Comments on: The Idea of a Duty to Love http://www.smatthewliao.com/2008/05/02/the-idea-of-a-duty-to-love/ Sun, 30 Nov 2014 21:06:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.9 By: Joe Snavely http://www.smatthewliao.com/2008/05/02/the-idea-of-a-duty-to-love/comment-page-1/#comment-406 Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:05:27 +0000 http://www.smatthewliao.com/2008/05/02/the-idea-of-a-duty-to-love/#comment-406 This is why I believe that love is so much more vital to human flourishing than, for example, compassion or kindness. These latter values, while vital, still allow the individual to stay detached from the other. Kindness and compassion are too vague, to general to reliably motivate action. On the other hand, love is specific, and it requires me not just to hope for the best for someone, but to act on their behalf. Love is an investment, and indeed, a duty.

]]> By: Catherine Potterwell http://www.smatthewliao.com/2008/05/02/the-idea-of-a-duty-to-love/comment-page-1/#comment-91 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:58:15 +0000 http://www.smatthewliao.com/2008/05/02/the-idea-of-a-duty-to-love/#comment-91 Think of love without a sense of duty in it. What would that look like? A loving daughter tells her mother she loves her very much but she will not take care of her dog when she is away, that her mother should take the dog to a kennel which causes the mother to secretly cry. A sister says she loves her sister but feels no sense of duty to help care for her sister’s children when the brother-in-law is sick. “Not my problem. Find another solution. Let someone else do it.”

Love is easy when there is no sense of duty to go along with it. What is love without duty? Empty love.

One shows love by joyously taking up the duty required. Duty and love combined feeds the love and self-respect.

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