The Break-Up Check: Exploring Romantic Love through Relationship Terminations

Lopez-Cantero, Pilar

doi:10.1007/s11406-017-9935-8

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The first reason for this is that we intend this article's argument to be compatible with a variety of views, without making strong metaphysical commitments regarding what love or loving relationships are. The second reason is that our strategy here follows the trend to abandon a “central element” approach, which consists in defining love through one main defining feature (Lopez‐Cantero 2018). Most contemporary philosophy of love has moved away from such an approach, with recent accounts seeing love as a combination of elements like valuing and emotion (Abramson and Leite 2011); shared action and valuing (Helm 2010); or emotion and behavior (Naar 2017; Pismenny and Prinz 2017).…”

Section: Enduring Lovementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The same applies to other types of loving relationship, such as friendship: if two people do not love one another as friends, this does not count as a genuine loving relationship of this sort. According to Lopez‐Cantero's (2018) account of break‐ups, reciprocity of love within a romantic relationship may be understood as “shared activities performed out of concern and the fulfilment of expectations recognized as romantic” (2018, 701; see Foster [2009] for a related approach to friendship). Which activities count as contributing to “romantic reciprocity” or “friendship reciprocity” may vary from one relationship to another, but in the case of break‐ups and in the case of bereavement, even if there is some form of mutual shaping, there is no reciprocity of this kind.…”

Section: The Limits Of Our Connections To the Deadmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Grief, Continuing Bonds, and Unreciprocated Love

Millar¹,

Lopez-Cantero²

2022

The Southern J of Philosophy

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The widely accepted "continuing bonds" model of grief tells us that rather than bereavement necessitating the cessation of one's relationship with the deceased, very often the relationship continues instead in an adapted form. However, this framework appears to conflict with philosophical approaches that treat reciprocity or mutuality of some form as central to loving relationships. Seemingly the dead cannot be active participants, rendering it puzzling how we should understand claims about continued relationships with them. In this article, we resolve this tension by highlighting two fundamental aspects of paradigmatic loving relationships that can, and often do, continue in an adapted form following bereavement: love and mutual shaping of interests, choices, and self-concepts. Attention to these continuing features of relationships helps to capture and clarify the phenomenological and behavioral features of continuing bonds. However, love and mutual shaping must also change in important ways following bereavement. Love becomes unreciprocated, and although the dead continue to shape our interests, choices, and self-concepts, we predominantly shape their legacies

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Section: Enduring Lovementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Limits Of Our Connections To the Deadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grief, Continuing Bonds, and Unreciprocated Love

Millar¹,

Lopez-Cantero²

2022

The Southern J of Philosophy

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“…For some important exceptions see,Kolodny (2003: 164ff. ),Lopez-Cantero (2018), Lopez-Cantero and Archer (2020) andSaunders (2022).2. For a classic statement of this idea, seeScheffler (1997).…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Breaking Up and the Value of Commitment

Healey

2023

Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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While love and personal relationships are the subjects of rich and sophisticated literatures, philosophical writing about the end of special relationships is much harder to come by. However, the end of special relationships is a significant part of our lives and gives rise to a number of philosophical questions. In this article, I explore the normative significance of the end of special relationships, with a particular focus on the case of breaking up in the context of committed romantic relationships. Specifically, I address three questions. First, what does A do when A breaks up with B? Second, what normative effect will A’s breaking up with B have on the relationship-based duties, reasons, and permissions that are partly constitutive of A and B’s relationship? Third, how is the ability to break up consistent with the commitment that many longer-term romantic relationships involve? In response to the first and second questions, I argue that breaking up is a neglected example of a normative power and develop a tripartite account of the normative effects of exercising this power. In response to the third question, I develop an account of the nature and value of commitment within romantic relationships and show how the power to exit a relationship by breaking up is consistent with this form of commitment.

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Unrequited Love, Self-victimisation and the Target of Appropriate Resentment

Gheaus

2021

J Ethics

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In "Tragedy and Resentment" Ulrika Carlsson claims that there are cases when we are justified to feel non-moral resentment against someone who harms us without wronging us, when the harm either consists in their attitude towards us or in the emotional suffering triggered by their attitudes. Since they had no duty to protect us from harm, the objectionable attitude is not disrespect but a failure to show love, admiration, or appreciation for us. I explain why unrequited love is the wrong example to use when arguing for the possibility of justified non-moral resentment -and why, therefore, Carlsson's claim remains unsubstantiated. Pace Carlsson, people who fail to return our love are not best described as harming us, but as merely failing to benefit us by saving us from harm. Moreover, their role in the causal chain that results in our coming to harm is insufficient to warrant our resentment; more plausibly, we ourselves play a greater and more direct causal role in this process. This is a welcome result: Responding with (non-moral) resentment to someone's failure to return our love indicates that our love has not taken the form of a genuine gift. When we put conditions on successful gifting by allowing for justified resentment if the gift is not returned we are not in fact giving gifts but making a bid for an exchange: I love you so that you love me back.

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The Break-Up Check: Exploring Romantic Love through Relationship Terminations

Cited by 4 publications

References 20 publications

Grief, Continuing Bonds, and Unreciprocated Love

Grief, Continuing Bonds, and Unreciprocated Love

Breaking Up and the Value of Commitment

Unrequited Love, Self-victimisation and the Target of Appropriate Resentment

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