The Union Conception Of Love

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Love is a very complicated emotion. There are many uncertainties when one thinks about who they love, or why they love the person they do. There are many conflicting notions of love, some of which believe that we love the person for their properties, while others posit that we love the person beyond their properties. In Robert Solomon’s “Love as Identity” and “The Identity Theory of Love” and Robert Nozick’s “Love’s Bond” they attempt to answer a different question. Do the lovers form a new identity together? This idea was first proposed, as Solomon points out, by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium when he states that “love is looking for one’s other half” (Solomon 64). While the way that Aristophanes comes to this conclusion is slightly outdated, …show more content…
This conception of love is often referred to as the union view of love. The union view of love however, has not been unopposed. Other philosophers, such as Alan Soble in his essay “Union, Autonomy, and Concern” expresses his vehement opposition to the idea. While Soble presents some perplexing issues for the union view of love, his arguments do not do enough to discredit the union view of love. Unity in love strengthens not only the love that is taking place, but also each individual’s sense of identity that is a part of the romantic love. Adopting a property-based union view of love also strengthens one sense of autonomy, while altering the original self that each individual had prior to the union love that is taking place. This altered self is a better version of the original self, prior to the commitment between the two …show more content…
This theory posits that the purpose of love is to create a new identity with your lover, all while drastically changing your own identity (196). Solomon also claims that it is love that “provides our most basic sense of self-identity” (196). Soble, on the other hand, opposes this claim when he writes in “Union, Autonomy, and Concern” that when a lover invests themselves as much as they do to their beloved, there is a “loss of self” (Soble 67). Soble’s account of the loss of self seems flawed. As Nozick points out in “Love’s Bond”, to become a participant in a union view of love, or as Nozick puts it, a “we”, a new identity is created between the two lovers. Nozick furthers this sentiment when he refers to it as an “additional identity” (Nozick 71). By calling it an additional identity, Nozick is displaying an opposition to the idea that there is any loss of a self in a union view of love. While both partners in the relationship may have to change some of their beliefs and mannerisms in order to make the love thrive, I think it is a process that is necessary to get closer to a more accurate sense of
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