MORTIMER J.
ADLER ON THE GREAT IDEA OF LOVE- PART 1
Max Weismann
interviews
Mortimer Adler [1995]
Mortimer Adler and I, have often discussed the fact that although the idea of
LOVE is one of the most important and pervasive of all the Great Ideas, it
remains along with the idea of Happiness, one of the most misused words and
misunderstood ideas in our language and everyday lives.
So today, in an
effort to shed some light, we will examine Dr. Adler’s insights on the Great
Idea of LOVE. Unfortunately, time will only permit an overview of some of the
profound issues about love that concerns us all. We will inquire into four
major aspects of love:
1) The Kinds of Love
2) Love as Friendship
3) Sexual (or erotic) Love
4) The Morality of Love (good love and bad love)
THE KINDS OF LOVE
WEISMANN: Welcome to our discussion today on the Great Idea of Love. Last week,
as I was telling some people about this interview with you, they seemed puzzled
by the reference to love as an idea. They think of love as an experience or
emotion rather than an idea—something you feel or suffer, not something you
think about.
ADLER: I hope you told
them that love is both. Just as taxes are something you pay and complain about,
you can also think about them—there are theories of taxation. So there are theories of love.
WEISMANN: I know from the literature and from everyday experience that any discussion
of love must involve consideration of the difference between the ideas of love
and desire. Let me start our discussion with the following questions: Are they
identical, or separate? Can there be love without desire? Desire
without love? Is desire born of love, or love of desire?
ADLER: Before we get into
the relation between love and desire, I would like to point out that in the
great books theories of love are found in the works of the scientists,
philosophers, and theologians. The great books also contain the
experiences—that is, the vicarious experiences of love,
these are found in the books by the poets and historians who tell us the
stories of love and lovers.
Both sorts of these
books agree about one basic fact: there are many varieties of human love. To
illustrate the variety of loves, let us first go to the poets and historians. I
have made a brief list of some famous lovers, and have put them down in
contrasting pairs. Let us consider the kinds of love they represent. As I
mention them by name, think of the character of the love they exemplify in each
case: Paris and Helen compared with Achilles and Patroclus,
Romeo and Juliet compared with Dante and Beatrice, Othello and Desdomona or
WEISMANN: You have now presented us with some case materials—pairs of famous
lovers or famous examples of love. Are these examples of desire as opposed to
love, or are they all examples of love ?
ADLER: They are all cases
of love but not the same kind of love. The main difference in the kinds of love
these examples represent turns on the relation of love to desire. The word
“love” is generally misused as if it were a synonym of “desire.” For example,
when children, or adults as well say that they love pleasant
things to eat or drink, or that they love to do this or that, they think they
are saying no more than that they like something, that it pleases them, or that
they want it. This misuse of the word is corrected (though it probably will
never be prevented) by a better understanding of the relation between
love and desire than
most people have.
WEISMANN: In order to help us to better grasp this relation, first clarify what
the psychological distinctions are that we should understand about love and
desire?
ADLER: The most basic
psychological distinction is in the sphere of our mental acts and in our overt
behavior and is made by the line that divides the cognitive from the
appetitive. Our desires and emotions or passions belong on
the appetitive side of that line; our acts of knowing,
understanding, and thinking on the cognitive side. In the appetitive
sphere, the most fundamental distinction is between acquisitive and benevolent desire. It is the
latter to which the word “love,” properly used, should be attached. The prime
characteristic of the appetitive is its tendency or impulse to act in a certain
way toward the object of appetite, whatever that may be. This tendency or
impulse is usually, but not always, accompanied by feelings or sentiments,
sometimes involving almost overpowering bodily turmoil, as in the case of fear
and anger, and sometimes quite mild affections, as in the case of some bodily
pleasures and pains.
Let us put aside the
emotional or feeling aspect of our appetites for now and consider here only the
tendencies or impulses to action that are involved in such things as
desiring—wanting, needing, and loving. Hunger and thirst are the most obvious
examples of acquisitive desire experienced by everyone at one time or another.
We often eat without being hungry and drink without being thirsty. But when we
are famished or parched, we experience a strong desire or impulse for something
edible or thirst quenching. That tendency or impulse is acquisitive desire in
its most obvious manifestation. In every instance of acquisitive desire we are
impelled
to seek something for
ourselves—to get it, consume it, appropriate or possess it in some way. All
acquisitive desires are selfish in the sense that they are self-seeking
impulses, desires that, when satisfied, leave us momentarily contented. When we
experience such acquisitive desires and are impelled by them to such selfsatisfying actions, we say, “I want this” or “I need
it.”
WEISMANN: But not all our desires are acquisitive and self-seeking. We sometimes,
even often, have desires or impulses to do something for the benefit of
another. We are impelled to give to another instead of getting something for
ourselves.
ADLER: That is correct,
just as the words “want” and “need,” properly used, name all the forms of
acquisitive desire so the word “love,” properly used, should be reserved for
all forms of benevolent desire—the impulse to give rather than to get. As acquisitive desires and getting represent the selfish aspect of our
lives, so benevolent desires and giving represent the altruistic or unselfish
aspect. We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly
concerned with the good for ourselves. We are altruistic when we are
exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good of others. To act
benevolently is to confer benefits upon others.
WEISMANN: If people generally misuse the words “need” and “want” saying they need
when they mean they want, would you say it is even more generally the case that
most of us misuse the word love?
ADLER: Yes, for example,
children, and not only children, say they love ice cream or that they would
love to have a sailboat or a sports car. Such things are not loved; no
benevolent desire or impulse is involved. We also say we love our freedom which
is something we certainly need but do not love. Only when we say that we love
our friends, our spouses, or our children, and perhaps even our country, is the
word “love” being used properly. Even then, when we use the word to express our
feelings about or impulses toward another person, it is not always the case
that we are properly using the word “love.” For example, when young children
say they love their parents, they do not mean that they have any benevolent
impulses toward them. On the contrary, they do
need their parents for a
variety of the goods they acquisitively desire and that they want their parents
to get for them. Parents, on the other hand, who are unselfishly concerned with
the good of their children and are impelled to confer upon them all the benefits
within their power to bestow, truly love their children.
WEISMANN: Then in the sphere of our adolescent and adult relationships when we
often say that we love other persons are we in fact saying we need them for some selfsatisfaction or
want them for some selfish purpose?
ADLER: Yes, sometimes
there is not any benevolent impulse concerned with the good of the other
person. There are four things that one person can say to another: “I want you”;
“I need you”; I like you”; and “I love you.” If one wants another only for some
selfsatisfaction, usually in the form of sensual
pleasure, that wrong desire takes the form of lust rather than love.
If one needs another for some selfish purpose, such as acquiring wealth, the
desire is still acquisitive rather than benevolent. Only when loving another is
rooted in liking or admiring that other, and when our liking of what we find good in that person impels us to do what we can to benefit
him or her, is it correct to say that we love that person.
We can, of course,
like persons that we do not love; but with one important exception: we cannot
love persons (in the sense of having benevolent impulses toward them) without
first liking them, which consists in admiring what is good about them.
WEISMANN: We will return to that subject later. As I understand it, there are two
main theories of love—one that identifies love with desire, and one which holds
that some love is desire, and some love is not.
ADLER: That is correct.
The first theory says that love is the same as desire or rooted in desire—to love is to desire. All love is sexual love. The mythology of love shows that this is
an ancient and popular view of the matter. Think of the character of Venus and
her son Cupid, and the arrows of Cupid…cupidity. Love is something
to be feared, even dreaded or avoided, as the worst enemy of peace of mind and
repose. Listen to the attack on love made by Lucretius:
“Venus should be entirely shunned, for once her darts have wounded
men, the sore gains strength and festers, by feeding: day by day, the madness
grows, and the misery
becomes heavier.”
“This is the one thing, whereof the more we have,
the more does our heart burn with the cursed desire.”
“When the gathering desire is sated, the old frenzy is back upon
them.”
“To avoid being drawn into the meshes of love is not so hard a
task as, when caught amid the toils, to issue out and break through the strong
bonds of Venus.”
WEISMANN: It seems that even elements of modern science and especially modern
psychology have taken this view of love.
ADLER: Yes, they have
identified love with attractive force. Think of Gilbert’s metaphor: “the love
of the iron for the lodestone,” or with William James’ comparison of iron
filings and the magnet with Romeo and Juliet: “Romeo wants Juliet as the
filings want the magnet, and if no obstacles intervene, he moves toward her by
as straight a line as they. But of course Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built
between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its
opposite sides.”
This view of love is
also epitomized in the writings of Sigmund Freud: all forms of love are either
sexual love or sublimations of sexual love. Let me read you Freud’s own words
on this: “The nucleus of what we mean by love consists in sexual love with
sexual union as its aim—we do not separate from this, on the one hand,
self-love and on the other hand, love for parents or children, friendship and
love for humanity in general, and also devotion to abstract ideas. All these
tendencies are expressions of the same instinctive drives—the drives of sex.”
WEISMANN: We are aware that one kind of love is sexual and involves desire, but
we also know there are other kinds of love which are not sexual and do not
involve such desire. What is the other main theory of love?
ADLER: I think it is best
stated by Aristotle’s distinction of three kinds of friendship, two of which
involve desire, and the third which is quite distinct from desire. Aristotle
exemplifies this in familial relationships, and love of country (patriotism).
There is also Christian love. Remember the words of St. John: “God is love; and
he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth
in God and God in him.”
WEISMANN: Why do we persist in using the same word for all these things which
seem to be so very different? Isn’t that the cause of much confusion? If we
used different names for different things, maybe we would recognize that we had
two or three different ideas here, not just one.
ADLER: That’s a good point, in fact the Greeks and Romans had different names for
the different kinds of love. The Greeks used the word eros and
the Romans used the word amor for
the kind of love we call erotic, amorous, or sexual. Nevertheless, it is love
rather than sexual lust or unbridled sexuality if, in addition to the need or
want involved, there is also some impulse to give pleasure to the persons thus
loved and not merely to use them for our own selfish pleasure. When no sexual
desire is involved in our relation to another person that we say we love, we
have the form of friendship that the Greeks called philia and the Romans amicitia. We like others for the virtues in them that we
admire; and because we admire or like them, we love them in the sense of
wishing to act for their good and to enhance it by whatever benefits we can
confer upon them.
This does not
exclude obtaining self-satisfaction from such love. It may not be totally
altruistic. A friend whom one loves in this way is an alter ego. We love him or
her as we love ourselves. We feel one with them. Conjugal love, or the
friendship of spouses, can persist even after sexual desires have weakened,
withered, and disappeared.
Finally, the third
kind of love, which the Greeks called agape and the Romans caritas, we sometimes refer to as “charitable love,” and sometimes as
“divine love,” or the love of God and of human beings, ourselves and others, as
creatures of God. Such love is totally
unselfish, totally
altruistic. We bestow such love even on persons we do not admire and,
therefore, do not like. It is giving without any getting. It is the love that
impels one human being to lay down his life for another. Yet,
as Augustine points out, namely, that the Scriptures “make no distinction
between amor, amicitia,
and caritas,” and that in the Bible “amor
is used in a good connection.” We have only one word in English
for “love.” In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different
kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names. We are familiar with
some of these adjective phrases: “sexual
love,” “love of friendship,” and “love of charity.”
WEISMANN: Then is it a misunderstanding of love or a misuse of the word to
associate love with sexual desire?
ADLER: No. As I mentioned
before erotic or sexual love can truly be love if it is not selfishly sexual or
lustful. But only one who understands the existence of love in a world totally
devoid of sex—one who uses the word “love” to signify the benevolent impulses
we have toward others whom we like and admire and call our friends—can claim to
understand the meaning of love as distinguished from the purely acquisitive
desires we have when we need or want things or persons for our own sake and for
self-satisfaction.
WEISMANN: It seems that the naming of the different kinds of love doesn’t solve
the problem. It merely states it more clearly for us. As I see it, the problem
can be stated in two questions: 1) How do these kinds
of love differ, especially the first kind as opposed to the second and the
third? 2) How are they related—as kinds of love, in some profound sense that is
common to all these varieties?
ADLER: In an effort to
resolve this problem, let me propose an experiment in thinking about love: two
worlds, an imaginary world vs. the real world. 1) The imaginary world: one
without sex in it, without gender, without male and female, without the
familiar biological processes of reproduction. 2) The contrast between this
imaginary world and the real world (with sex in it) should help us to
understand what love is apart from sex and desire.
WEISMANN: In trying to imagine your world without sex, I am immediately compelled
to ask, would there be desire in it? Would there be love? If so, would they be
quite distinct?
ADLER: My answer to your
first question is yes. Of course, there would be desire. Animals and men would
be hungry, thirsty, cold, tired, etc. They would have the emotions of fear and
anger, as these feelings or emotions involve desire. Let’s again take hunger as
the prototype of all desires, certainly of all bodily desires, and let’s try to
understand the nature of such desire.
There are three main
points in the understanding of desire: 1) Need or want: emptiness, lack,
imperfection, “uneasiness.” 2) The object of desire or the desirable is
something that remedies this condition. The result is satisfaction; to say I am satisfied is to say that my desire is fulfilled. 3) The object of the desire is a good to be used, consumed, even incorporated into myself to fill me up.
I have two further
comments on this: a) This explains why we cannot say
God desires as we say God loves or is love. b) It suggests that desire should
be of things, not persons—because it is improper to use a person.
WEISMANN: Concerning my second question about our imaginary world without sex,
would we find love in it?
ADLER: Yes, again we
would, and it would be something quite different from all desires of the sort
represented by hunger; for example, friendships; parental and filial love;
patriotism; philanthropy; philosophy—love of wisdom or of truth; and charity—or
the love of God.
With this
understanding of desire, we can see more clearly the difference—the deep
difference—between loves such as these, and desires like hunger or thirst.
WEISMANN: I understand there is quite a difference between a love like patriotism
and a desire like hunger, but isn’t there another sort of desire which is
associated with the kind of love that is pure friendship, or purely
philanthropic love ?
ADLER: Indeed there is.
Love—still in our imaginary world without sex—does not involve a desire like
hunger, but it does involve goodwill or well-wishing toward the beloved. If you
love some person, you wish him well—and you can, therefore, be said to have a
desire—a desire to benefit him. You have benevolent impulses toward that
person. This is what we have in mind when we say, “Greater love than this hath
no man, that he lay down his life for his friend.” Hence, two kinds of desire
having opposite directions: desire apart from love seeks one’s own improvement
or benefit; and desire arising from love—goodwill or wishing the other
well—seeks to benefit the other person, the person loved.
WEISMANN: A thought just occurred to me. What is meant when we say that children
should be loved—that they thrive on being loved, that it is one of the most
essential ingredients in the rearing of children ?
ADLER: It means that it
is important to the child to be admired and respected, shown consideration and
courtesy —and through these things to be the object of goodwill and
well-wishing on the part of its parents.
The reverse of this
is also the case. That is the meaning of the fifth commandment: honor thy
father and thy mother means to love them, in the sense of respecting them,
showing them consideration and courtesy, acting with goodwill toward them.