Draft:Love in Kantian ethics

Throughout Immanuel Kant's writings on ethics, the general concept of love takes on a variety of different roles. He sometimes treats it as an inclination, and sometimes in terms of duty. Kant also held specific stances on the ethics of romantic love and sexuality, which have been challenged by some later Kantian ethicists through their own interpretation of his fundamental ethical theories. Kant first touches upon the ethics of love and sexuality in his Lectures on Ethics (LE, 1775-1780). In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM, 1785), he introduces the distinctions between love and respect and between practical and pathological love, and these ideas are further developed in the Critique of Practical Reason (CPR, 1788). Love and sexuality are discussed in both sections of the Metaphysics of Morals (MM, 1797): the Doctrine of Right (DR) and the Doctrine of Virtue (DV). Self-love is treated as an occasional obstacle to dutiful behavior throughout Kant's ethics. The love of God also appears in Kant's philosophy of religion. Questions relating to love are also covered in Kant's correspondence with Maria von Herbert.

Love as an inclination

It is a very beautiful thing to do good to men from love to them and from sympathetic good will, or to be just from love of order; but this is not yet the true moral maxim of our conduct which is suitable to our position amongst rational beings as men, when we pretend with fanciful pride to set ourselves above the thought of duty, like volunteers, and, as if we were independent on the command, to want to do of our own good pleasure what we think we need no command to do. We stand under a discipline of reason and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to it.

–Critique of Practical Reason

Romantic love and sexuality

In the LE and the MM, Kant observes that sex involves an amount of moral risk, because sexual desire may lead people to disregard the well-being of their partner, instead focussing on their own pleasure. This disregard for the well-being of another person would violate the Kantian duty to always treat the happiness of others as one's own end. Apart from the direct risks to morality involved in sexuality, Kant argues that the desire for sex itself involves inherent violations of morality. He describes sexual inclination as having an "inner abhorrency" that can only be avoided if the sexual partners are married. Firstly, object of sexual inclination becomes a mere thing used to satisfy desire, preventing them from being regarded with full humanity. By acting on this inclination, one violates the humanity formulation of the categorical imperative, a core element of Kant's ethical theory, which says that we should "act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." (GMM) Kant also believes that sex involves a simultaneous violation of a duty towards oneself, because "the natural use that one sex makes of the other’s sexual organs is enjoyment, for which one gives itself up to the other. In this act a human being makes himself into a thing, which conflicts with the right of humanity in his own person." (MM)

Kant argues that within marriage, moral issues surrounding sexuality can be avoided. He defines marriage as a "union of two persons of different sexes for the lifelong possession of each other's sexual attributes." (MM) However, since Kant considers human beings to be absolute unities, he cannot allow for the possession of one part of a person without possession of every part of them, so marriage is necessarily also a union of two people for the full possession of each other. This differentiates marriage from non-marital sex, because sex is only the exchange of sexual attributes, while marriage is an equal exchange of total persons. According to Kant, through this mutual possession of each other, each married person can retain possession of themselves. By surrendering themselves to each other as possessions, each possession "reclaims itself and restores its personality." (LE)