The Idea of a Duty to Love

Abstract

Forthcoming in the Journal of Value Inquiry 1. A Commandability Objection Can there be a duty to love someone? The kind of love we will consider is the kind of highly intense interaction that two human beings seek that involves not only strongly valuing another person for the person’s sake and wanting to promote the person’s well-being for the person’s sake, but also desiring to be physically and psychologically close to each other and desiring that the other person reciprocates our love. This kind of interaction features in romantic love, parental love, love between friends, and the love of children for their parents. A well-known argument against the possibility of a duty to love of this kind is the commandability objection. It is generally accepted, after the Kantian point of “ought” implies “can,” that to have a duty to do something, the action must be commandable. We must be able to bring about the action with success or, as some would say, at will. Love is, however, not commandable, because it is an emotion and emotions are not commandable. We cannot bring about emotions with success or at will. Therefore, there cannot be a duty to love. Kant, a proponent of this objection, says the following: Love is a matter of feeling, not of willing, and I cannot love because I will to, still less because I ought to (I cannot be constrained to love); so a duty to love is an absurdity.