Nozick On Love

Reading: The whole Nozick article

1. What do you think it means to say “I love you”. What is the difference between liking someone and loving them? What does Nozick say on pg 231 is common to all love?

2. What does he say about infatuation? Do you think its right?

3. What is the importance of the ‘we’ to Nozick? Do you/have you ever think/thought of yourself as part of a ‘we’? Who with? What two features on pg 232 does Nozick describe as features of the we? Do they apply to ALL loving romantic relationships?

4. Nozick makes several claims around the bottom of pg 232 and the top of pg 233 re: how we act when in a romantic relationship. How convincing do you find these points?

5. What two ways does he suggest (bottom of pg 233) we can relate to the we? What are the implications (if any) to the view that most men have one way whilst most women have another?

6. Nozick says “each person in a romantic we wants to possess the other completely”. What does this mean? Do you agree?

7. What does it mean to be loved for yourself? If you aren’t loved for any features/characteristics of yourself, what are you loved for?

8. Consider, ‘love does not alter when it alteration finds' - often quoted good old shakespeare. Is this right? Nozick says love is “not unalterable”, when does he think it can alter?

Why, and when, do we fall out of love?

9. Is Nozick too idealistic? Look at pages 236-7 when consdiering your answer

10. Nozick says that “the desire to form a we … includes a desire for that person to form one with you yourself and with no other”. Does this mean only monogamous relationships are loving? What do you think?

11. On pg 238 Nozick says “non romantic friends do not share an identity”. Why does he say this? What characterises friendship? Is he right?

12. Society, and Nozick, prizes romantic love. Why? Should we?