Justification and Non‐Fungibility of Love

Abstract

Abstract This chapter begins with a brief overview of the account of the justification of values and priorities, and then takes on the fungibility problem. Given that the issue with fungibility is that of replaceability without loss, when you do not yet love someone, when she does not yet have this distinctive import to you, the issue of loss, of your losing that import, cannot yet arise. Consequently, the chapter distinguishes the question of the discernment of love (what makes someone worthy of your potential love or more worthy of that love than others?) from the question of the constancy of love (what justifies your continuing — or ceasing — to love someone?). Worries about fungibility arise, therefore, only in the case of justifying the constancy of love. Finally, the kinds of losses to which we are subject in loving someone is examined so as to have a better understanding of what non-fungibility — irreplaceability without loss — comes to in the case of love.