Abstract
Is it better to love better things? This question is ambiguous in multiple ways. There are at least three variables: (a) What kind of better do we have in mind? Prudential, moral, aesthetic, or some other kind of better, such as more meaningful? (b) What do we mean by love? Do we simply mean ‘liking,’ or are we asking about something more robust, such as care or romantic love? (c) What kinds of things are we talking about? Ideals, artifacts, places, pets, or people?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Bekoff, M. (2007) The Emotional Lives of Animals (Novato: New World Library).
Bergson, H. (1956) ‘Laughter’, in Comedy, ed. Wylie Sypher (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), 61–192.
Buss, S. & Overton, L. (eds) (2002) Contours of Agency (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Cocking, D. & Kennett, J. (2000) ‘Friendship and Moral Danger’, The journal of Philosophy 97(5), 278–96.
Cottingham, J. (1986) ‘Partiality, Favoritism, and Morality’, Philosophical Quarterly, 36(144), 357–73.
De Sousa, R. (1999) The Rationality of the Emotions (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Deigh, J. (1994) ‘Cognitivism in the Theory of Emotions’, Ethics, 104, 824–54.
Frankfurt, H. (1999) ‘On Caring’, in Necessity, Volition, and Love (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 155–80.
Frankfurt, H. (2002) ‘Reply to Susan Wolf’, in Buss and Overton (2002), 245–52.
Grau, Ch. (2006) ‘Irreplaceability and Unique Value’, Philosophical Topics, 32 (1&2), 111–29.
Grau, Ch. (2010) ‘Love and History’, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 48(3), 246–71.
Helm, B. (2009) ‘Love, Identification, and the Emotions’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 46, 39–59.
Jeske, D. (1997) ‘Friendship, Virtue, and Impartiality’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 57(1), 51–72.
Jollimore, T. (2000) ‘Friendships Without Partiality?’, Ratio, 13(1), 69–82.
Jones, K. (2004) ‘Emotional Rationality as Practical Rationality’ in Ch. Calhoun (ed.) Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers (New York: Oxford University Press).
Kolodny, N. (2003) ‘Love as Valuing a Relationship’, Philosophical Review, 112(2), 135–89.
Lucretius (2007) The Nature of Things (London: Penguin).
Milligan, T. (2011) Love (Durham, NC: Acumen).
Naar, H. (2013) ‘A Dispositional Theory of Love’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94(3), 342–57.
Newton-Smith, W. (1989) ‘A Conceptual Investigation of Love’, in Soble (1989).
Nussbaum, M. (2003) ‘Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance’, in R. Solomon (ed.) What is an Emotion? (New York: Oxford University Press).
Oldenquist, A. (1982) ‘Loyalties’, The Journal of Philosophy, 79(4), 173–93.
Prinz, J. (2004) Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (New York: Oxford University Press).
Roberts, R. C. (1988) ‘What an Emotion Is: A Sketch’, The Philosophical Review, XCVII (2), 183–209.
Robinson, J. (2005) Deeper than Reason: Emotion and its Role in Literature, Music, and Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Rowlands, M. (2012) Can Animals be Moral? (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Shoemaker, D. (2003) ‘Caring, Identification, Agency’, Ethics, 114, 88–118.
Shaffer, J. (1983) ‘An Assessment of Emotion’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 20(2), 161–73.
Shand, A. (1914) The Foundations of Character (London: MacMillan and Co.).
Singer, I. (1966) The Nature of Love: Plato to Luther (New York: Random House).
Smuts, A. (2007) ‘The Joke is the Thing: “In the Company of Men” and the Ethics of Humor’, Film and Philosophy, 11, 49–66.
Smuts, A. (2009) ‘Do Moral Flaws Enhance Amusement?’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 46(2), 151–63.
Smuts, A. (2013) ‘The Satirical and the Salacious: In Defense of Symmetric Comic Moralism’, Journal of Aesthetic Education, 47(4), 45–63.
Smuts, A. (manuscript) Five Theses about Caring (Retrieved from http://philpapers.org/rec/SMUFTA).
Soble, A. (ed.) (1989) Eros, Agape, and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love (St. Paul, MN: Paragon House).
Solomon, R. (1980) ‘Emotions and Choice’, in Rorty A. (ed.) (1980) Explaining Emotions (Los Angeles: University of California Press).
Solomon, R. & K. Higgins, K. (eds) (1991) The Philosophy of (Erotic) Love (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas).
Taylor, Ch. (1985) ‘Self-Interpreting Animals’, in Human Agency and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Taylor, G. (1975) ‘Justifying the Emotions’, Mind, 84(335), 390–402.
Taylor, G. (1976) ‘Love’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 76, 147–64.
Thomas, L. (1991) ‘Reasons for Loving’, in Solomon and Higgins (1991), 467–76.
Wolf, S. (1992) ‘Morality and Partiality’ Philosophical Perspectives, 6, 243–59.
Wolf, S. (2002) ‘The True, the Good, and the Lovable: Frankfurt’s Avoidance of Objectivity’ in Buss and Overton (2002), 227–44.
Wolf, S. (2010a) Meaning in Life and Why it Matters (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Wolf, S. (2010b) ‘Love: The Basic Questions’, Romanell Lecture (http://www.pbk.org/home/FocusNews.aspx?id=383).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Aaron Smuts
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Smuts, A. (2014). Is It Better to Love Better Things?. In: Maurer, C., Milligan, T., Pacovská, K. (eds) Love and Its Objects. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137383310_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137383310_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48048-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-38331-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)