Love's Bond

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Kelsey Pham Philosophy 325 2 October 2013 “Love’s Bond” by Robert Nozick In the writing, “Love’s Bond,” by Robert Nozick, he asserts that, “In love’s bond, we metamorphose” (239). This assertion serves as the basis of Nozick’s account of the nature of love, his belief that the attitude of love is inconsistent with the desire to trade up to another partner, and his view of why it is irrational to ask how love benefits an individual person. According to Nozick, the nature of love is the desire to ultimately form a “we” with whom you are in romantic love with. It is not coincidental that the desire to create an extension of oneself occurs when romantic love does; rather, it is inherent in the nature of love and what sets romantic love apart from the other kinds of love. One of Nozick’s major point is the idea of a shared well-being in which he states,“ Your own well-being is tied up with that of someone you love romantically. Love, then, among others things, can place you at risk” (232). This means that once two individuals have formed a “we”, their well-being is a reflection of each other’s. You suffer when they hurt; likewise, you rejoice when they succeed. In addition to a shared well-being, individuals within the “we” begin to develop a shared autonomy where they make decisions together on certain things that can no longer be made alone. This ties in with the mutual well-being because whatever decision each person makes will conclusively affect the other, and in turn affect themselves. Becoming part of a “we”, however, does not mean that the individual surrenders their personal identity. Their identity is still there, although now it is an extended self served to form a new unit. Nozick describes a shared well-being and a shared autonomy, and he also introduces the concept of division of labor: “A person in a ’we’ might find himself coming

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