Beauvoir on how we can love authentically

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming)
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Abstract

Reading Beauvoir’s descriptions of love in The Second Sex (TSS), one would be forgiven for being pessimistic about the possibility of authentic love. What I will do in this paper is, using Beauvoir’s diagnosis of inauthentic love under patriarchy, construct a set of conditions that an authentic love would be guided by and strive to manifest. I will then defend the importance of Beauvoir’s views by demonstrating its explanatory power. Firstly, I will show how Beauvoir’s account can deal with two common contemporary problems that are often raised as objections against accounts of love that include a moral element. Then, in the third section, I will also show the value of this account by demonstrating its ability to explain why different kinds of love feel differently. The kind I will focus on will be unrequited love; this will be in dialogue with vision-based accounts to highlight Beauvoir’s unique contribution.

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Matthew Robson
Durham University

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References found in this work

Love as a moral emotion.J. David Velleman - 1999 - Ethics 109 (2):338-374.
Love’s Vision.Troy Jollimore - 2011 - Princeton University Press.
Loving People for Who They Are (Even When They Don't Love You Back).Sara Protasi - 2014 - European Journal of Philosophy 24 (1):214-234.
Love as a reactive emotion.Kate Abramson & Adam Leite - 2011 - Philosophical Quarterly 61 (245):673-699.
Morality and partiality.Susan Wolf - 1992 - Philosophical Perspectives 6:243-259.

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