Choose Love

If we ask the question, “How then shall we live?” one answer is to say, “We live by our obligations.” The best kind of life is one where we follow our duties.

This general answer has a long and noble tradition. It is, of course, very much a part of Judaism with its emphasis on following the commandments of God. That typically Hebraic answer is not the only one. Immanuel Kant, trying as hard as he could to divorce morality from tradition (including religious tradition) said that reason alone would tell us what our obligations are. He called the moral result of the reasoning process the “categorical imperative.” There is an obligation, a duty we are bound to perform to be a good person. It is an obligation regardless of the outcome. When we add an “if,” a condition to the imperative, such as “If you want to succeed, then do this,” it is a hypothetical imperative. Categorical are always true and have no conditions attached to them. In that way, his categorical imperative is very much like the command of God.

There are other answers to the question about how we should live, like by becoming a certain type of person, or by considering the consequences of our actions, but I want to consider this idea of obligations.

Jesus, as a first century Jewish teacher when asked which commandment was the greatest answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is, perhaps, the core ethical teaching of the New Testament. If you were to ask Jesus “How then shall we live?” this would be his answer. You are to love God and love your neighbor.

It is such a simple thought, yet its depths have challenged the greatest minds and spirits of western history. I want to consider just one facet of this imperative: can we command love?

Kant suggested that any imperative contained the implicit idea that, of course, it could be carried out. If you have an obligation, then you have the ability to fulfill it. That seems reasonable.

If you apply that to what Jesus said, then the answer to my question is, “Yes, love can be commanded.”

Yet, what is it that is commanded? Love arises from the passions. Love begins as feeling. Love is that feeling that moves the self from preoccupation with itself to the Other. Love is movement toward the Other. Can a feeling be commanded? A mother could rightly say to her daughter, “Eat your broccoli, it is good for you.” It would be impossible to say, “You should love your broccoli as you love your ice cream.” A young man looking for a partner could hardly be told, “Love this particular one.” Love is something into which you fall. It comes to you as gift. Compassion for the poor arises as a deep passion. To be sure, it often turns to action, to choices to do something, but its genesis is passion, deep feeling for.

For these kinds of reason, scholars have separated out different kinds of love. Romantic love, affection, compassion, as feeling is one kind of love. There is another kind of love that is detached from feeling. It is a love based in reason and directed by will. It is love as seeking the best for the Other. It is love whether you feel love or not. It is pure obligation to do the best for the Other. As such, this kind of love has been proclaimed as the better kind of love, as moral love rather than sentimental love. Kant called love based on natural feeling “pathological love.”

In his 1966 book on situation ethics, Joseph Fletcher took this approach. Love for him for purely a choice based on reason. Feeling was removed. It became a utility calculation.

Yet, if we remove feeling from love, do we have love left to speak of? I leave that for another day.

+Ab. Andy