Love’s Object, Love’s Aim

On a standard approach, love’s proper object is construed in terms of personhood or rational agency. Some philosophers in this broadly Kantian tradition deny that love has a proper aim: specifically, they reject the idea that love properly aims at the good of the beloved. They worry about paternalism and encroachment. In this chapter, we show how Kierkegaard’s Works of Love advances a rival approach: one which provides an account of how love can properly aim at the good of the beloved, without thereby becoming objectionably paternalistic or encroaching, together with an alternative conception of love’s object. We bring out the significant advantages of this approach, which emphasizes our human interdependence and mutual vulnerability. Through a comparison with the ethical thought of K. E. Løgstrup, whose philosophy of love we present as standing in significant continuity with Kierkegaard’s, we further show how the expressly theological framework advanced in Works of Love may also be developed in a more secular direction.