Table Of ContentLOVE BETWEEN EQUALS
Also by John Wilson
A PREFACE TO MORALITY
PREFACE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
THINKING WITH CONCEPTS
WHAT PHILOSOPHY CAN DO
Love between Equals
A Philosophical Study of Love and Sexual
Relationships
John Wilson
Senior Research Associate
Department of Educational Studies
University of Oxford
First published in Great Britain 1995 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-64274-0 ISBN 978-1-349-24253-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24253-5
First published in the United States of America 1995 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC ..
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-12729-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilson, John, 1928-
Love between equals : a philosophical study of love and sexual
relationships I John Wilson.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-12729-9
I. Love 2. Sex. I. Title.
BD436.W54 I 995
l28'.4-dc20 95--10677
CIP
© John Wilson 1995
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
04 03 02 01 ()() 99 98 97 96 95
To one who will understand
Contents
Preface viii
Introduction: Hopes and Warnings 1
1 Love as the Child of Want 12
2 Intrinsic Friendship 37
3 Power and Flexibility 61
4 Altruism and Paranoia 81
5 Justice and Communication 105
6 Sex 126
7 The Virtue of Loving an Equal 143
8 The Value of Loving an Equal 162
Check-list for Love 192
References and Further Reading 196
vii
Preface
Everyone loves something or somebody, and love in some form
or other seems to be an inevitable and central part of
everyone's life. Most of us, too, either enjoy, or would like to
enjoy, some kind of love or friendship or affection with an
other person like ourselves, with what I shall call an 'equal'. So
my topic is certainly practical enough; and this book is prima
rily intended to help people with their practical lives. I believe,
and shall try to show in the Introduction as well as throughout
the book, that analytic philosophy - roughly, trying to get
clear about the concepts involved in loving an equal - can in
fact be such a help: indeed, that it is essential to our everyday
relationships.
Since the general topic, and the particular concepts involved
in it - love, equality, friendship, justice, communication and
others- are universally acknowledged to be so important, it is
remarkable that there is comparatively little philosophical lit
erature about them which is both intellectually respectable
and accessible to the general reader. There are indeed some
strictly academic works (e.g. Montefiore 1973, Scruton 1986)
which are certainly 'intellectual' enough, but rather hard go
ing for the non-philosophical public; and at the other end of
the scale a great number of popular works, of a practical or
polemical nature (sometimes both at once), which give advice
or sell some sort of line to the reader but may carry little
intellectual credibility. To satisfy both these criteria at once is
certainly very hard, but that is what I try to do in this book. I
am encouraged by the fact that the thing is possible; what are
still the two best works in this field, Plato's Symposium (on
erotic love) and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Bk. 9, on friend
ship), satisfy both; and a good deal of what I shall say rests on
their shoulders. Unable to rival such giants, I shall be happy
if I can add something to their work and cast it in a form
suitable for the modern reader.
However, the real difficulty in trying to write something useful
on these topics is the temptation to impose one's own preju
dices, fantasies, fears or neurotic compulsions on the subject
matter. Thus a great deal of the existing literature, in my
viii
Preface
lX
judgement, is vitiated by the authors' desire to glorify some
particular ideal of love or personal relationships which they
then enforce on the basic concepts; or even to impose some
sort of philosophical theory on them, often of a fairly elabor
ate kind. (Even Plato fell victim to this towards the end of the
Symposium.) All I am trying to do (but it is a lot) is just to clarify
the relevant concepts: I have nothing to sell. I hope to do so
in a style that is, above all, clear, so that it will be more obvious
where what I say is wrong.
It is perhaps a little disingenuous of me to say that I have
nothing to sell. There is, I suppose, some sort of thesis run
ning through the book: briefly, the idea that loving an equal
is a unitary thing, a form of life which may indeed have differ
ent aspects but rests ultimately on a single disposition or atti
tude. A great deal that has been thought and written about
love seems to me to miss this point, and/ or takes this basic
disposition or attitude to be something other than it is. The
main problem, as I see it, is to try to understand this disposi
tion more fully, rather than to describe and classify different
kinds oflove. I must leave it to the reader to determine whether
this thesis can be sustained. But even if it cannot, I hope to
shed some analytic, non-partisan and non-ideological light on
the topic.
There is, as I have said, quite a lot of sophisticated philo
sophical work in this area; I have tried my best to familiarise
myself with it, and (where possible) understand it. But I have
not made constant references to it, partly because I do not
want to get involved in philosophical polemics, but chiefly
because I write primarily for the general reader, though I hope
that what I say will be of interest to professional philosophers
and psychologists. If I sometimes seem repetitive, this is be
cause there are in fact (as I see it) comparatively few concepts
involved in this area, but concepts that have to be thoroughly
understood: they are logically and psychologically connected
with each other, and it is better to make them as explicit as
possible, even at the risk of belabouring points with a persist
ence which may weary the reader.
I would not want, or feel able, even to attempt this if I had
not (a) felt a pressingly practical need to do so in my own
personal life, and (b) acquired a reasonable competence, or
at least a strong interest, in conceptual analysis. For (a), I am
X Preface
indebted to a great many friends in various types of relation
ships, in particular the late Dr Nancy Swift; for (b), to my
philosophical mentors, in particular Professor R.M. Hare, and
the late Professor Herbert Hart. I am also grateful to many
other critics, who have been kind enough to read the manu
script and make many helpful comments; particularly to women
critics, who have done their best to save me from the worst
excesses of male chauvinism.
Oxford joHN WILSON
