Love as an Emotion

“What is love?”, a commonly asked question by many. The idea of love has been discussed since ancient greek times and today we continue to account several different theories of love. Some philosophers have proposed four contrasting views of love. First, the view love is a union. We desire to form a “we” with another person and create a new identity with them. Second, love is valuing another person. We love someone because of the value they possess. Third, love is a drive, an instinct everyone has. Love is an addiction, it is painful, but we must attain it, because it is part of our biology. Finally, love is an emotion. Love is a natural instinctive state of mind acquired from one's mood and relationships with others. All of these theories are a great way to describe love, but which one is the best way to explain romantic love? I endorse the emotional view of love, because it explains how human beings feel and act when they are in love. Love is a complex emotion that human beings attain through bodily sensations and cognitive aspects. Throughout this paper I will discuss why I believe the emotion view is the best account of love, objections to this view, and a rival view.

Love is a versatile word, it can take many forms. There is love of children, love of parents, love of self, love of partner, love of God, and so on. All of these types of love have a different shape. In the end all these types of love are about sensitivity, passion, and unconditional giving of self to another person. For this paper I will be discussing specifically romantic love. One definition of love that I believe is a condensed, but appropriate and a valuable explanation is, “a strong positive emotion of regard and affection” (Vocabulary.com). Overall, I think everyone can agree love is a strong affection that is deep and emotional. However, I believe love can be defined even more specifically, as an emotion.

What is an emotion? An emotion can be defined as a natural instinctive state of mind, or a conscious mental reaction, experienced as a strong feeling usually directed toward something specific. Emotions are something we feel everyday, whether its anger, sadness, fear, joy, or love. They are always present. With emotion comes bodily sensations and cognitive aspects. Bodily sensations are the feelings or sensory experiences intimately associated with one’s body. For example, when you feel embarrassed, your face might blush, your body might feel very hot, you might feel like you have a lump in your throat,and might even begin to sweat. These are instances of body sensations, which comes with feeling an emotion. Similarly, when you feel love, or are in love, you might feel like you have butterflies in your stomach, your heart is racing with excitement and your body is overwhelmed with a warm feeling. Therefore, when you experience an emotion a body sensation sometimes occur, which happens when you feel love. Thus, love can be considered an emotion.

Furthermore, when you feel an emotion this also comes with various cognitive aspects. Cognition is the mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and senses. When someone experiences the feeling of love it involves very affective and intensive cognitive changes. This can include overwhelming joy, increased arousal and energy, dependency on the partner, craving to be together with the partner, and obsessional thoughts about and focused attention on the partner. At the beginning of my paper I mentioned the view that love is a drive. Love can cause someone to become obsessed. This obsession is a cognitive aspect from the emotion of love. Therefore, in order for there to be a drive for love one must attain the emotion of love first.

In addition, romantic love, like all emotions can be assessed rationally. Philosopher, Berit Brogaard discusses the theory of the rationality of love in her the essay, “I Have Feelings Too”. In her view, love, just like other emotions, can be supported by reasons. When you feel an emotion you normally have reason or logic to feel that way. When you are in love or feel love you are have reason to feel that way. Which means when love becomes irrational, when you have good reason to stop loving someone, you stop feeling that emotion. Comparably, I fear snakes and spiders, but then one day I go on fear factor and overcome my fear by laying in a bucket of snakes and spiders. My fear for these amphibians and arachnids are now irrational and I have stopped feeling this emotion. All emotions that a person feels are generally justified by logic and reason. Love can easily be rationally assessed.

Of course many people will object to the view that love is an emotion. One common objection is simply, love is not an emotion. Those who believe love is not an emotion, argue that love is much deeper. I read an article by Karla McLauren on why love is not an emotion. She explains that every emotion has a specific function, purpose and action for one to complete so they can move on to the next emotion they might have. McLauren discusses how when a emotion is healthy it arises accordingly and shifts or changes in response to its environment. Then the emotion fades away correspondingly. She continues by arguing that when love is healthy it does not necessarily follow this path. McLauren explains that love is stable and unaffected by emotion. For example, McLauren manifests how she might become furious or disappointed with someone she loves, but the love she has for them never wavers. Love does not disappear, it is constant, which does not constitute romantic love as an emotion.

I believe McLauren argues a great point, however if love is constant, why don’t some people experience romantic love? There are emotions that some people do not feel, love