I write about the ethics of human valuing - what to love, regret, respect, and be committed to, and how, as creatures vulnerable to each other and to chance.

the work of love

My dissertation interrogates the ancient thesis that to love a human being is to paradigmatically engage with what is most valuable. It is notoriously difficult to vindicate this beyond slogan form. I pave the way, first clearing confusion by calling orthodoxy into question: that the basis and norm of love is to appreciate a beloved’s evaluative nature, its unchanging worth. Instead, I argue how we love a person - whether we loved well - is the reason why we should love. That is, the value justifying love emerges from love sustaining a way of relating worth aspiring to. Thus, this dissertation derives a foundation of the good, why people should matter to us, from the ethics and history of love. I end by suggesting this style of relational-historic explanation can make progress on hard issues in ethics and metaethics.