The Consequences of Love

July 5th, 2011 / 13 Comments

The upcoming morality of evolution/evolution of morality conference at Oxford I’m attending has me thinking more about science and love.

I posted three previous blogs on how to measure love. I defined love in one blog; I talked about the role of intentions; and I’ve explored the role relations play in measuring love. In this post, I look at measuring consequences.

To remind us, the definition of love I am using is this: to love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic/empathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. If you’re interested, check previous blogs for an explanation of this definition.

Consequences and Values

Perhaps the most common way scientists do love research is to focus on positive or negative consequences of various activities. This aspect is appropriate given my definition of love, because I argue love involves promoting overall well-being.

Highlighting the consequences of our actions seems self-evident to most people. After all, we typically look at whether actions “did some good” or “made a positive difference.”

Research on the consequences of possibly loving actions assumes actors can promote greater or lesser well-being. And it assumes we can measure well-being, at least to some degree and to some degree of reliability.

Admittedly, research on positive or negative consequences requires value judgments. Many have inaccurately believed science focuses entirely upon the facts derived from observation. This view has been largely discredited in recent decades, however. Scientists bring to their work various values, and those values influence their observations. For this reason and others, making value judgments about the positive or negative consequences of various actions is a legitimate exercise in science.

My previous blogs about research on love’s 1) intentions and 2) relations implicitly or explicitly involve making value claims about consequences. So one may wonder why this third domain is even necessary as a separate general field of research. We should realize its importance, in part, when we note that some scientific work on altruism attempts to eliminate any claims about creaturely intentions.

Biological Consequences

For instance, sociobiological research on altruism is almost exclusively based on measuring consequences. Intentions play little or no role. The consequences biologists typically have in mind are very specific: survival, reproductive success, and or the passing on of one’s genetic heritage.

E. O. Wilson is perhaps the contemporary biologist best known for his research on why some organisms and animals surrender, as he puts it, “personal genetic fitness for the enhancement of personal genetic fitness in others.” Wilson’s observations of ant self-sacrifice show that ants were more self-sacrificial toward those to whom they were most directly genetically related. He extrapolates from ants (and other organisms) to suggest that these principles for altruism might also apply to humans.

A more controversial figure, Richard Alexander, explicitly argues that reproductive and genetic consequences are the hidden reasons why humans act for the good of others. While humans may believe their primary motives involve acting to benefit others at cost to themselves, they are self-deceived. It is to their evolutionary advantage to become unconscious of the fact they are ultimately self-interested.

Alexander puts his argument this way: “We gain by thinking we are right, and by convincing both our allies and our enemies.” In sum, “social learning has been all about becoming better at self-interest – indeed, about becoming so good at it that we will be regarded as honest, kind, fair, impartial, reliable, and altruistic not only by our social interactants but also by our own conscious selves.”

Intentions, Relations, Consequences

Alexander has many critics, and his research based on consequences undermines to a large degree love research based on intentions. Few would argue we could reduce all aspects of what we mean by love as promoting overall well-being to mere reproductive success and furthering genetic heritage.

And, of course, there are many, many other kinds of consequences of importance for love research. We might measure consequences in terms of health, community involvement, ecological stability, satisfaction self-reports, time spent volunteering, etc.

Good intentions don’t always result in good consequences, however. Just about anyone who has ever been married knows that well-intentioned attempts to express love can sometimes end in disaster! And sometimes good consequences come from bad intentions. Sometimes despite selfishness, we inadvertently promote the common good. Focusing exclusively on consequences cannot tell us the full story.

Love research on consequences – including the consequences most sociobiologists measure – is legitimate, however. After all, sometimes being reproductively successful or furthering one’s genetic heritage does promote overall well-being. And for this reason, sociobiological research can legitimately contribute to love studies.

The most convincing love research involves more than one of the three general domains noted above. For instance, we are most convinced that a person acts lovingly when we see positive consequences from her actions and are also generally convinced that her motives were to promote such consequences. We are more convinced also that a person acts lovingly when that person must intentionally overcome relational obstacles – societal, interpersonal, or bodily – to promote well-being.

All three general domains encompass a very wide spectrum of possible specific research projects on love. Some very interesting work has been done. There is much yet to do.

In future blogs, I will explore the role God plays in love research. Although this exploration may seem odd to both believers and unbelievers alike, I think it important if we are to take seriously central Christian claims about God empowering and inspiring love: “We love, because he first loved us.”

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Comments

etch

Dr. Oord,I have only read Relational Holiness so I have a lot of catching up to do with your work. I also listened to a homebrewedchristianity podcast which you were featured. So this reaction is not necessarily well considered but here goes. I think that I have been thinking about Alexanders postulate for a long time. The phrase enlightened self-interest has been around a long time. The difficulty I sense is that ultimately as regards God and love that the self interest yields the notion of a selfish God. This would seem to a paradox. I actually asked my congregants a couple of weeks ago to reconsider the adage that it is better to give than receive. My thought being that God does both and in our efforts to be like Jesus we may draw closer to that goal by not giving credence to one over the other. Give and take certainly seem to characterize the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. I think a fruitful line of reasoning may be to distinguish between self-sacrifice and the laying down one’s life for a friend. God’s intention to sacrifice is certainly for our good but is isn’t also ultimately for the for the community of which God is a part. A community which has been described as existing to promote God. 
    I thank you for the work you are doing.
In Jesus’ love, etch


Katherine Feeney

Hello Thomas Jay Oord,
I’m an Australian journalist and relationships blogger – I’m very interested in your work. Do you have a newsletter service I could subscribe to?
Warm regards,
K


martijn

Good article Tom. This is one of those things that makes a lot more sense having read this. In my own understanding and life experience, it connects. I’m following this adventure with great curiosity and hope. Looking forward to that exploration!


Brianna Chapman

Dr. Oord-

This past spring, in studying for a paper on biological altruism, had to ask many of the questions about many of the concepts that you have mentioned and discussed in this article. I found the section about intentionality intriguing and am curious to see how culture could also play into the role of intentionality. Is intentionality contextual? If so, how is God transcendent of these contextual frameworks? These are just a few of the questions I had.


Kris B.

I think Love is a very strong word. I also do believe that Love can have consequences in the end. I know that not everyone is perfect but we can learn from our mistakes. I think when Dr. Oord said love involves promoting overall well-being. I think you are right on for this statement. I think when people look at the love that someone shows it goes to exactly what kind of person they are. Im sure people make bad decisions but with the power of God we can overcome bad obstacles.


Joy

The idea of measuring whether or not love has consequences is an idea that I am not comfortable with. I do think that when loving someone there are negative effects that is going to come out of that love is pure. It is by other people and their opinions that love can have “negative consequences”.  Maybe I am to closed minded about the idea of love having negative consequences


Camille Schumacher

This was a really interesting topic for me to read, because when I think I love and biology, I never really think of combining the two or finding any correlations, but I guess I can see how love does have the capacity to be measured (more qualitatively than quantitatively, though). Something that really rubbed me the wrong way was Alexander’s view of love being a biological programming. In a way, that makes every decision one makes (whether or not they are acting in love) seem very disingenuous; I don’t think I can agree with it. What’s more, why would we be genetically programmed to sacrifice for people that do not share our same family genes, or even take care of animals that could cause severe harm to us? I just think I see flaws in his argument that cannot really be reconciled.


Jane

I think that the whole idea of love is one of those issues which will cause many different feelings in many different people. A person’s own feelings, thoughts or beliefs on this issue will depend mostly on their personal experience with it first hand over their life time. I do personally feel that we are genetically programed to love though do not think our genetics do not necessarily tell us who to love. That sadly is often impacted by society or people around us. I agree somewhat with the argument that love can have negative consequences. I think that idea of love can have negative effects and consequences which very of course depending on each person and their personal experiences with such feelings or consequences of love which may sadly for some last a life time. I personally do not think negatively about the idea of love only cautiously. I too like many people sadly have been in love and had their heart broken.  What is truly tragic about this is those people who though all that may carry the hurt and the consequences of such love with them for years. I do think that we as a culture need to be more careful and serious about what we teach the younger generations about the idea of love so that we do not impact them negatively.  Though I do agree with the argument about the importance of not only genetic heritage but also cultural heritage of course like everything I discussed above I think that it varies person and per family. I come from a culture where the importance of such is stressed and from a family which I can trace my ancestors back 2,000 years in Wales and the Isle of Man because the Celts stressed the importance of genetic heritage. This meant of course most marriages in my family were arranged. I love my family and am very proud of my heritage and remarkable men and women which cover my family tree.  I argue that even amongst such strict cultural ideas love can still exsit and many stories of love are found amongst my ancestors.  I often tell the story of my 15th great grandparents Lady Anne Chamberlain and her husband Edward Raleigh. Though they were young when they married and she was a widow by the time she was 30. They had eight children and Edward is quoted in his will as saying “First I bequeath my soul to Almighty God and then all of my earthly possessions to my LOVE Annie.” 1508


OliviaB

This topic of “love research” is very interesting and not something I have heard of before. My initial reaction is that love is not something that can be measured, but the explanations make sense (positive or negative consequences). I agree with the flaws that you point out in measuring love only by these domains. I believe the best definition of love is selfless-ness. It is making the choice to put others before yourself. I suppose this could be measured by intentions and consequences, but this is very hard in itself as people are not always honest with themselves. I do not agree with Wilson and Alexander in saying that self-sacrifice must boil down to genetic reasons or self-preservation. God certainly isn’t interested in any of those things when he says He loves us, and He is the best example of what love is and should be.


Jared Morgan

There is a very good distinction about love in sociobiology.  A loving act could be one that promotes overall well-being to further others genes, but love is by no means limited by this “consequence”.  Love, especially in religion, extends past a simple predisposition to spread ones genes (as the selfish gene theory proposes).  The propagation of a species or new species certainly could be an act of love, but that does not mean that love does not exist outside of evolutionary mechanisms.


Joseph Norris

I have not read enough of your knowledge of love, but I do not understand fully what exactly you mean by well-being. But love is a complex concept for which there is no single answer for whom we ought to express it to, why we ought to promote it, and what the nature of it is outside the realm of theology. I look forward to reading your book on the nature of love.


David Silva

I like how you have tied social science and psychology into the discussion while working through these topics. I think there is a lot of valuable data when thinkers are willing to look across academic fields while formulating opinions. Interesting thoughts on intentions. I would like to agree, but I do not know if human intentions are as cut and dry as they would have to be in order to gain useful insight.
I think reaction and instinct should also be considered when looking into love. I think intentions have a cognitive element to them while reactions might not. It would be interesting to separate these out and see if our biological instincts tell one side of the story while our culture and thought process tell another. I would hope that at a deeper level they would agree to some extent.


Dioni Wheeler

Love- the four letter word that is said way too much but yet is not said enough, such a strong word. I never heard about measuring love, I believe it would be a hard thing to measure considering everyone will have a different definition of love. Back in the “olden” days we did not marry for love we married for convenience for making babies. Our world today is very different than it was back then. I believe the worst consequence is that love can blind us. We can let our emotions run before thinking logically about the decisions we are making. I have been there done that and realized some of my decisions were really stupid when I took the “love factor” out of the equation. I agree with Olivia that love could be measured by intentions and consequences.


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