Learning from Love: Reasoning, Respect, and the Value of a Person

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter argues that we learn the moral attitude and grasp the reasons that support it through experience of loving individuals. We have good reason to affirm that each person has the incomparable worth that Kant calls dignity, as well as reason to treat each person in accord with this value. But we cannot arrive at these commitments just through argument or reasoning. The experience of interpersonal love is our normal way of coming to understand the value of a person, or grasping the content of the concept of dignity. Though we can then reason to the belief that each person has this value, there are further obstacles to arriving at a robust moral outlook that reasoning is not well-suited to address. Along with interpersonal love, singular respect and witnessing the love of others can provide resources for addressing these obstacles. In fact, the idea that we could establish the authority of our moral commitments just by reasoning is itself in tension with these commitments. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the implications for the practice of moral philosophy.