I really appreciated this point: “…When we fall in love, we are concerned with the ‘good’ and how to live a good life. In this sense, falling in love is also an ethical act…”

I would take this a step further, myself. Emotions are physiological, and so, cannot be willed. If that’s true, then true love is something involuntary (like pleasure and pain, or joy and sadness). But man is fundamentally driven by a desire to believe that his actions (whatever they are) are “good” - and he will go to all lengths to prove it. Whatever we define as “the good”, we will love, in other words. My favorite philosopher put it quite succinctly, and quite accurately I think, this way: “Love is the involuntary response to virtue.”

If you’re curious to know more, try having a look at: freedomainradio.com.

Greg.

The other story that touched me was the marriage of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. He, a brilliant author and philosopher, and a thoroughly decent man. She, the most dazzling female talent in eighteenth century letters. They were happy together, despite the calumny heaped upon her for her earlier indiscretions. At one point she tried suicide.

It is these stories that stay with me. Rogers says that the mind is the most important sexual organ a human has. I’ve always thought this.

Most young people are very conventional. I think it’s because they are trapped on the genetic treadmill. Once you’ve reached ‘a certain age’, I think, you begin (only then!!!!) to be able to choose. Really choose.

You say the job is done for you. You have no desire to remarry. But do you desire to fall in love again? If so, what sort of thing will this be? Will it be a love based more on beauty, truth? On aesthetics? Ethics? I’m not saying the first wasn’t, but now that the propagation is done with we can see more clearly, maybe?

Love!

It depends on who you listen to, I guess. Joann Ellison Rogers’ ‘Sex: A Natural History’ is full of it, but you will find no mention of philosophy. She is a journalist and interviewed scores of scientists in writing it. She says it is a survival mechanism. Sexual attraction is tied to the organism’s desire to have its genetic material propagated as widely and as long as possible.

I married at 30. I’m now 45 and I have no desire to remarry. I have two kids and am separated. As far as me as an organism is concerned: the job’s done.

You might consider discussing such things as ‘beauty’ and ‘truth’. But if you read Rogers (I’m not finished with it yet), you’ll discover that many people think in terms of genetic imperatives. In a way, tho not pretty, this line of thought simplifies things a lot.

Beauty is conditioned to a large degree. Ideas of beauty change over time. Truth, also, is conditional on social mores. To what extent is sociability a survival mechanism? If we tolerate untruth for the sake of stability, that tells us something. But the yearning for ‘beauty’ and its confrere ‘truth’ are staples of the Western method. Notions treasured by the intellectual elite of one age become common to all people in the next. In other parts of the world, ‘truth’ and ‘beauty’ are not so closely allied. Or, at least, what constitutes ‘truth’ may not be what we expect.

Yogesh, thanks for stopping by!

interesting concept (drinking all night w/Mr Kane, that is. but the love thing, too.) I certainly think loving is an ethical act, especially as it applies to humanity, or the earth, say. falling in love–I dunno. wish I could join you for a bottle of red, though.

All is forgiven!

x