Meghan Sullivan

One thing that's kind of funny is we have all these complex thinkings about the virtue of love, but when it comes to hate and resentment, those are easy.

We can absolutely cultivate those.

In fact, our current politics, the internet, it has us taking a hate everyone pill just about voluntarily every day.

There are a lot of philosophers that are trying to figure out a way out of this current chaos.

And in my field of ethics, one of the hottest topics right now is the virtue of civility.

What we need to teach people is how to turn down their feelings, how to have more sophisticated political conversations, and how to coexist with other people who they disagree with.

Now, in 2,400 years of philosophy, I can think of no major thinker who thinks civility is a cardinal virtue.

Civility, it's a virtue, but like a third-tier Division III virtue at best.

Love, on the other hand, love is the deep magic.

The philosophers that I study think the virtue of love is crucial for our ethical and social health.

The tough thing is figuring out how to get yourself to take that love pill.

So to get us on that track, I want to introduce you guys to two of the greatest ancient philosophers of love who don't agree on everything but have some deep insights that we need to recover to get out of our current mess.

The first philosopher is Aristotle of Macedonia.

He taught his course on the good life 2,400 years ago.

And his big idea was that love is not just a feeling that happens inside of you.

When you love another person, you experience them as another self.

Love has the power to dissolve the membrane between yourself and another person.

When you love someone and they achieve something great or they have extraordinary virtue, Aristotle thinks those achievements and virtues, they come into yourself.

When you love someone and they do something shameful or they have vice, that comes into you.

Aristotle thought for those reasons, you should be super careful who you love.