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Michael Murray welcomed the attendees to F&M's 11th Annual Philosophy Symposium: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives on Love, briefly sharing his enthusiasm for next year's collaboration of Biology, Philosophy, and Psychology.  We then quickly moved to Eleonore Stump's, Philosophy, St. Louis University, presentation Love By All Accounts.  Below are some notes.  I found the whole conference quite stimulating (more posts en route), but this talk was most helpful for me personally.  In particular, the consideration of Aquinas' understanding of Love.

Eleonore opened by comparing two popular competing accounts of love:

1. responsiveness account of love: love is a response to a lover by the beloved,  (i.e., the reason for love is a set of characteristics in the beloved). Problems include any intrinsic features others could/do have, another person could be successfully substituted. If love is a response, the strength of the intensity would co-value. Yet real love will last. If beloved loses characteristics then the lover's love must alter

2.  volitional account: the value of the beloved derived by and dependent upon the lover (i.e., no reason for love as it is a choice of the will and another could just as easily be loved).

Why do you love me? Responsiveness: I love your characteristics? Volitional: there is no reason, nothing to do with you? What about the relationship, i.e., the interactions of the lover and the beloved?

What about the relational account?  Consider the problem of Dante’s love for Beatrice in which there was no interaction, history of interaction, unrequited love from a distance. Did Dante not love her? Did Dante value his wife Gemma while in love with Beatrice?

Thomas Aquinas’ account of love & the nature of forgiveness involves the heart. Love requires 2 interconnected desires

1. good of the beloved: not moral goodness only, broader sense (beauty, elegance, metaphysical)
2. flourishing: that which truly conduces to the beloved’s well being, standard for value is objective, certain state of will in the desirer to persist

The 2 desires are not independent, but different in character. Union must be conducive to the flourishing of the beloved, very dependent on the intrinsic and relational characteristics of the desirer.  Human beings can have an impartial love of all human beings, but not equally, some are loved more than others based on certain relationships as there exists deeper and more intimate union in appropriate contexts, e.g., spouse, child, parent colleague consist of incommensurable offices of love.  Specific example of the relationship of offices:  A mother may serve as a professor for her own child, but incest is an inappropriate office. A husband and wife may divorce, but remain friends. The two desires connect in the appropriate use of the office of love: e.g., inappropriate would be priest caring for a child resulting in sexual love.

Union occurs when the self (intrinsic characteristics of beloved) is shared and able to be shared. Although the first desire of love is not responsive to anything in the beloved, the second desire of love is. According to Aquinas, love is a systems level feature with 2 mutual desires. So responsiveness, e.g., love of parent for children is not generated by perception of greater value than others or co-value with various characteristics. The parent-child love is derived from the office and the relational characteristics and doesn't co-vary with characteristics. Volitional love varies with changes in the beloved in the role of the office. Relational love finds it possible to value a relationship/union without such occurring.

Forgiveness must involve some species of love for the person in need of forgiveness (injustice/injury). A Vengeful person doesn't love someone because he/she not seeking the good of the other. The rejection of the desire for union is a lack of love even in the face of injustice. To desire the good depends on what brings the best for the other (determined by the current state of the other). This does not require forgetting, but instead memory to take an appropriate next step. Does forgiveness require reconciliation? No, e.g., Paula can forgive Jerome unilaterally by desiring good and union, even if Jerome still in conflict (or even has passed away). One can't have what one wants by just wanting it.