Love In John Nozick: The Nature Of Love

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Besides the list of examples Nozick gives about what love is, in his argument about the nature of love, he thinks that while “your own well-being is tied up with that of someone (or something) you love,” (pg 231) ultimately this would fashion a relationship known as the we identity. In other words, the very nature of love is to form the we identity between couples. The we relationship is the situation or circumstance where infatuation begins, deepens, and transforms to become a new entity in the world. People who have come to form the we identity, do not simply not have their individual identities replaced. Instead they have changed to add a shared new additional identity next to their individual identity. Nozick states that people in these relationships are people who have grown to become accustomed to be where both have become psychologically one unit that makes co-joined and homologous/unanimous arrangements or decisions. For example, if something were to happen to one of the partners, this would in turn affect the other partner as well. Another example that serves to illustrate the definition of the we relationship is how boundaries around the individual -that are strong enough to separate the world from what is inside and out -can join with another individual to create a new boundary where the couples are the only ones connected.
At the same time, Nozick provides other argues to how the we relationship is created, he states that many factors play into its creation. For example, Nozick says that we relationship is the perfect blend between the possession of the partner where it accords to the presence of autonomous control over oneself. Couples who had previously been individuals will become wholesome in the formation of th...

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...nt story if one is not in love but still searching for partners to be. He extends this argument to how sex is a medium to mark the physical closeness of the couple, and “sexual monogamy.” (pg 237)
Nozick says that it is incoherent to ask how love benefits an individual person because it is through love that the individual identity is able to morph and create the we identity. He states that the jointed identity of the we relationship “enlarges and enhances your individual one.” (pg 233) Other benefits he lists in Love's Bond include how there is a form of unconditional love or total acceptance expressed by the lovers, such as disregarding or forgiving the fact that certain foibles exist. Therefore it is incoherent to ask how an individual who has not experienced love to explain or understand love's properties or receive the benefits of being in the we relationship.

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