The Consequences of Love

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.”