Abstract
The article critically discusses Pettit’s account of love as an intimate attachment. I will not question his notion that love implies care; my aim is to show how, under certain social structural conditions, the demands of love bring about and/or reproduce oppression. First, I recap and discuss Pettit’s conception of love. Second, I show how the traditional gender order generates asymmetries in the provision of care, thus setting the ground for situations in which the demands of care become oppressive. Third, I critically discuss the ways in which a person can resist the oppression implied in the demands of care. In a fourth step, I consider Pettit’s critique of problematic forms of love. Finally, I conclude by drawing upon the categories of freedom and domination as key concepts for developing a more critical account of love.
References
Baier, A. (1991). ‘Unsafe Loves’, in R.C. Solomon and K.M. Higgins (eds.). The Philosophy of (Erotic) Love (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas), pp. 433–450.Search in Google Scholar
Beauvoir, S. De. (2010). The Second Sex (London: Vintage Books).Search in Google Scholar
Benjamin, J. (1988). The Bonds of Love. Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon Books).Search in Google Scholar
Brake, E. (2012). Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199774142.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Federici, S. (2012). Revolution at Point Zero. Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle (New York: PM Press).Search in Google Scholar
Folbre, N. (2002). The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (New York: The New Press).Search in Google Scholar
Folbre, N. and Bittmann, M. (eds.) (2004). Family Time. The Social Organization of Care (London/New York: Routledge).Search in Google Scholar
Frankfurt, H. (2004). The Reasons of Love (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Search in Google Scholar
Gregoratto, F. (2017a). ‘Why Love Kills. Power, Gender Dichotomy and Romantic Femicide’, Hypatia 32 (1): 135–151.10.1111/hypa.12308Search in Google Scholar
Gregoratto, F. (2017b). ‘Love Is a Losing Game: Power and Exploitation in Romantic Relations’, The Journal of Political Power 10 (3): 326–341.10.1080/2158379X.2017.1382172Search in Google Scholar
Gregoratto, F. (2018). ‘The Ambiguity of Love. Beauvoir, Honneth and Arendt on the Relation between Recognition, Power and Violence’, Critical Horizons 19 (1): 18–34.10.1080/14409917.2017.1376933Search in Google Scholar
Grunow, D. and Evertsson, M. (eds.) (2016). Couples’ Transitions to Parenthood. Analysing Gender and Work in Europe (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar).10.4337/9781785366000Search in Google Scholar
Hegel, G.W.F. (2006). Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Search in Google Scholar
Helm, B.W. (2009). Love, Friendship, and the Self. Intimacy, Identification, and the Social Nature of Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Search in Google Scholar
Honneth, A. (1995). The Struggle for Recognition. The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge: Polity Press).Search in Google Scholar
Honneth, A. (2014). Freedom’s Right (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).10.7312/honn16246Search in Google Scholar
Illouz, E. (2012). Why Love Hurts. A Sociological Explanation (Cambridge: Polity Press).Search in Google Scholar
Jónasdóttir, A.G. (1994). Why Women Are Oppressed (Philadelphia: Temple University Press).Search in Google Scholar
Krebs, A. (2015). Zwischen Ich und Du. Eine Dialogische Philosophie der Liebe (Berlin: Suhrkamp).Search in Google Scholar
Liao, M.S. (2006). ‘The Idea of a Duty to Love’, The Journal of Value Inquiry 40: 1–22.10.1007/s10790-007-9013-8Search in Google Scholar
Nozick, R. (1989). ‘Love’s Bond’, in his Examined Life. Philosophical Meditations (New York: Simon & Schuster), pp. 68–86.Search in Google Scholar
Pettit, P. (1997). Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Search in Google Scholar
Pettit, P. (2012). On the People’s Terms. A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press).10.1017/CBO9781139017428Search in Google Scholar
Pettit, P. (2015). The Robust Demands of the Good. Ethics with Attachments, Virtue and Respect (Oxford: Oxford University Press).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732600.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Rössler, B. (2007). ‘Work, Recognition, Emancipation’, in B. Van Den Brink and D. Owen (eds.). Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 135–163.10.1017/CBO9780511498732.006Search in Google Scholar
Thompson, M.J. (2018). ‘The Two Faces of Domination in Republican Political Theory’, European Journal of Political Theory. 17(1): 44–64.10.1177/1474885115580352Search in Google Scholar
Young, I.M. (2007). ‘Recognition of Love’s Labor: Considering Axel Honneth’s Feminism’, in B. Van Den Brink and D. Owen (eds.). Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 189–212.10.1017/CBO9780511498732.008Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
