Stern, Robert and Watts, Daniel (2025) Love's object, love's aim. In: Kierkegaard’s Works of Love: A Critical Guide. Cambridge Critical Guides . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009416481. Official URL: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subje...
Stern, Robert and Watts, Daniel (2025) Love's object, love's aim. In: Kierkegaard’s Works of Love: A Critical Guide. Cambridge Critical Guides . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009416481. Official URL: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subje...
Stern, Robert and Watts, Daniel (2025) Love's object, love's aim. In: Kierkegaard’s Works of Love: A Critical Guide. Cambridge Critical Guides . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 9781009416481. Official URL: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/universitypress/subje...
Abstract
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.
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | Autonomy; Care; Kant; Kierkegaard; Løgstrup; Love; Respect |
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts and Humanities Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Philosophical, Historical and Interdisciplinary Studies, School of |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 01 Oct 2025 11:50 |
Last Modified: | 01 Oct 2025 11:52 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/39219 |
Available files
Filename: Love's Object, Love's Aim - Robert Stern and Dan Watts.pdf