gigisant

I certainly didn’t expect someone denying that love is tributary to the process of evolution. If I wanted to meet someone who challenged that premise, I could have always gone to a religious forum. I was actually only expecting reasons for not following our ancestral desires - and not contesting their influence. I must admit that I found my conversation with David Odden productive, until Jennifer Snow acted so (verbally) aggressive to me and I decided to give up. That about concludes it. I apologize again for unnecessarily occupying space on this forum.

I couldn't have imagined that someone on this forum could say such thing. Since it has also become obvious after this reply that I'm consuming my time for nothing - farewell then! I'm sorry I have so much troubled you. I don't like long discussions where I have to struggle to convince people of some facts that I regard as basic premises, and I especially don't like discussions when people start to become offended, as you did relative to that "Objectivists attracted to ugly women" thing. I don't like to upset anyone in a conversation, and I don't want to be upset either. You could open just about any biology book in order to find out about this stuff. I'm not going to search the InterNet for such a banality. I actually have. Read my first post: To what do you think that the words in bold are referring? To love for our pets? I am sorry if you feel offended - but that was not my intention. What I said is that usually men feel attracted to beautiful women, and, since for an Objectivist that doesn't matter, he could feel attracted to ugly women, like the one in the example. This does not imply that all Objectivists are attracted to ugly women, since, given the fact that, as far as I understood from your position, Objectivists value exclusively virtues, they could also feel attracted to beautiful women who have virtues as easily as they could feel attracted to ugly women who have virtues. The fact that you felt offended is caused by your misrepresentation of what I was saying, and not by my actual words. What you have actually decided to do using your independent mind does not change the nature of reality, does not change the reason for which love is here in the first place, and does not change its purpose. It only shows that you have the free will to do whatever you please, including taking your own life, which I get is Objectivists' only standard. Also, I would like you to understand that I have absolutely no reason to be offending Objectivists, since I like many things that Ayn Rand is saying, although I don't agree with everything - like the view on love, for example. I see love as a pre-condition of the human species, as, for example oxygen for breathing, or hands for making tools, etc. You could always choose to breathe methane, but that won't serve the purpose of breathing, or give up your hands, but that won't help you making tools. You could always choose virtue as a standard for love, but that won't help you be happy, and won't help you properly perpetuating the species, as intended through the process of evolution.

Well, I think it is obvious. It appeared through millions of years of evolution, as a way of ensuring the perpetuation of the species. Maybe “developed”, “designed” are not the right words, I am Romanian and my English is poor. Natural selection, random mutations, etc. I am talking about sexual love, and I was talking about that since my first sentence written on this topic. All the other feelings that form the conglomerate that we later call “love” are not possible without that initial attraction. And the initial attraction was only made possible as an imperative from Nature (and I’ll specify again that I’m not referring to a person here, but to a concept, that helps me structure my phrase easier) in order to find someone to have children with. Assigning other utilities to sexual love means shaking the foundation of sexual love itself, and the real reason why it’s here in the first place. You just haven’t read all that I’ve said above: The fact that we call „love” both sexual love and „love for friends” doesn’t mean that they’re identical, only that our language and our understanding of these two types of love are flawed. What we have are two types of love in reality, that serve two different purposes. We call them both “love” because we evaluate them by their manifestation, and not by their purpose. They have similar manifestations because it consumes less energy in the process of evolution to use “devices” that are already there than to invent new ones, for the other purpose. This is not a connection that we make, but one that has already been made, that is part of the reality inherent in our species’ needs. It is a necessary value if you want to be happy in love. Love is not rational, since it’s not in its nature or purpose to be that way - its nature is that it is a randomly-emerged mechanism and its purpose is to produce generations of healthy children: I find it rational to adapt to it, if you want to be happy. When you are talking about love for friends, for example, it is rational to consider their virtues your main standard, since the purpose of this type of love is communication and collaboration: it is easier to communicate and collaborate with someone who shares your virtues. But when talking about sexual love, virtue is relevant only to the degree it satisfies its true purpose: perpetuation of the species. You may choose not to respect this purpose and follow some other standards for love, the way you may choose to milk a garden of onions (I had no idea of "horse milk" ): you won't get milk from onions, as you won't get happiness from love.

Thank you, DavidOdden, for your answer. It was the most explicit answer around here, and aimed exactly at what I’ve said, and not at what you would imagine that I have. I will think about your arguments (the standard is actually existence, the difference between rational and irrational goals, etc.) I still have some uncertainties: 1. Love was developed as a mechanism for selecting the best genes and producing healthy offspring. If we all choose our mates according to their intellectual abilities, wouldn’t the entire species soon become extinct? (or, at least, suffer frequently from disease) I know that you shouldn’t put your life in the service of another (like, in our case, the future generations), but this is a win-win situation: I respect the initial purpose of love, on one hand, and I receive happiness from whom I was “trained” by evolution to recognize as my ideal mate, on the other. 2. Modifying the purpose for which love was designed in the first place, and trying to use it for other “rational purposes” sounds like trying to milk a horse to me. Why modify our nature and our natural feelings, when we could just adapt to them, with less effort than trying to adapt those to us, and with more obvious results on happiness? 3. Isn’t altering the natural purpose of love a misrepresentation of reality? Ayn Rand doesn’t just advise us to consider love a celebration of finding someone with the right virtues; she says that this is the true nature of reality. 4. Couldn’t I as a person, as an individual mind, choose to use love for what it is, and not to modify its use for achieving I don’t know what intellectual fulfillment - and would that decision be rational? since I’ve rationally reached the conclusion that this attitude towards love would serve my interests better… Let’s say that I’ve met two girls: I appreciate the first one as being 90% compatible with me on virtue, and 50% on the other issues (especially beauty - since that is the standard for recognizing good genes), and the second one as being 80% compatible on virtue, and 70% on the others. I would choose the second one - and I have all the confidence in the world that she would make me happier that the first one. No. As I’ve said somewhere above, she will be happy - alongside someone as unfit as she is (let’s admit that she is not that unfit after all - she’s better then someone who is plug-ugly and sterile, and dumb at the same time, so it will be easier for her to have access at better men than the other one, but she won’t have access to the best of men, unless some of them are Objectivists ).

You did not understand what I was trying to say at all. I'm almost sorry I've asked. I am not a determinist, I recognize the independence of the mind - or the independence of reason. Man is the only creature which is not driven exclusively by emotions, and has a choice. But, in order to be as happy as possible, we must follow some rules established by Nature (and by Nature I don't mean any entity whatsoever, I am forced to use this term because of the incomplete language of man - we are always used to have a subject in a phrase, even if that subject is not a real object, but a mere concept). DavidOdden has taken me for some sort of weird determinist - the way marxists were, for example. What I am trying to say is that, in order to achieve happiness, rational-perceived virtues are not enough, but they are only part of the greater package - package trying to determine the most suitable partner for us. When we ignore the other components, we are as unhappy (imagine a very ugly woman who holds all the Objectivist ideas, who doesn't have a compatible set of genes determining the future immune system-package of the offspring, etc.) That's because, if the lady would only choose those exclusively through reason, she would probably choose the responsible ones. But, in order to have healthy offspring, the man must not only be responsible, but also have good genes (the easiest way to determine that is by determining if he is beautiful or not). Because they must choose between the available options. If he's ugly, or incompetent in raising children, he must choose someone not as fit, someone to be pleased of him. He may also choose on intellectual grounds, on "virtues", but that is just another component - and not everything that is to be considered. He may find that he will be unsatisfied later of his choice - and not know why, even though his partner has all the virtues: it is because she doesn't meet all the requirements that are necessary and passed-on generation after generation, and found as a reminiscence in his emotional behavior. This is not proof of the "virtues theory" either: they don't choose people of the same sex based on their virtues, but on emotion, on whim. The homosexuality gene and homosexuality behavior are to be found in many species. In this case, "offspring raising theory" does not apply, since there are other requirements set by Nature in order for gay people to be happy - they are attracted to each other based on an evolutionary deviant accident. If they try to ignore this deviation, they would be much more unhappy (like establishing a family with someone of the opposite sex, eventually with many virtues, for example: it just won't work). The true purpose should not be standardization, but happiness. Not, it does not - it says that it is just another component, since if two people don't get along at intellectual level, they won't be able to raise the children either - but that's the only reason why people feel attracted based on their intellectual condition. Platonic love for someone of the opposite sex is just a deviation from the true purpose of love, a way of finding satisfaction in love without accomplishing the purpose for which love appeared in the first place. It is indeed a symbol of the independence of the mind. But on the long run, it does not offer happiness either - it's not that easy to trick Nature after all. Platonic love for friends is another matter - it appeared in order to help us establish better relationships with the ones around us - from the need of security and of collaboration. It resembles the other type of love - romantic love, because it is easier to just use some mechanisms that have already been developed than to create a new one. I'm not talking about genetic determinism here. I am trying to say that, in order to be happy, there are other things to consider besides virtues and that love should not be a celebration of finding someone with the right virtues, but a celebration of finding someone fit to stay with us for all the other reasons. People aren't unhappy because they seek satisfaction in the unearned, but because there are components missing - either intellectual, either physical.

I have some reservations when it comes to Ayn Rand's theory about love. She considers love to be a reward for someone's virtues, and a celebration. She developed her theories in the 40s-50s, but the most important discoveries about the nature of love were made in science quite recently. How does her theory stand up to these new findings? I do not agree with promiscuity either, but for different reasons. I think that love is a mechanism created by Nature in order to determine us to raise our children in families, so they would be much safer that way. That means that we are granted happiness not because we choose someone according to their virtues, but because we choose someone according to his/her capacity to be the most suited for raising children alongside us, given the limited options. Virtues play a role, but there's a lot more to it. And that would resolve the need for the theory of "love=celebration" in order to explain the unhappiness caused by love. It is not because we failed to choose someone who doesn't have virtues, nor because we wanted to achieve satisfaction in the unearned. It is because that specific male-female combination fails to accomplish the necessities required by both of them in order to appreciate that the other one is the most suitable partner to raise children with.