's own good enough?
No, it's a way of expressing unconditionality. You are conflating that fact that 'no matter what' is a condition of the love being unconditional, with it being a condition of the actual love.
Quoting John Days
Again the same conflation.
Quoting John Days
If you stop loving them because they treat you badly, then your love was not unconditional. Whether it was love at all is another question.
Quoting John Days
No, the parent would do what they thought was best for the child, which may well be to refuse further money. Loving someone unconditionally does not entail that you will do whatever they ask.
Which is the contradiction. If there are no conditions to the love, then there would be no reason to refuse their requests.
Love knows and acknowledges the worth of the person in question. "Worth" is actually inappropriate; this has been clear to me for a long while: Worth presupposes value, which presupposes levels of value. It's better to say that love transcends the concept of the worth of a person; love becomes a definition, rather than a measurement. Love defines the human person. How? By saying "You're a human! Love is for you!" That statement, regardless of how pithy, encompasses experience pretty nicely, regardless of how well you've experienced this idea of love.
That's the positive side to how love is different from indifference or manipulation. From there, any other distinctions seem pretty obvious from experience, but...indifference can manifest as presence without content: Being available without actually being available. Manipulation...the previous is a form of it, but more generally, manipulation tends to cut the deepest. A person who manipulates the basic desire for love is someone who can sense basic emotional instincts and plays to those instincts, without regard for the actual individuality or well-being of the person they're exploiting. Manipulation is maybe the worst offense to love of all: ironically, emotional manipulation is one of the clearest indicators of the importance of love for us humans...
Quoting John Days
No complaints here. So, re: "conditions"...
you say that "a willingness to forgive, kindness, patience, [...] 'tough love'" are conditions of love? Or are you just saying that other people here said they were?
In any case, I'll respond with my own opinion. Yes, forgiveness, kindness, patience, and justice are just a few of the "conditions" of love. But these "conditions" are different than the "conditions" that define love as either "conditional" or "unconditional". The basic word "condition" here means patently different things, just by nature of the English language. Within philosophy, various given "conditions" of love, as you describe it, are conditions in the legal sense, but if you're going to post here, you need to remember that this is a philosophy forum. "Unconditional" doesn't mean the same thing; within the context of love (via Christianity) the concept means a love that doesn't waver under any circumstance. So no given condition alters the state of that love. The fact that that unalterable state might be itself a "condition" has no content as concept because it doesn't avail itself to what conditionality means with regards to love.
Of course there could be reasons to refuse a loved one's requests; for instance, you would do that if you judged that what they wanted was not in their best interests. What if your loved one asks you to shoot them, for example?
If you think that you can maintain love of anyone, besides merely abstractly as saving your own feelings as a good person while you allow them to behave in ways, or hold views that are contemptuous, then you're simply a coward, and don't really practically, actually, really care for them more than wish to maintain a good opinion of yourself in your and their eyes, far more than you actually care for them.
I'm so kind, that I'll never tell you the truth, and despite having contempt for all your thoughts and actions, I still totally love you! I just hate everything about you, and don't trust you.
This is a simple case of you being too literal.
Normal people when they talk about unconditional love mean that they give love without expecting something in return, e.g. it's non-transactional. We can debate whether that's an accurate use of language but should we care?
I can only imagine someone wanting that, rather than wanting to do it. Relationships require negotiation, and it isn't virtuous to give everything and be repeatedly abused for it. That can only breed unhealthy relationships, and resentment.
Via example, I can well understand the following: if a parent is compassionate toward their children with the consciously pursued intention that the children will be there for the parent when he/she is old, this is a condition-based love and is not the real thing. It is closer to a willfully pursued manipulation of the other so as to influence the other to do something in one’s own self-interest. It, however, is not a genuine instance of reciprocal altruism, or of love for the other, as would be: wanting one’s children to grow up to experience greater degrees of happiness / health / wisdom / etc. than one as parent has ever experienced – something that naturally breeds non-fearful, or loving, respect in the children for the parent, including in the parent’s old age. Hence, in this sense just expressed, conditional love is fake love. (I say this though I still think the terminology of "unconditional love" is improper due to easy misinterpretation by those who desire it in their lives.)
Yet, the following sentence worries me greatly (ok, in a removed, existential sense):
Quoting Noble Dust
“Any circumstance” encompasses many, potentially awful, things. One being manipulated by the other, one being maimed by the other out of a ruthless form of jealousy (which becomes itself interpreted as love), one being enslaved by the other in a basement … you can allow your imagination to complete this.
This quoted sentence contradicts your accord to other beliefs, such as a technical condition of love being just / fair. Yet it is what you conclude with.
At face value as expressed, how would such unconditional love lead to healthy things? In other words, how would it be something that is in any way good?
ps. Of course, there are more limited circumstances—such as “in sickness” and “for poorer”—in which genuine love will not in any way waiver. But that’s not what your statement states.
If it is just a taste, and it's perfectly okay to not hold it, then it is a taste for sulfuric acid.
Real relationships are equal, and I expect from others what I expect from myself, and expect from myself what I expect from others. Even when it comes to children, isn't it your job to render them as equals as quickly as possible? Not to continually, and forever treat them in ways that do not require from them what one requires from themselves, and thus holds in high regard, and expects as a respectable human being?
If I wish to feel superior to everyone, and resent everyone, then this is certainly a vehicle to that.
Exactly right. If your love really was without condition, then you would do what they ask. What I am suggesting is that we stop referring to love as being unconditional. It is emotional fluff which makes no rational sense.
It doesn't mean anything; well, not any rational thing. That's the point; because it is a paradox, it can mean whatever people want it to mean according to how they feel in the moment. What kind of love is this? Oh, it's the unconditional type. That unconditional could be excluded based on what it is not shows that it is based on a condition, but the name itself suggests there are not conditions.
There is A LOT of room for confusion there. How much better to reject the emotionalism of this fantasy love which makes no demands, has no requirements or expectations, and has no discernible criteria which separates it from random spurts of emotion.
Lets talk about real love rather than some fantasy love which can never be defined.
Is a condition. If the condition is not met, you will say it is not unconditional. It makes no sense.
Yeah, of course we should care what the words we use mean. Otherwise, what's the point of debate?
Good point. Unconditional love would suggest there is no such thing an an unhealthy relationship, because unhealthy is a condition which separates itself from what is healthy.
Quoting Wosret
Yes, this does seem to be what people keep trying to say about unconditional love; that it is okay to call it unconditional because unconditional is a higher kind of moral value. All those other people who only practice normal love are inferior to those who practice unconditional love.
Quoting Wosret
In other words, the golden rule. :)
Quoting Wosret
Nailed it.
I don't think so. Worth is a concept for mature people who recognize that it is not meant to tear others down, but rather to recognize the difference between people who contribute to the good of others and those who do not.
Unconditional love is worthless. Because it claims to be without condition there is no way to measure it or to hold it accountable to any standard. It is a clever convenience that people have created to say that, no matter how they may feel at the time, it can be justified if they claim their feelings should be regarded without condition.
Quoting javra
Nope. It is not wrong at all for parents to expect that their children will respect their good behavior toward them. The parents themselves are the most important examples of what real love is from the time the children are born. It makes sense that if the parents show love to the children, that the children will show love to the parents in their old age, because love makes sense. If they have good examples of what love is and what love isn't, then the kids will want to take care of the parents who loved them. There does not need to be this "unconditional" condition attached to love to somehow validate what it is meant to be.
Quoting Noble Dust
Exactly. There are conditions which differentiate between what love is and what it is not. Those conditions are important because they relay genuine information which works in practical reality. unconditional love, by definition of what the word unconditional actually means, negates any sense of distinction and all manner of terrible behavior can be justified on the basis that there should be no condition.
Quoting Noble Dust
Yup, and all it takes is for them to say, "Relax, my love for you is without condition".
Quoting Noble Dust
I am saying there are criteria for what makes love what it is. If those criteria (or conditions) are not met, then the love is not love at all, but some other thing (like the manipulation you talked about earlier).
Quoting Noble Dust
No need to put condition in quotes in this case. They actually exist in the real world.
Quoting Noble Dust
Nope. Conditions are conditions.
Quoting Noble Dust
But you're not saying what the difference is. Why should love have a different definition of what conditions are than any other usage of conditions?
Quoting Noble Dust
Nah, I'm talking about practical conditions. If a person abuses, hurts, and takes advantage of another, it cannot be said that they love that person, because love has conditions which make it what it is. If those conditions are not met, then the behavior is not loving. You don't have to be a lawyer to understand that.
Quoting Noble Dust
Nope, that's not unconditional. That's called faithfulness and loyalty. You don't have to be a Christian to understand the validity of those concepts. But, if you really mean what you're saying, then what you've actually done is to make an argument against divorce.
Quoting Noble Dust
But, it does mean that we should not use "unconditional" to describe a state which clearly does have conditions. I'm not against faithful, loyal, unwavering love; rather I'm saying we should stop using "unconditional" to describe a concept which clearly is defined by conditions.
Let go of the emotional illusion and define the concept with terms which are relevant to what is actually happening.
You're being obtuse. I've never said it isn't a condition I explained people aren't as literal as you're being when using the phrase. So rail against the world for being "illogical" or move on and accept that unconditional love means something else in the English language than its legal meaning.
By your standard a "sick joke" can't exist either.
When a person falls into love there is an overwhelmingly compelling desire to let go and pursue, regardless of the risk of danger or emotional vulnerability. It's quite a magnificent force. It's not something you ought to try to seek out as it'll only find you. When it does finally arrive the question of conditions becomes far more relevant.
Then there is no point in saying it is unconditional.
Quoting Benkei
Some people want words to mean what they mean.
You call it a legality. I call it progress that you're willing to even go that far. :)
Yes, exactly. Doesn't that make sense? If you say it is unconditional, and then use conditions to define what is it, then where's the problem in my argument?
Quoting earthlycohort
Actually, there have been several descriptions on this thread of what unconditional love supposedly is. Can you be more specific?
BTW, are we now talking about something that is even better than unconditional love? True unconditional love? Because, apparently, unconditional was meant to one-up love, so I guess it makes sense that at some point unconditional would need to be one-up'd as well.
Poor plain love just can't compete anymore.
So when people speak of unconditional love they're just expressing an intention to tollerate a wide range of conditions? That doesn't sound so romantic. No wonder they go all unconditional. O:)
I talked to a guy who said he was ready to marry his soul-mate, whom he never met in person, but they sure could talk for hours on the phone without getting bored. When I asked him about things like life goals, spending habits, political/religious views, lifestyle choices, he said they'd not gotten around to talking about issues like that, but he was sure that the power of their feelings would overcome any obstacle.
Falling in love is 90% Disney fantasy. It love can be great. Those feelings should be enjoyed for what they are. But those initial fantastic feelings are a small part of what makes for a loving relationship. Unconditional love is part of the Disney fantasy. Real relationships take a lot of work, effort, and compromise. Why use a word which inherently suggests these things do not matter? You say it shouldn't be taken so literally, like it's no big deal, but then why the insistence on defending it?
I'm new so forgive the poor formatting.
No problem with your argument. True unconditional love doesn't exist as to love unconditional is a condition in itself. I merely pointed out the common sentiment. It's gross.
So how do we love unconditionally? I'm really not sure, and to be honest I don't care for I have no desire to forgo my standards. I seem to have a mental block about it though. A bit like the first time you wonder what lies beyond the fringes of existence and find a great dark void.
I believe the notion of unconditional love stems from a being's need for acceptance, though this form comes without the individual needing to take the responsibility of one's life in order to achieve the desired standards required for a person to achieve being loved, which are most efficiently the standards a person seeks in a partner. These standards and conditions are of course varied and are determined by individual taste, hence why it's best to find yourself and just be that. It'll find you. This kind of love is my absolute definition of love.
There can be a subtle, but important, different between “expect” and “hope / anticipate”.
I can’t currently discern whether your reply is the result of an actual disagreement between us or is due to, maybe, a hasty interpretation of a sentence taken out of context, given the full paragraph (admittedly, maybe poorly worded).
If a disagreement, there are some people, some parents included, that will demand respect for that which they give. I don’t like the pejorative racial semantics to this saying, but the cultural term for it where I live is that of being an “Indian giver”. The mindset of “I gave you that so you must respect me in return or else” is one of authoritarianism—not, from where I stand, one of genuine love. And yes, it’s a sentiment that is explicitly conceptualized to be founded on conditions. When successful—and often times it is not--it leads to a certain type of respect: one resulting from fear of what the authoritarian power will do if their will is not fully complied with. I, however, do maintain that this respect is at a crossroads with a different type of respect which results out of genuine love existing between different people.
Parenting is a complex topic. Still as a loosely given generality, a parent with a healthy love, to me, doesn’t seek to be liked/respected via the act of reprimanding their child, yet via good parenting, the child will come to internally recognize the good intentions of the parent – and, yes, thereby find non-fear-driven, love-based respect for the parents.
Yes, except the intention is hidden behind the contradiction of the word. They want to appear tolerant, but deep down they still judge and apply conditions. It's not that the concept of applying judgment or conditions is wrong. Those two concepts are neutral; they can be used rightly or wrongly.
The problem is that they pretend they are not judging or applying conditions, which is the point of using a word like unconditional. It gives the impression of being above judging others in favor of a more loving approach. But justice is impossible without judgment, and love is impossible without justice.
Sure, but unconditional is hardly subtle; it's pretty easy to disprove. All you have to do is try to define what unconditional love is and conditions will appear.
Quoting javra
Sure, not love. "It is not love because..."
Unconditional has nothing to do with it.
Quoting javra
Finally...
Quoting javra
The reason unconditional love is not successful is because it is not a real thing. Instead of just trying to love one another, people are convinced that they must strive toward this special kind of love which is nigh impossible to achieve. Why make a distinction between love and special love? Isn't ordinary love worthy enough to strive for?
Quoting javra
True, but it's only a subtopic. The same principles could be applied to teacher/student, Boss/employee, or politicians and constituents.
Quoting javra
I think there is pleeeeenty of room for discussion and some gray area in what you've raised. It would make a good topic in itself. But all of what you've said necessarily exclude unconditional. That's actually a good thing. Having conditions, even for something like love, is good, because we can use those conditions to accurately define what is and what isn't love. Without conditions there will only be abuse and hypocrisy even if they have a slick veneer of good feeling glazed over the top.
I don't see any problem with your formatting. And, welcome to the forum. I'm fairly new, myself.
Quoting earthlycohort
Or some illumination. :)
Quoting earthlycohort
I was thinking along the same lines earlier, when n0 0ne talked about it being an exaggeration. It seemed like it could also be a kind of insecurity. An exaggeration. A need for acceptance. An insecurity. They all seem rather similar in this context.
You seem to be arguing against the wrong guy here. Or maybe you haven’t read a single one of my previous posts on this thread. Befuddling, but what's new? I’m not pro the terminology of unconditional love. As to categorizing love, all the better to do so. Greeks did it, other cultures do it, and it has its advantages over a single term being used to declare both that “I love ice-cream” and “I love my kids”. Would one risk one’s life for both? Would one not risk one’s life for either?
Any object of love is a particular set of qualities or conditions. To love unconditionally would be to love all conditions or qualities. As I mentioned earlier, that might be possible in a spiritual transcendent experience. I don't imagine it's possible for people in ordinary life however.
Agape stands apart from eros, filio, and storge, but if one can not love at those depths, one certainly will not be able to experience the deep, deep love which characterizes unconditional love, either.
Then beside ourselves, for those who believe there is the unconditional love of God. They who believe in God believe that God loves them unconditionally. Unconditionally, because that is the only way God can love creation, of which were are a part. We can love unconditionally if God gives us that capacity.
(I think that is an accurate reflection the theology of believers, whatever I may happen to believe.)
Why not? I would find unconditional love more credible if it were born in a brothel or other seemingly unlikely conditions for true love to bloom. Indeed Jesus didn’t mind hanging out with a whore.
Quoting Bitter Crank
So on occasion, when the conditions are just right, people in normal life express and experience unconditional love.
How does one express unconditional love?
(Y)
This is probably the worst (and most popular) abuse of the unconditional love doctrine, where God becomes the bad guy if he places conditions and expectations on what it means to love him, and that he himself would be wrong to punish those who refuse to listen to him, because his love is supposedly without condition.
Quoting Bitter Crank
All of which are conditions on what love is. If these conditions are not met, then the behavior is not love. It's so simple. The only reason anyone would have to want to dismiss the conditions which define what love is, is to justify their own unloving behavior.
Is the condition you're using to define what this love is. If this condition is not met, then the love is not unconditional. You will run into this contradiction every time you try to define what unconditional is. Somehow people have been tricked into thinking conditions are wrong, but in what other area of life do we apply this same principle?
Unconditional science? Unconditional employment? Unconditional education? Unconditional driving? Unconditional entertainment?
Quoting Pollywalls
So, if you do have some other purpose, then the love is no longer unconditional? Can't you see how you're using conditional statements to define something which supposedly should have no conditions?
Quoting Pollywalls
I believe this is the crux of the problem with the concept of unconditional love. It's like criticizing someone and instead of acknowledging any truth in the criticism, they say, "Hey, no one's perfect". It's a non-answer that doesn't deal with the problem at all.
Quoting Pollywalls
Which is exactly the point of unconditional love; a means of avoiding accountability for how we behave. No conditions means no accountability.
This is a weird argument. Unconditional literally means without condition. All you have to do is look at what the words actually mean.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Would you mind clarifying?
Quoting javra
Agreed.
Quoting javra
It's a strange world. People risk their lives for materialism every day. It's often referred to as the rat race or "earning a living" (as though one does not have the right to live if they are not working for money). Several people have defined unconditional love as a willingness to help others without the expectation of payment or reward in return. I supported those definitions, but I also said that in the context, there's no reason to attach the unconditional part; it just becomes a distraction to real love.
This is one of the reasons why unconditional love is so popular. Practically the entire world operates on demanding payment for services to one another. It's difficult for the majority of the world to think of themselves as being unloving for what seems like normal, ordinary economic behavior, which is where unconditional love comes in so handy. It goes like this, "Okay I don't have this special unconditional love, but at least I still have normal love as I continue demanding payment for my service to others".
Quoting John Days
I don't see the connection here. Are you saying that we should view unconditional love as just a normal practice of giving love?
Words mean how people use them. They're not static. Radical, for instance, used to mean going back to the root. Now it means extreme. So what you want isn't there and it will never be there. Move on.
And the "legal" was supposed to be logical, autocorrect. You know how it is.
Religious dogma defines conditions for those that need their conditions defined.
A description isn't a condition, in the sense that "if you don't pay the overdue rent, you will be evicted". A description isn't an "if/then" statement. A description is just a description. "The house is painted a light gray" isn't a conditional statement. It either is gray, or it is not gray.
Do you consider erotic love to be conditional? Is "You turn me on - I want to have sex with you" a conditional statement? It's conditional.
Do you expect erotic love to be 100% in order to qualify as erotic? If you are 80% turned on by somebody, you are still experiencing erotic love, even if it isn't 100%.
Further, "unconditional" is perhaps not the best term. When agap? was imported into English in the 17th century, it was used in the sense of 'selfless love". Erotic love isn't normally thought of as "selfless" because the physical self is so intimately involved in erotic love--it's really physical and selfie.
agap? is about the other person, not the self.
You’ve already quoted a post of mine where, I think, I was relatively harsh against the terminology of “unconditional love”, with my reasons for this there given. (your reply: )
I disagree with the terminology due to its easy misinterpretation by some – but not with the intended referent.
I see BC has given a damn good account of it in his latest post (and in his previous posts as well).
As for my own example:
From a materialist point of view, the referent to a perfect, unconditional love would be of itself considered spiritual (I would think by most materialists, at least). Instead of focusing on Christian doctrine, I’ll address as example the Eastern doctrine of Buddha nature/consciousness, in specific, that of universal compassion. There’s this goal in Buddhism most often know as Nirvana – a state of being wherein all suffering for all life ceases. Then, from the point of this Buddhist notion of universal compassion, there are those who are aware of this goal (with many not being aware of it yet still, in overall thought and deed, moving toward it) and there are those that are ignorant of this goal’s being. The latter will often seek to minimize their suffering via pursuit of other goals (subjugation; maximized supremacy over other; vis-a-visi the pleasure of lying, cheating, and stealing; other such things). To the Buddha consciousness of universal compassion, regardless of how vile their deeds, they will yet be empathized with as those who are yet ignorant / unenlightened / etc. of a truth which, were they to gain awareness of it, would naturally make them virtuous beings. Hence, this form of Buddha consciousness does not view those ignorant of Nirvana as evil sinners that need to be destroyed, tortured, enslaved, or any other such thing; but, instead, as fellow beings that require, in Eastern terminology, “enlightenment” via compassion, empathy with their plight, etc. This form of Buddha consciousness is then, for me, an example of the referent to what is termed unconditional love. In BC’s formulation, this Buddha consciousness is far closer to 100% unconditional love than what all of us regular folk can ever experience.
Having tried to illustrate the referent to the terminology of “unconditional love” via this example, we earth bound folk shouldn’t then think that conflict in self-defense should then be off the table. It’s part and parcel of what maintained justice in this world consists of. Were a thug on the streets to rush toward me for my wallet with a knife in his hands, me trying to emulate the Buddha by saying “dear fellow equal being, do you not realize that you are uninformed as to the best means for you to alleviate your life’s suffering … thereby helping me to alleviate my suffering, in turn helping you?” will not here help my situation out an iota. Actually, we people often get pissed at being told we're ignorant - gives off this stench of superiority – regardless of whether it might to be true or not.
Still, when not in active conflict, minimizing our hatred of other and doing our best to sincerely “understand/empathize with our foes” – this so as to figure out a way of getting them to a) be cordial and b) find deep, sincerely felt happiness within themselves in this cordiality - would, then, be a step toward our enactively holding this referent to the term “unconditional love” (such as in the example of universal compassion previously made).
[To the finger pointing crowd hereabout, I’m not there yet. Not trying to insinuate otherwise. But I acknowledge it would be a nice place to be.]
I didn't claim it's an uncommon thought. Anyway, compassion is not the same as empathy.
Quoting TimeLine
That's not what I meant by "letting go of hopes." There was no turning my back. My friend and I are better friends than we were before. Long ago she told me that love cannot include expectations or obligations. I understood what she meant, but it took me a long time to put it into practice. Lao Tzu said "hope is as hollow as fear."
There can’t be an other person without a self-concept.
Yeah...
[edit: Pardon, there is some strong language. Please start at the 30 second mark for the relevant part of the video dealing with how we use words.]
I don't think religion is relevant here. Christianity contains examples of why unconditional love is not a real thing, (and probably the best examples), but how we interact with a concept like love is a universal, human issue.
Lets say you want to buy a car, and the salesman tells you it is an unconditional car. Or, you're interviewing for a job and the employer tells you that the pay/benefits are unconditional. Or, that a scientist has made an unconditional discovery.
It would be foolish to accept these usages of unconditional, precisely because we understand the concept of "without condition" to be so vague that it is practically useless in assessing real value or fairness.
You don't have to be religious to recognize that doing so with love would be just as foolish.
Is it obvious? You wrote that it’s about the other and not the self. It’s obvious that it’s about the other AND the self.
The man I thought I loved lacked empathy and wanted me sexually alone, which I never permitted as my virtue is more important to me than anything else. It was the most horrible feeling having him hate me so much because he never attained what he wanted that I felt so worthless. I still hoped for a friendship because I could see the potential in him and my feelings were honorable and real. My hope was to inspire that empathy and compassion so that a friendship would form and he could start seeing me for more than just my body. But, he couldn't do it, he kept on lying and digging a deeper hole until I gave up because it was hurting too much.
What you have done is beautiful and you should be so proud for that. It is real love that you gave.
I wasn't finding fault with your post. I understood what you were saying. I just wanted to make it clear that I think letting go of hopes is a good thing. That it is at the heart of unconditional love.
... it's popular... because... it does not exist?
A little bit like god, or unicorns that you can ride like a horse over the skies, or a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Does History exist?
Great question! I'm not exactly sure, but part of it is Metaphysical. I realize you're an Atheist; do Metaphysical things exist to you?
Otherwise, say, in Christianity, Love takes on many forms: phenomenology, consciousness (Jesus), altruism, sacrifice, et al..
If one has a duty to love, then it is happening under difficult conditions.
What is this duty? To the king, to country and to god?
Kierkegaard must have been gay. There is nothing wrong with being gay, it's simply a preference. I just merely suggest that if someone considers boning a young beautiful wife a duty, then he ought not to have married her.
Well, there is a lot of talk about preference in his book.
The talk about being commanded to love is different.
It would be interesting to hear objections to that point of view.
But casting it as a matter of a reaction to a failed romance is weak beer.
[quote=John Days]Any attempt you make to define what unconditional love is will result in conditional criteria.[/quote]
The reasoning for the above would require as a premise the following:
1. Conditions for love are:
a. beauty = b
b. good
c. no conditions/unconditional
This means you're saying "non-conditions for love are conditions for love" which can be rephrased as "if anything is a non-condition for love then it is a condition for love" and this in logic is as follows: (x)(~Cx > Cx) where Cx = x is a condition for love. Let h = hate and we know that ~Ch = hate is not a condition for love
1. (x)(~Cx > Cx)......assume for reductio ad absurdum
2. ~Ch.....................premise
3. (x)(~~Cx v Cx)...1 MI
4. (x)(Cx v Cx).........3 DN
5. (x)(Cx).................4 Taut
6. Ch........................5 UI
7. Ch & ~Ch.............2, 6 Conj
8. ~(x)(~Cx > Cx).....1 to 7 reductio ad absurdum
Line 8 negates your premise 1c. that no conditions for love are conditions for love.
There's another way your argument fails and that's where you say "(no condition) is condition" which translates to (~c) = c if c = condition
1. (~c) = c.....premise
2. c = (~c).....commutativity
3. ~(c = c).....rephrasing of 2 (there are no rules to apply) which is a violation of the law of idenity
4. c = c identity
5. (c = c) & (~(c = c))....contradiction
Apart from that we also have to consider the scope of conditions in conditional love so that we may comprehend without tying ourselves in a knot. Conditional love, in my view, is based on some quality in the person you love - things like beauty, moral goodness, etc. Ergo, by unconditional, unconditional love simply disregards these qualities deemed by most as necessary for love and loves nevertheless.
True, there are the covenants, the contract with god... cut off the foreskin, get protection by god... stupid thing, and look at the Holocaust. Three million foreskinless males murdered after being tortured and kept as slaves.
So god does not provide much protection for the Jews, but the (religious) Jews still love their god like the Christians. Christians have a reason, a condition to fulfil there, they believe in Pascal's wager; but the Jews don't.
Go firgure. Unconditional love.
I guffawed.
I wish I remembered what the author was trying to say.
That's a lack of social constraints, but there are other constraints, and you can't completely ignore the other constraints, unless you declare a certain context that you wish to arbitrarily limit your scope to. But arbitrarily limiting your scope is just yet another constraint.
So resurrection is not the bed of roses one might suspect it could be. Just a second chance at this shitty, fucking grind we call life.
So the Jews really love their god unconditionally, because they don't expect anything in return from him, by ways of rewards such as: candy, a new set of dishes, or rides on His back.
You may want to look at undonditional love as a psychological issue, I won't stand in your way. But I refuse to limit philosophy to limit itself by excluding this psychological issue from its scope of examination. It would be similar to excluding all religious considerations, since they are religion, a matter of fraith, not of philosophy; or excluding all scientific findings form the scrutiny of philosophy since they are science, not thoughts on metaphysical levels.
I wouldn't even know what unconditional love would mean if we do not restrict those words. Does that mean you love everything will limitless love? That you love the same when you are sleeping?
To me it's a bit like saying unconditional surrenders do not exist, because the surrendering party cannot undo its existence in the past retroactively. Or cannot surrender the food it ate two weeks ago. or it cannot promise that everyone in the surrendering country or sieged town will stop wishing the attackers ill will.
I don't think the term, as used, is meant to be a description of perfect boundless love with no limits. We can decide to treat the term as if it had these characteristics, in the name of exploring. Fine. But I think we then need to acknowledge that we are not really talking about how the term is used normally. And then also, perhaps, acknowledge that it can be a useful concept, as generally conceived, despite not having the attributes we usually attribute, if ever, to deities or mathematical concepts.
To be candid, sometimes it seems like there is a trend, at least on philosophy forums, to put everything into two categories: Irrational or scientifically well supported. With nothing useful in between. And that our language should be this pure communication where any conclusion is absolute and can be measured.
Of course such a communication is not possible since there will be metaphors hidden even in the most anally produced language.
From the OP:
I think that there is meaninful use of language occuring when we refer to parental love as opposed to other kinds of love, of course dependent on individual cases. That something else is possible and occurs in the relations between parents and their children, that teenagers and even romantic adults, despite their idealisms, cannot live up to. A love that will lead to continued kind of empathetic responses from the parent where all other kinds of relationships would tend to say 'see you later'. In most relationships we look for balance, fairness, reciprocity. We have expectations that will undermine love if these expectations are not met. And then you have love where that is not the case.
Sure, analyze whether unconditional perhaps means that even if the laws of physics disappear and the person in question is dead, will their love continue. But this is a discussion of something else, not what people are talking about.