Episode 80: Mark Hopwood discusses love and moral value
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What is the central question about love and moral value that the episode introduces?
Hey, Matt Teichman here from Elucidations. Before we get going today, I just thought I'd ask, if you're a fan of the show, to maybe go to our iTunes page and leave a rating and a review, and that way more people can discover it. Alright, thanks. 🎵 Hello and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. I'm Matt Teichman. And I'm Daniel Smith. With us today is Mark Hopwood, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Swanee, the University of the South. And I think I know that name from somewhere else, but I'm not sure where. And he's here to discuss love and moral value. Mark Hopwood, whoever you are, welcome.
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm a big fan of the show, especially the earlier episodes. I think actually they've got better since you got rid of that original co-host. I think he was dragging the whole thing down.
Okay, so the topic of this episode is love and moral value. And I think to a lot of people, that's going to sound like two different things. So on the one hand, there's moral value. Think of that as like ethical obligations, like I'm obliged to help someone who's in trouble or in need, or I'm obliged to return a book that I borrowed from the library, things like that. And then there's love, on the other hand. So what I feel for my spouse. And these probably to a lot of people seem like very different things. You know, love is something private. It's just between me and my spouse. But moral value is something connected to the community. It's not a private thing. It's a public thing. We all have a stake in meeting our ethical obligations.
So what's the relation between these two things that are the topic of this episode?
Right. Yeah, good. So people do tend to make this distinction between the two realms, if you like, of love and moral value. And it's often thought that some of the characteristics that you've talked about in connection with moral value go together. So that's to say people think that moral value has this. inescapable quality. So I'm not just obligated to do something because I feel like it. Somehow the obligation is independent of me, whether I feel like it or not. People have taken that to be connected to this other feature of moral value. That's to say it's universality. So these values are supposed to apply to everyone.
How does Mark Hopwood distinguish between moral obligations and private love?
So they apply to all of us, no matter what our particular desires, our And then love is taken to be something different. But I think there's a kind of problem that arises here that has occurred to many people, which is that it seems like at least some of our relationships of love, like, for example, the relationship between a parent and a child, doesn't just have to do with things that I have reason to do if I feel like it. It can seem like in our relationships with those we love, there's something inescapable about the obligations that we have to them. But at the same time, we don't tend to want to say, These obligations are universal. That's to say that just anyone has reason to act in this way towards the people that we love.
So there's something personal about these obligations, but also something inescapable about them. And that's a problem that's occurred to a lot of philosophers, and it's posed a kind of difficulty for how we think about the relationship between love and moral value. And that's a problem that I'm interested in.
So that's a very interesting and complex case, the relation between a parent and a child or another private, close, intimate relationship. And it does seem like there are special kinds of interests that I have in virtue of standing in loving relationships to people. But I wonder, are those interests really moral interests, or is that just another project I have? It might be an inescapable project. I mean, if I have a child, I'm parenting, and I can do that better or worse. But is that goodness or badness of my parenting really a moral virtue, or is this just another difference of sphere that you alluded to before?
So I want to be relatively agnostic about exactly how we apply the terms here.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central question about love and moral value that the episode introduces?
0:00–2:38
2
How does Mark Hopwood distinguish between moral obligations and private love?
2:38–6:43
3
Why do universal moral duties seem at odds with the personal obligations of parent‑child love?
6:43–10:13
4
What are “closed” versus “open‑ended” descriptions of value, and how do they apply to love?
10:13–13:38
5
How does the open‑ended value of a child illustrate a third kind of moral worth?
13:38–17:27
6
Why can’t all moral relationships be captured by legislative‑style rules and policies?
17:27–22:27
7
What is the risk of turning love for particular people into mere desire for replaceable objects?
22:27–27:24
8
How does the discussion conclude on the practical implications for moral agents?
27:24–31:57
Speakers
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