The philosophy and social science of agape love.

Abstract

The moral virtues have had prominence in social scientific research ever since Piaget’s (1932) and Kohlberg’s (1969) pioneering work on the cognitive developmental stages of justice reasoning. A less explored moral virtue is the ancient idea of agape, or love that is in service to others which includes effort and even pain on the part of the one expressing the virtue. In this work, we attempt a precise definition of agape using Aristotelian philosophical views of virtue ethics and his principles of analyzing constructs for their essences and their specific differences with related but distinct constructs. From this Aristotelian philosophical framework, we then critique existing social scientific measures of love and of agape in particular. We then provide guidelines for the development of construct-valid measures of agape that are philosophically coherent. Possible research questions to expand the scientific study of agape are presented as a way forward with this important construct that could bring psychological health to individuals and peace and unity to families and communities.

Transcending the self to transcend suffering

“…For example, the desire among religious people to obey the edicts of their concept of the divine has been observed to compel outright embrace of one's suffering as an opportunity to demonstrate religious devotion, even amid especially severe cases of pain such as cancer and childbirth (Krause and Bastida, 2011;Taghizdeh et al, 2017). The same motivation to willfully engage with one's suffering in spite of its aversiveness has also been observed in non-religious forms of self-transcendence (e.g., desire to fulfill the self-sacrificial commitments of agape love) (Ozawa-de Silva et al, 2012;Van de Goor et al, 2020;Enright et al, 2022;Sørensen and Lien, 2022). As a point of differentiation, this motivation toward self-transcendence is fundamentally distinctive from the motivation toward self-escape (e.g., to "drown one's sorrows" in alcohol): though both entail a desire to lessen the burden of self-awareness, self-transcendent motivation does so through affirming meaningful connections with entities beyond the self, whereas self-escape motivation is driven by a desire to numb meaningful thought and thereby avoid awareness of suffering (Baumeister, 1990;Yaden et al, 2017).…”

Transcending the Self to Transcend Suffering

“…For example, the desire among religious people to obey the edicts of their concept of the divine has been observed to compel outright embrace of one's suffering as an TRANSCENDING SUFFERING 12 opportunity to demonstrate religious devotion, even amid especially severe cases of pain such as cancer and childbirth (Krause & Bastida, 2009;Taghizdeh et al, 2017). The same motivation to willfully engage with one's suffering in spite of its aversiveness has also been observed in nonreligious forms of self-transcendence (e.g., desire to fulfill the self-sacrificial commitments of agape love) (Enright et al, 2022;Ozawa de Silva et al, 2012;Van de Goor et al, 2020). As a point of differentiation, this motivation toward self-transcendence is fundamentally distinctive from the motivation toward self-escape (e.g., to "drown one's sorrows'' in alcohol): though both entail a desire to lessen the burden of self-awareness, self-transcendent motivation does so through affirming meaningful connections with entities beyond the self, whereas self-escape motivation is driven by a desire to numb meaningful thought and thereby avoid awareness of suffering (Baumeister, 1990;Yaden et al, 2017).…”

'Love' Is All You Need: An Attempt at Critical Conceptual Account

“…There is little denial that fundamental linguistic studies on the concept LOVE (Kövecses 1991a;1991b; 2004: 26-29; Panasenko 2012; 2013a; 2013b; Wierzbicka 1992: 143-147; 2019) substantiate representative and formative value of emotional language in the concept construal and discourse coherence. Nevertheless, numerous incarnations of the experience find their elucidation predominantly in the study of romantic feelings, whereas other kinds of love are frequently an object of philosophical, psychological, theological, and sociological interdisciplinary research (see Enright et al 2022;Koprowski 2014; Tan 2021: 89-105). That notwithstanding, the most recent historical account of agapeic LOVE by Wierzbicka (2019) unveils putative dynamics of the concept evolvement from a preferential to an all-embracing one fostered by the biblical discourse.…”