Abstract

The question I set myself in ‘Loving my neighbour, loving myself’ was whether the injunction to love one's neighbour as oneself makes sense. I said explicitly that I was concerned with ‘love’ in the modern English sense and not with ancient words whose meaning might differ from that of the modern word. Nevertheless two critics think my argument fails because I do not consider other meanings of ‘love’ that have been or might be invoked in understanding the injunction. According to them, the injunction is not, or was not, meant in the ordinary modern sense of ‘love’, and they quote various authorities to this effect