Clueless loneliness: Loneliness beyond frustrated pro‐attitudes

Abstract

AbstractAccording to Tom Roberts and Joel Krueger's frustrated pro‐attitude account of loneliness, loneliness is primarily characterized as an affective state in which individuals perceive certain social goods as unattainable. The frustration of pro‐attitudes, or the desire for social connections, plays a significant role in understanding the nature of loneliness. However, in this article, I argue that the frustrated pro‐attitude account falls short in explaining a specific type of loneliness known as clueless loneliness, wherein a person feels lonely without experiencing a salient frustration of pro‐attitude. By analyzing five cases of clueless loneliness—the case of desiring the wrong thing, the case of failing to form concrete desires, the case of having an illusion of desire fulfillment, the case of holding self‐deceptive beliefs about need fulfillment, and the case of lacking a desire for social goods—I propose a revised account that acknowledges the complexity of loneliness and the potential disconnect between perceived social goods and the actual fulfillment of one's need for connection. My objective in this article is to demonstrate that this revised understanding of loneliness provides a more comprehensive framework for examining the nature of loneliness and its impact on different groups of people within society.